Incidents of family violence against Canadian seniors has hit a record high, according to data from Statistics Canada.
Seniors, those aged 65 and older, were most often victimized by their child (36 percent), the reported said. Meanwhile, around one in four was victimized by a spouse (28 percent) or another type of family member (25 percent) and 11 percent identified the perpetrator as a sibling.
Incidents involving a total of 7,622 senior victims of family violence were reported to police in 2024.
StatCan said 2024 saw a 4 percent increase in family violence against seniors compared with 2023, when this type of violence reached what was its highest recorded rate at the time.
Seventy-two percent of senior victims of family violence said they were victims of a physical assault in 2024, while 17 percent said they were victims of threats.
The rate of family violence was slightly higher among senior women than senior men in 2024, with 104 victims per 100,000 senior women versus 92 victims for senior men.
StatCan said senior women victims were most often mistreated by their child (34 percent) or spouse (32 percent), while for senior men victims, it was even more common for their child (39 percent) to be the perpetrator and less common for their spouse (21 percent) to be the perpetrator.
Overall, the rate of family violence against people of all ages increased by 17 percent between 2018 and 2024, according to StatCan. The report also said that the rate of intimate partner violence among individuals aged 12 and older increased by 14 percent during the same period.
According to police services in Canada, the year 2024 saw 349 victims of family violence per 100,000 population, along with 356 victims of intimate partner violence per 100,000 population aged 12 and older, StatCan said.
Those increases were seen regardless of victim gender, although the rise was larger for men and boys than for women and girls for both family violence (21 percent for males and 16 percent for females) and intimate partner violence (22 percent for males and 13 percent for females).
StatCan said there were 25,938 child and youth victims of police-reported family violence in 2024, a rate of 345 victims per 100,000 population aged 17 and younger.
The report said that 30 percent of child and youth victims were mistreated by a family member.
The rate of family violence against children and youth has increased 26 percent since 2018, with most being victimized by a parent (61 percent), while 15 percent were victimized by a sibling and 24 percent by another type of family member.
The majority of children and youth victims (57 percent) of family violence were victims of physical assault in 2024, while 33 percent were victims of sexual assault.
