There are many formal and informal supports which may be used by people who experience sexual assault, including family and friends, health professionals and helplines. Information on how victims seek help can assist understanding and improvement of response strategies and provide information on the extent of under-reporting of sexual assault incidents in data collected as a by-product of service delivery. Data on advice or support (help) sought and received, after the most recent experience of sexual assault is available from the ABS Personal Safety Survey (PSS) which collects information on the experiences of violence for women and men in Australia.
The visualisation below shows the proportion and number of adults who sought advice or support after their most recent incident of sexual assault by a male perpetrator in the last 10 years. It shows that just over half of women (51% or 327,00) did not seek advice or support after their most recent incident of sexual assault by a male.