It is time to step up prevention of child sexual abuse

• Understand how to prevent child sexual abuse on a large scale.
• Know how best to intervene.
• And get on with the work.

These are three of the most pressing priorities for child safety professionals around the world who are taking action to prevent child sexual abuse before it occurs.

What do we know?

There is increasing evidence of this Child sexual abuse is preventable and not inevitable. We are also witnessing a realization in society that if we simply try to get out of the problem, we will never be able to catch up and keep up. But the gap between recognizing the solutions and fully implementing them requires our full attention: one in nine children worldwide is abused.

That’s 220 million children: almost the entire population of Nigeria or the entire population of the 15 largest US states.

The growing body of research data on child sexual abuse undermines the deep public narrative that the problem is solely due to “stranger danger.” It will take time and effort to correct these misperceptions. But we know that:

• The majority of abuse is committed by people known to the child
• The majority of contact abuse, possibly up to 70%, is committed by other children
• Online, the number fluctuates between 30 and 70% depending on the type of damage.
• When it comes to abuse by adults, preferred sexual interest in children is the main motive in only about half of the cases

All of this points to a problem that is solvable as long as we can unravel its complexity and scale the effective interventions that work.

What more do we need?

We need to understand how to scale up promising practices as quickly as possible. For this reason Scalability is the subject of the first Deep Dive resource created by Prevention Global, a research initiative and online resource hub led by the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Institute of Mental at the Royal Ottawa Hospital Health Research.

Prevention Global partnered with scalability expert MSI to evaluate 13 programs aimed at preventing child sexual abuse. These diverse programs are offered in schools, online or via helplines. They focus on children or adults. These include educator-led sessions, self-help sessions and/or therapist-assisted sessions.

The full scalability study contains 20 findings and recommendations on the following topics:

• What works and what needs to be worked on to effectively prevent perpetrators?
• How to scale effective programs to reach more vulnerable individuals, families, and communities
• What better local, national and international policy could look like
• How to increase public, private and philanthropic resources invested in prevention programs and achieve the best results

What do we do first?

The initial priorities and next steps for preventing child sexual abuse are clearly demonstrated in the scalability study.

We know we need to focus on young people, In many forms of abuse, the majority is perpetrated against children by other children and young adults. This means addressing a chronic lack of programs designed to prevent problematic sexual behavior from occurring.

To be successful, frontline programming must address the causes of child sexual abuse among peers, including lack of information and impulsivity. But once we establish this priority, we can expand quickly through existing education systems, social institutions such as sports clubs and religious organizations, and online programs that already focus on young people.

We need to understand the commercial and institutional arguments for prevention. Child sexual abuse poses a reputational risk to educational and other youth organizations as well as technology companies that can result in significant business liability. For insurance and technology companies, education and organizational customers with inadequate prevention measures represent a huge financial risk. So expanding also means creating a broader understanding that prevention must be an integral part of the cost of doing business with children.

We need to reduce stigma This stifles the voices of courageous survivors, discourages treatment providers from specializing in child sexual abuse, and undermines the political courage and ambition we need to support prevention through policy and funding, while continuing to stigmatize perpetrators himself.

Ironically and tragically, the public stigma and misunderstanding surrounding child sexual abuse exacerbate the problem. It represents a massive barrier for children and adults who are worried about their own sexual thoughts, feelings or behavior and need help with it not commit abuse.

We can’t look away

Child sexual abuse is one of the most difficult challenges facing our society, not least because it forces us to confront so many aspects of the human condition that are deeply uncomfortable. But we cannot afford to look away. Preventing sexual abuse is not a child’s responsibility. For this reason, we all share the responsibility to leave no stone unturned as we urgently mobilize a comprehensive prevention approach that addresses the root causes of child sexual abuse.

What opportunities do you see in your professional practice to prevent child sexual abuse and what do you need to get started? If you are not sure, Visit the Moore Center website for tips.