One-fifth of all detected cases of sexual violence involve children as both victims and offenders, according to new figures released from the Central Statistics Office.
The Crime Victims and Suspected Offenders reports also show more than four-in-five victims of murder and manslaughter are male, while the number of female victims has fallen in the past three years.
However, the vast majority of victims of sexual violence, four-out-of five, are women while almost all of the perpetrators were male.
An increasing proportion of women, 45%, were also victims of physical assault and related offences last year.
The CSO said this is attributable to a greater decline in male assault victims rather than female and may be an effect of Covid-19 lockdowns.
Today's CSO crime figures point to those most likely to commit crime, what crimes they are most likely to commit, and who their victims are most likely to be.
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The statistics for the two years, 2019 and 2020, show that the vast majority (99%) of sexual offences are committed by males and that more than one-in-five (20.8%) of those is committed by a boy aged under 18.
One-fifth of all sexual offences have also been found to involve children as offender and victim.
Males (84.2%) are still most likely to be victims of crime, although an increasing number of women (44.5%) are becoming victims of physical assaults.
The CSO said this may be an effect of Covid-19 lockdowns which has led to an increase in domestic violence.
Women are also most likely to become victims of sexual violence, four-in-five of victims between 2017-19 are female, more than three-in-five of them were children, (61.6%) under 18, when the sex attack occurred.
Over 500 girls (533) under 18 reported a sex attack last year, almost half (44%) of all the victims in 2020.
More than half (56.5%) of the attacks had taken place within the year of reporting but more people are also reporting historic sexual offences, a quarter of all those reported (27.5%) occurred more than 10 years earlier.
There has also been a reduction in the number of women who were murdered or killed over the last four years.
Men and boys are also the most likely to commit serious crime committing 99.4% of sexual offences, 83% of homicides and 79.8% of physical assaults.
The statistics are published under reservation, which means the CSO has concerns about the completeness and accuracy of the garda’s PULSE data, but believes they provide the best information available while identifying quality issues.
CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre Noeline Blackwell described as a "real worry" that one-fifth of all detected cases of sexual violence involve children as both victims and offenders.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Ms Blackwell said she is concerned about "peer abuse" and the "impact that pornography is having on young children".
She said children are accessing pornography on smartphones and other devices and called for better sex education for children and young people.
"We need to give them the filter so that they know what they are listening to, so that they recognise that what they're seeing on pornography sites is very often, abuse; Abuse that you wonder how it can be tolerated for adults and certainly cannot be tolerated for children."
She added: "Every young child needs to be given a language, and an understanding that this is not real life.
"They're not going to have the language or the framework to understand what they’re watching so that education is really important, as is control over what they're watching on the web."
She called on Government and platforms that are producing sexual material for better regulation.
