AAG report: A fair future for older women who experience sexual abuse - Summary

There has been little focus on older women’s experience of sexual abuse, despite research showing that:

In 2016, 12,700 Australian women aged 55 years and over reported experiencing Sexual violence in the last 12 months
in 2017-18, there were 547 reports of unlawful sexual contact in residential aged care in Australia.

This can partly be attributed to the misconception that sexual abuse of older women is rare. It is more accurate to say older women rarely report sexual abuse – because we do not listen or give them permission to speak about their sexual abuse.

AAG released a policy paper on A Fair Future For Older Women Who Experience Sexual Abuse - What Needs To Be Done at the National Elder Abuse Conference in Brisbane on 22 July 2019. It summarises the proceedings and policy recommendations of the workshop facilitated and led by Dr Catherine Barrett (founder and director of OPAL Institute and AAG’s 2019 Glenda Powell Travelling Fellow) that was held in Melbourne on 20 November 2018.