Statistics

Abuse occurs in all forms of relationships including: parent-child, caregiver-client, adult child-parent, dating, gay, lesbian, marital and common-law and sibling.

Since the age of sixteen, 51% of Canadian women report having experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence.

Nearly three in ten Canadian women (29%) who have ever been married or lived in a common-law relationship have been physically or sexually assaulted by a marital partner at some point during the relationship. 21% of these women were assaulted during pregnancy.

Of 22,000 victims of spousal violence reported to a sample of 179 Canadian police agencies in 1997, 88% (19, 575) were female and 12% (2,679) were male.

Children witnessed violence against their mothers in almost 40% of violent marriages. In many cases of children witnessing violence, the violence was so severe that the women feared for their lives (52%) and/or were injured (61%).

Nearly one quarter of women (22%) who have experienced wife assault never told anyone about the abuse.

Violent men are three times as likely as nonviolent men to have witnessed spousal violence in childhood, and women who were raised in similar circumstances are twice as likely to be victims of spousal violence.

Between 1978 and 1997, 1, 485 females were killed by their spouses in Canada.

The Ontario Association of Interval & Transition Houses (OAITH) is a coalition of first stage emergency shelters, 2nd stage housing organizations and community-based women organizations who work towards ending violence against all women. OAITH maintains a training portal and resource library focused on gender based violence which can be accessed by frontline workers, managers, and policy makers across sectors. OAITH also sponsors the Aging Without Violence project, focused on violence against older women and publishes the Annual Femicide List.