In Australia, one woman is murdered every week on average by her current or former partner, and at least 655 people have lost their lives since 2006 in Queensland alone due to domestic and family violence*.
In addition, there were 6,891 recorded victims of sexual assault in Queensland during 2021# (a devastating 35% on the previous year), and sadly 1 in 5 Aussie women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15^.
Furthermore, a shocking 1 in 4 Australian school children experience bullying every few weeks, and over 100,000 stay at home each week due to bullying-related issues.
It may come as no surprise then, that in a recent survey we conducted with over 13,000 Queensland parents, the vast majority (60%) ranked bullying and violence as the number one concern for the safety and well-being of their children.
Research has shown that there’s a direct link between kids bullying others at school and displaying aggressive behaviour as adults, and those who display these traits at an early age are 4 times more likely to abuse their partner as adults.
Life Ed Queensland needs your help to act urgently to safeguard our children from the harms of bullying and violence, as well as providing them with the right education and strategies at an early age so they can grow into becoming respectful, emotionally resilient and kind adults.
Providing vital respectful relationship and consent education to kids in their formative years enables them to form the right attitudes and behaviours from an early age, which reduces the chance of them being bullied in their youth, and also decreases the likelihood that they will be subjected to, or become perpetrators of, violence as adults.
*Government’s response to the Domestic & Family Violence Death Review and Advisory Board 2020-21
# ABS 2021 data – https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/2021
^ Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017). Personal Safety Survey 2016. ABS cat. no. 4906.0
