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Sexual Violence Survey 2022 – Main Results

Childhood Experiences

CSO statistical publication, 19 April 2023, 11am

National Helplines

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this survey, help is available from the following national helplines or from local/regional helplines which you can find in the Background Notes.

The Sexual Violence Survey 2022 – Main Results was published on 19 April 2023. Data within the publication were revised on 1 June 2023. These data revisions were due to a formatting issue. All content relating to the tables, including the text of the statistical release, Press Conference presentation and PxStat tables (data.cso.ie), now reflect the revised data.

Details as to the extent of these revisions on previously published data can be found in the Information Note Sexual Violence Survey - Main Results.

Experience of sexual violence as a child

This chapter focuses on sexual violence experienced by children in Ireland. It covers experiences which occurred under the age of consent in Ireland (under 17 years) and is based on replies from those aged 18 and over.

This chapter looks at child sexual violence experienced in the past by adults currently in Ireland – it does not provide insights on current levels of child sexual violence. It does not cover experiences between children which include any sexual experiences that they were comfortable with, for example, with a boyfriend or girlfriend who was a similar age to them at the time. Unwanted sexual non-contact experiences include being shown pornographic material, being asked to pose in a sexually suggestive manner for photographs, having someone expose themselves or someone masturbating in front of a child. Unwanted sexual contact experiences include sexual touching (where the respondent as a child was touched in a sexual way or made to touch somebody else in a sexual way), unwanted sexual intercourse, unwanted attempted sexual intercourse or another not-specified sexual contact that was attempted. Further information is available in the Background Notes.

This chapter will highlight that women reported higher levels of child sexual violence than men across all violence types. The youngest women (aged 18-24) reported the highest levels across all violence types. See Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1 has been updated on 19 April 2023 to correct an error in the data under the Sexual touching and Other sexual contact columns.

X-axis label	Male	Female
Sexual intercourse	2	7
Attempted sexual intercourse	3	8
Sexual touching	11	24
Other sexual contact	5	15
Sexual non-contact	16	25

Women reported experiencing three times the level of unwanted sexual intercourse as a child than men

Unwanted sexual intercourse as a child was experienced by 7% of women compared with 2% of men. Women were also more likely to have experienced attempted unwanted sexual intercourse as a child at 8% compared with 3% of men. See Figure 5.1 and Table 5.1.
Young women (aged 18 to 24) reported the highest prevalence of unwanted sexual intercourse as a child at 10%, compared with 6% of women aged 65 and over. See Figure 5.2.
Women were nearly three times more likely to have experienced attempted unwanted sexual intercourse (8%) than men (3%), while 10% of the youngest females (aged 18-24) experienced attempted unwanted sexual intercourse.

X-axis label	Male	Female
18-24	2	10
25-34	2	6
35-44	1	6
45-54	2	6
55-64	2	6
65 years and over	1	6

Table 5.1 Childhood experience of unwanted sexual violence by type of experience, 2022

Table 5.1 Childhood¹ experience of unwanted sexual violence² by type of experience^{3, 4}, 2022
% of persons aged 18 years and over
Sex/Age group⁵	Type of unwanted sexual violence experienced in childhood
	Sexual intercourse			Attempted sexual intercourse			Sexual touching			Other sexual contact			Sexual non-contact
	Yes	No	Not stated⁶	Yes	No	Not stated⁶	Yes	No	Not stated⁶	Yes	No	Not stated⁶	Yes	No	Not stated⁶
State	4	82	13	5	81	14	17	70	13	10	76	14	20	68	12

Sex
Male	2	85	13	3	84	14	11	77	12	5	81	14	16	73	11
Female	7	80	14	8	78	14	24	63	13	15	71	14	25	63	12

Age group
18-24	6	81	14	6	79	15	20	66	14	12	73	15	33	55	12
25-34	4	81	15	6	79	16	14	71	15	9	74	17	21	65	14
35-44	4	82	14	6	80	14	16	70	14	10	76	14	20	67	13
45-54	4	83	13	6	80	14	20	68	12	12	75	14	20	68	11
55-64	4	87	8	6	86	8	20	72	8	10	81	9	19	74	7
65 years and over	3	82	15	4	81	15	16	71	13	9	76	16	14	73	13

