Both the victim and the offender in 15 per cent of detected sexual violence cases in 2020 were aged under 18, new figures show.
The latest crime data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows four out of five victims of reported sexual violence incidents in 2021 were female and more than half were juveniles at the time of the offence.
Almost all suspected offenders of detected sexual violence reported in 2020 were male and one-sixth were aged under 18 at the time.
The figures also reveal that males accounted for 67 per cent of victims of reported homicides last year and more than half of reported physical assault and related offences.
Nearly half (49 per cent) of all homicide offence victims were aged 45 years or more. One-tenth (10 per cent) were under 18 and nearly a quarter (23 per cent) were aged between 18 and 29 years.
The proportion of victims of reported physical assault and related offences who were female was 44 per cent in 2021, down slightly from 2020 (45 per cent).
However, these were higher than the 41 per cent recorded in both 2019 and 2018.
CSO statistician Jim Dalton 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."
