Violence against children and youth occurring within their own households has reached record levels, according to new data released Thursday by Statistics Canada.
In a report about rising levels of family violence and intimate-partner violence, StatCan found that police-reported cases of children and youth being victimized by family members is now at its “highest rate since comparable data became available in 2009.”
StatCan said the 2023 rate of such reported crimes stands at 362 victims per 100,000 people. This represents an increase of 50 per cent from a decade ago, in 2014, when the rate of reported family-violence crimes involving children and youth was at 242 per 100,000.
“It has increased considerably over time,” said Shana Conroy, a senior analyst at the justice wing of StatCan.
The new study shows that both family violence and intimate-partner violence trends have been rising over the past five years. These trends are in line with rising overall levels of police-reported violent crime, which increased 20 per cent between 2018 and 2023.
The report was released a year after three children were shot and killed in Sault Ste. Marie by their father, who also killed his ex-girlfriend and then turned the gun on himself. The Hallaert children included sisters Abbie and Ally, aged 12 and 7, and their brother, Nate, aged 6. (Their mother was also separately wounded in the attack, but survived.)
Helen Smith, a minister in the community who presided over the funeral service for the children, said the city was shattered by the crimes.
“Most family violence for children is so hidden that people don’t realize,” said Ms. Smith.
“We can’t let the children’s memory be lost to the tragedy.”
The StatCan report explained that family violence can be committed by spouses, parents, children, siblings and extended family members, while intimate-partner violence is committed by a spouse, or a common-law or dating partner.
Girls are twice as likely to be victims of family violence than boys.
“Most often, family violence against children and youth was perpetrated by a parent,” the StatCan study said, and that such crimes often go greatly under-reported.
Statistics Canada said family violence increased by 3 per cent in 2023, with 26,777 children and youth aged 17 years and younger being the victims of police-reported family violence. The crimes driving the rise in rates include physical assaults and sexual assaults.
Violence by nonfamily members against children is also increasing, but remains relatively rare, the agency said.
Ms. Conroy, the senior analyst for Statistics Canada, said changes in police-reported crime levels can reflect not just increasing numbers of crimes but may also indicate growing public awareness of problems and changing statistical methodologies.
Intimate-partner violence and family violence closely correspond with one another, she said.
“We analyze them as two separate groups but they aren’t mutually exclusive.”
The StatCan study said that in both types of crimes, the rates of reported violence are far higher in Canada’s northern communities than in rural southern regions and in cities.
Reports of intimate-partner violence rose by 1 per cent in 2023, the study said, and young women remain disproportionately affected.
“By gender, the highest rate of police-reported intimate-partner violence in 2023 was among women and girls aged 12 to 24 years,” the study said.
The new data show that in 2023 firearms were increasingly used in crimes involving intimate partners – 1,038 instances that year compared with 762 in 2018.
Nearly 90 per cent of the time, these weapons were pointed at women and girls, the study said.
