This bench books cites ABS statistics stating that ‘Women aged 25–34 years had the highest rate of partner violence (2.8%), compared with women aged 55 years and over (0.5%) who experienced the lowest rate’ at [10.1.7]. Section [13.3.4] ‘Impact on children’ provides information on impacts on young children through to young adulthood, including the typical short- and long-term responses children and young people may have.
Specifically in relation to young people, section [13.3.3] ‘Risk factors for children’ notes: ‘Young people growing up in homes where there has been couple violence (both male and female carers perpetrating and being victimised by domestic violence) were more likely to be victims of violence and perpetrators of violence in their own relationships. For example, they were twice as likely to have been forced to have sex and four times as likely to have admitted forcing their partner to have sex. Overall, the best predictor of perpetration (and victimisation) of violence in young people’s relationships was found to be witnessing certain types of male to female violence in the home’.Section 6.3.7: Youth responses: adolescents highlights the range of responses adolescents may have to being exposed to domestic violence, and the bench book also touches on inter-generational transmission of domestic violence in Section 6.3.9.
In a different context, young age of the targeted adult is also identified as a lethality risk factor in Section 8.8.3.