Male age group
18-24	2	85	13	1	84	14	12	75	13	4	82	14	28	62	10
25-34	2	85	13	2	84	14	7	80	12	5	80	14	19	69	12
35-44	1	82	17	4	80	17	10	74	16	5	78	17	16	68	16
45-54	2	85	13	2	84	14	10	78	12	6	81	13	15	74	11
55-64	2	90	8	5	88	8	15	77	8	7	85	8	12	81	7
65 years and over	1	87	12	1	85	14	13	75	12	6	81	13	8	81	11

Female age group
18-24	10	76	14	10	74	16	28	58	14	20	64	16	40	47	13
25-34	6	77	17	9	74	18	21	62	17	13	68	19	23	62	15
35-44	6	82	12	8	80	12	23	66	11	15	73	12	24	66	10
45-54	6	80	13	10	76	14	29	59	12	18	69	14	26	62	12
55-64	6	85	9	6	85	9	25	67	8	14	77	9	25	67	7
65 years and over	6	77	17	7	77	17	19	66	15	12	71	18	19	67	14
¹ Experience of sexual violence as a child refers to those experienced under the age of consent (17 years). See Background Notes for further details.
²Sexual violence is defined in this survey as a range of non-consensual experiences from non-contact experiences to non-consensual sexual intercourse. See Background Notes for further details.
³ Definitions for each of the types of experience are detailed in the Background Notes. Note that unwanted sexual touching refers to someone touching a child in a sexual way or making a child touch someone in a sexual way. Unwanted other sexual contact includes other not specified sexual contact which was attempted or occurred. Childhood experiences may have included more than one type of experience in one sexual violence episode or in many episodes.
⁴Please note data may not add to 100% due to rounding issues.
⁵The age group category classifies the age the respondent was when they answered the survey.
⁶ This represents the proportion of respondents who did not answer the question. In this voluntary survey, given the particular sensitivities of the questions being asked, respondents could skip questions they did not wish to answer. See Background Notes for further details.

Open in Excel: Sexual Violence Survey 2022 - Main Results Table 5.1 (XLS 14KB)

Almost a quarter of women reported experiencing unwanted sexual touching as a child

Unwanted sexual touching as a child was experienced by 24% of women compared with 11% of men. Sexual touching in this survey includes instances where a person ever had their breasts and/or genitals touched by a someone without consent or were made to touch someone else’s breasts and/or genitals without their consent. See Table 5.1.
The level for unwanted sexual touching as a child was 28% for young women aged 18-24 compared with 19% of those aged 65 and over.
The rate of unwanted sexual touching as a child among young women aged 18-24 was 28%, which was twice as high as the comparable rate for men in the same age category (12%).

24%

of women

experienced unwanted sexual touching as a child

Source: CSO Ireland, Sexual Violence Survey 2022 – Main Results

Young adults aged 18-24 reported the highest levels for unwanted sexual non-contact experiences as a child

Unwanted sexual non-contact as a child was experienced by 33% of adults aged 18-24, over twice the rate of 14% for those aged 65 and over. See Table 5.1. Unwanted sexual non-contact experiences include being shown pornographic material, being asked to pose in a sexually suggestive manner for photographs, having someone expose themselves or someone masturbating in front of a child. A more detailed definition is available in the Background Notes.
Unwanted sexual non-contact experiences as a child decreased with age. The highest rate of unwanted sexual non-contact among women was 40% for those aged 18-24, compared with about 23% for women aged 25-34 and 19% for those aged 65 and over.
For men, the highest rate of unwanted sexual non-contact as a child was 28 % for those aged 18-24, compared with 15 % for those aged 45-54 and 8% for those aged 65 and over.

