Reports of sexual assault at six-year high in Australia: statistics

Reports of sexual assault in Australia reached a six-year high in 2015, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday have shown.

The figure represents a 3 percent rise over the previous year, William Milne from the ABS said on Wednesday, with women four times more likely to be the victim compared to men.

"This was an increase of 3 percent on the previous year, and the highest number of sexual assault reports we've seen in six years," Milne said in a statement released on Wednesday.

"Nationally, over four in five sexual assault victims were female."

Milne said teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 19 were most at-risk of being sexually assaulted, with most occurrences happening at a residential location and without use of a weapon.

"Females aged between 15 and 19 years were seven times more likely to have been a victim of sexual assault compared to the overall population," he said.

Other statistics released by the ABS showed that the rate of homicide in Australia fell 2 percent from 2014 to 2015.

This is the fourth consecutive year in which reports of homicide and related offences have fallen, Milne said.

Meanwhile, the use of a firearm in homicides in Australia decreased by 24 percent between 2014 and 2015 (from 75 to 57 victims) while murders involving any other type of weapon did not change over the same period.

According to the ABS, around three in five homicide victims were male. Endit