New study suggests 62 per cent of people have experienced abuse, neglect as a child

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia this week, found 39.6 per cent of people were exposed to domestic violence as a child.

The survey of 8500 people 16 and over revealed 32 per cent of people reported physical abuse as a child and almost 31 per cent experienced emotional abuse.

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More than one-quarter - 28.5 per cent - suffered sexual abuse, and just under 9 per cent were victims of neglect.

More often than not, people reported more than one form of maltreatment.

Lula Dembele, a survivor of child sexual abuse and director of lived experience for the Women's Trauma Recovery Centre, said the figures were not surprising and reinforced what was already known about the prevalence of violence against children.

"It's life-changing forms of abuse that we aren't grappling with as a nation," Ms Dembele said.

She said she had one specific ambition: for doctors to believe children reporting and displaying signs of sexual abuse, and act on it.

As a child victim, Ms Dembele said, she was told by doctors, "Sometimes little girls just put things inside themselves", and as recently as last year she heard from concerned mothers who were told word for word the same thing regarding their children.

"These numbers stack up and show us that little children experience sexual abuse all the time," she said of the study.

In one case she heard involving a doctor who dismissed concerns, she said, the child was returned to the care of the perpetrator.

"That's the consequence of doctors not believing children," Ms Dembele said.

She said she would also like to see the results of the child maltreatment study influence the legal system, which kept "justice out of reach" and failed to reflect reality.

Ms Dembele hoped the data would shock the government into action.

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Domestic violence would not disappear within one generation (as per the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children), she said, when almost 40 per cent of children were exposed to it.

She said this was one of the most common risk factors for a person to either perpetrate or become a victim of domestic violence later in life.

Ms Dembele said governments needed to invest in working with the mostly male perpetrators to end their violent behaviour, and protection for women and children.

Recovery from trauma was also in need of investment, she said, to prevent mental health issues and maladaption, and support a person's ability to learn and have healthy relationships.

She said it was time for government to "put its money where its mouth is".

"It's time for people to stop being shocked by these figures, time for people to stop denying these statistics and the lived experience of women and children, and it's time for people to act," Ms Dembele said.

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