Women living in Canada's territories are far more likely to be sexually assaulted and murdered by their husbands than those living in the provinces, says a Statistics Canada survey released Monday.

Twelve per cent of adults living in the three territories who had lived common law or been married at some point in their lives experienced violence at their spouse's hands in the five years prior to the 2004 survey. That compares to seven per cent in the provinces.

Also, the use of shelters was higher in the territories than anywhere else in Canada.

The insight comes from a 2004 Statistics Canada study that interviewed for the first time women and men in the three territories about their experiences with spousal violence. The Statistics Canada report also pulls together previously released data from 1999 to 2004.

The report shows that women are nearly 2½ times more likely than men to be the victims of the most severe forms of spousal assault, including homicide, sexual assault and stalking.

Police reports show spousal homicide rates in the territories are the highest in the country and that rates of sexual assault are also higher than in the provinces. There is, however, a glimmer of good news: rates of sexual assault have declined slightly in all three territories in recent years.

Police statistics show mixed trends in violence against women throughout Canada.

In general, rates of reported sexual assault have dropped since 1993. Reports of current and former husbands assaulting their wives have dropped from eight per cent in 1999 to seven per cent in 2004, which researchers describe as a small but statistically significant decline.

Holly Johnson, the report's senior researcher, says it likely has to do with women's rising economic status.

"It may make it easier for women to leave violent relationships before it gets serious," said Johnson.

The report also suggests the decline could be partly the result of the increased use of services by assaulted women, greater public awareness and an increase in the number of treatment programs for violent men.

Still, violent assaults against women at the hands of their boyfriends have increased substantially from 242 cases reported in 1998 to 2,781 in 2004. Researchers were at a loss to explain why there has been such a steep increase, but cautioned that the numbers come from police departments representing only 37 per cent of the volume of crime in the country.

Statistics Canada researchers were at pains to point out that sexual assault is one of the most under-reported crimes and that it is hard to know to what extent any drop in reported assaults is a result of women not reporting the crimes.

"Fewer than 10% of sexual assaults in both survey years [1993 and 2000] were reported to the police," the researchers wrote.

"Victims' decisions to report the violence to criminal justice and social services depend on a variety of factors, some of which include fear of the offender, shame and embarrassment, and regional availability of services. The majority of victims of spousal assault and over 90% of sexual assault victims did not seek support from the criminal justice system."