• About 1 in 10 sexual assaults is reported to police, according to the General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization. With only a small proportion of sexual offences formally documented through law enforcement, the prevalence of sexual assault in Canada has been difficult to quantify.
• Victimization data suggest that the rates of sexual assault remained stable in recent years. However, police reported data reveal a steady decline in offences coming to the attention of law enforcement for more than a decade.
• The 2004 GSS showed that sexual victimization rates were dramatically higher among those ages 15-24, compared to those 55 and over. Additionally over half of the sexual assault victims reported to police in 2007 were children and youth under the age of 18.
• Aboriginal women are 2.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than other women (in United States). 86% of the time its by a non-Native (according to Amnesty International).
• On average, every six days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. In 2009, 67 women were murdered by a current or former spouse or boyfriend.
• On any given day in Canada, more than 3,000 women (along with their 2,500 children) are living in an emergency shelter to escape domestic violence.
• Each year, over 40,000 arrests result from domestic violence—that’s about 12% of all violent crime in Canada.3 Since only 22% of all incidents are reported to the police, the real number is much higher.
• As of 2010, there were 582 known cases of missing or murdered Aboriginal women in Canada.4 Both Amnesty International and the United Nations have called upon the Canadian government to take action on this issue, without success.Visit this site for more information.