Intimate partner violence is a serious problem in Canada and around the world.
This form of gender-based cruelty causes a lot of pain and suffering.
Intimate partner violence or IPV can be categorized into three types: psychological, sexual, and physical.
Women are more likely than men to experience abuse from their romantic partners.
A new report by Statistics Canada indicated that 44 percent of women in the country reported in 2018 that they have experienced some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
“By comparison, this was the case for just over one-third (36%) of men,” the federal agency stated Monday (April 26).
In the same report, Statistics Canada noted that people from other population groups indicated “higher-than-average rates of IPV”.
Foremost of these are members of the LGBT community.
“Sexual minority people—those whose sexual orientation is gay, lesbian, bisexual, or another sexual orientation that is not heterosexual—are much more likely to experience all forms of intimate partner violence than heterosexual people,” Statistics Canada stated.
For instance, in 2018, two-thirds or 67 percent of sexual minority women said that they had experienced at least one type of IPV since the age of 15.
This rate was “significantly higher” than the 44 percent of heterosexual women who reported similar experiences.
“When broken down by sexual orientation, relatively similar proportions of bisexual (68%) and lesbian (61%) women said that they had experienced some form of IPV in their lifetime, though both were significantly more likely to experience IPV than heterosexual women,” Statistics Canada reported.
Moreover, more than one-quarter or 27 percent of sexual minority women reported being sexually assaulted by an intimate partner at some point since age 15, compared with 11 percent of heterosexual women.
“As was the case among sexual minority women, sexual minority men were much more likely than heterosexual men to experience both physical and sexual assault by an intimate partner over their lifetime,” Statistics Canada reported.
To illustrate, about one-third or 31 percent of sexual minority men indicated that they had been either physically or sexually assaulted by an intimate partner since age 15, compared with 17 percent of heterosexual men.
People with disabilities also experience a high rate of intimate partner violence.
More than half or 55 percent of women with disabilities experienced some form of IPV in their lifetime, compared with 37 percent of women without disabilities, Statistics Canada reported.
The agency noted that the most commonly reported form of IPV among women with disabilities was psychological abuse (53 percent), physical abuse (32 percent), and sexual assault (18 percent).
