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Facts and Stats on Woman Abuse
One in four (1/4) women in Canada is sexually or physically abused by a partner. (Stats Can. 1993)
- Forty percent (40%) of women who turn up in emergency departments of hospitals are there because of abuse. (K. Burbridge, "Hospitals Join Together in Aid of Abused Women", In Peterborough This Week, Apr. 9, 1996)
- Woman abuse costs the medical/health care system 1.5 billion dollars annually. (T. Day. Health Related Costs of Violence Against Women in Can., Tip of the Iceberg, 1995)
- Health Care Professionals recognize fewer than five percent (5 %) of abuse cases. (K. Burbridge, "Hospitals Join Together in Aid of Abused Women", In Peterborough This Week, Apr. 9, 1996)
- Fifty percent (50%) of women admitted to psychiatric hospitals/units are victims of violence. (Salber and Taliaferro, 1995)
- Rape is a significant or major form of abuse in fifty four percent (54%) of violent marriages. (American Medical Association. Diagnostic & Treatment Guidelines on Domestic Violence. Chicago: AMA, p. 119)
- Of women reporting physical assault, fifty percent (50%) have experienced sexual assault in the same relationship. (Health Canada, 1999)
- Seventy five percent (75%) of children in homes where women are abuse are also abused. (Using Ecological Theory to Understand Intimate Partner Violence and Child Maltreatment, Little, Liza and Kantor, Glenda, Journal of Community Health Nursing, 2002, 19(3), 133-145.)
- A 1993 Canadian survey found that fifty six percent (56%) of women who had experienced wife abuse in the year prior to the survey were 18 to 34 years of age, a period that coincides with the main childbearing years. (Stats Can. 1993)
- Forty percent (40%) of women who were abused during pregnancy reported that the abuse began when they were pregnant. (Stats Can, 1993)
- Health Canada (1996) estimates that the proportion of children of abused women who are exposed to the violence ranges from forty percent (40%) to eighty percent (80%).
- If a woman's father-in-law is violent towards her mother-in-law, she is 3 times more likely to experience physical and sexual abuse in a marriage compared to women who marry men with non-violent fathers (12% vs. 36%) (Health Canada, 1996)