Both the victim and the offender in one-in-seven cases of detected sexual violence are children, according to the latest crime figures released today by the Central Statistics Office.
The CSO this morning released the latest figures for recorded crime victims in 2021, and suspected offenders in 2020.
Over 80% of sexual offence victims were female, with more than half under 18 years of age when they were attacked.
The figures also show that the vast majority of these crimes were committed by men, almost 98%, while the attackers were children in one-in-six cases.
According to the CSO, men accounted for 69% of victims of reported homicide crime incidents in 2021, and over half of reported physical assault and related offences.
Nearly half of all homicide offence victims were aged 45 years of age or over, with 23% aged between 18 and 29, and 10% under 18.
The proportion of victims of reported physical assault and related offences who were female fell slightly in 2021 - down to 44% from 45% the previous year.
However, these figures are higher than the 41% recorded in both 2019 and 2018.
The CSO said 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.
