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Half of reported sexual-violence victims under 18

Official figures show that more than 80% of those who reported a sexual-violence incident last year were female, while more than half were under 18 when the offence took place.

The figures are contained in a report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) that gives detailed statistics on serious crimes reported as recorded by an Garda Síochána (AGS).

The statistics on sexual violence are from 2021, while those for offenders are from 2020.

Sexual-violence offenders

The latter figures show that the vast majority (98%) of suspected sexual-violence offenders in 2020 were male, and that one in six were under 18 years old when the incident took place.

In 15% cases of detected sexual violence in 2020, both the victim and suspected offender were under 18 years of age.

Males accounted for just under 90% of suspected homicide offenders in 2020, while they also made up almost 70% of the victims of reported homicide incidents in 2021.

Nearly half of homicide victims last year were aged 45 or more, 10% were under 18, and nearly a quarter were aged between 18 and 29 years.

Statistics ‘under reservation’

Over half (56%) of the victims of reported physical assault and related offences in 2021 were male. The 44% figure for female victims of these offences was little changed from 2020, but higher than the 41% recorded in both 2018 and 2019.

“This may be attributable to the relatively larger decline in the number of male assault victims in 2020 and 2021, linked to the varying levels of COVID-19 restrictions in place at the time,” said CSO statistician Jim Dalton.

The CSO points out that these figures continue to be categorised as ‘statistics under reservation’, due to quality issues linked to the recording of data on the Pulse system used by gardaí.