X-axis label	Sexual non-contact
18-24	33
25-34	21
35-44	20
45-54	20
55-64	19
65 years and over	14

One in ten adults experienced both contact and non-contact sexual violence as a child

Key findings for those who experienced sexual violence as a child by the type of experience:

One in ten adults (11%) experienced both contact and non-contact sexual violence as a child. There were higher rates among women (16%) than among men (6%). See Table 5.2.
One in five adults experienced unwanted non-contact sexual violence as a child (20%). This consists of the 9% of adults who experienced unwanted sexual violence which was non-contact-only, and 11% of adults who experienced both contact and non-contact sexual violence as a child. Also, one in five adults experienced unwanted contact sexual violence as a child (19%). This consists of the 8% of adults who experienced unwanted sexual violence as a child which was contact-only, and 11% of adults who experienced both contact and non-contact sexual violence as a child.
Young people (18-24) reported the highest levels of both contact and non-contact sexual violence experienced as a child (16%) compared with those aged 65 and over (9%). Young adults also experienced the highest rate of non-contact-only sexual violence at 17% compared with 5% of adults aged 65 and over. See Figure 5.4.
Both contact and non-contact sexual violence as a child was experienced by 25% of women aged 18-24 compared with 12% of women aged 65 and over.
Similar proportions of young men aged 18-24 (8%) and older men aged 65 and over (5%) had experienced both contact and non-contact sexual violence as a child.
Men aged 18-24 experienced non-contact-only sexual violence (19%) at a rate six times higher than men aged 65 and over (3%).

X-axis label	Contact-only	Non-contact-only	Both contact and non-contact experiences
18-24	17	7	16
25-34	10	6	11
35-44	10	9	10
45-54	9	9	12
55-64	7	10	12
65 years and over	5	8	9

Table 5.2 Childhood experience of unwanted sexual violence by type of experience, 2022

Table 5.2 Childhood¹ experience of unwanted sexual violence² by type of experience³, 2022
% of persons aged 18 years and over
Sex/Age group⁴	Type of unwanted sexual violence experience in childhood
	Contact-only	Non-contact-only	Both contact and non-contact experiences⁵	No experience of unwanted sexual violence in childhood	Not stated⁶	Total
State	8	9	11	59	12	100

Sex
Male	6	9	6	67	11	100
Female	11	9	16	52	12	100

Age group
18-24	7	17	16	48	12	100
25-34	6	10	11	59	14	100
35-44	9	10	10	58	13	100
45-54	9	9	12	59	11	100
55-64	10	7	12	64	7	100
65 years and over	8	5	9	65	13	100

Male age group
18-24	5	19	8	57	10	100
25-34	3	12	7	65	12	100
35-44	5	10	6	63	16	100
45-54	5	9	6	69	11	100
55-64	10	6	7	71	7	100
65 years and over	8	3	5	73	11	100

Female age group
18-24	9	15	25	38	13	100
25-34	8	8	15	53	15	100
35-44	12	10	13	54	10	100
45-54	14	9	17	49	12	100
55-64	11	9	17	57	7	100
65 years and over	9	7	12	58	14	100
¹ Experience of sexual violence as a child refers to those experienced under the age of consent (17 years). See Background Notes for further details.
² Unwanted non-contact sexual experiences include being shown pornographic material, being asked to pose in a sexually suggestive manner for photographs, having someone expose themselves or someone masturbating in front of a child. Unwanted contact sexual experiences include a child being touched in a sexual way or being made to touch another person in a sexual way, experienced sexual intercourse or attempted sexual intercourse, and any other unwanted non-specified sexual contact. See Background Notes for further details.
³ Please note data may not add to 100% due to rounding issues.
⁴ The age group category classifies the age the respondent was when they answered the survey.
⁵ This category represents those who experienced both non-contact and contact sexual violence experiences.
⁶ This represents the proportion of respondents who did not answer the question. In this voluntary survey, given the particular sensitivities of the questions being asked, respondents could skip questions they did not wish to answer. See Background Notes for further details.