The first step in preventing child sexual abuse is understanding the true scope of the problem.
The Royal and its partner, the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, have received a significant grant from Human Dignity Foundation that will determine the scope of child sexual abuse perpetration on an international scale.
“We actually don’t have a very clear idea of the prevalence of child sexual abuse perpetration around the world,” says Dr. Michael Seto. “But we do know that it can have a devastating impact on health and wellbeing.”
Most of what is known about the prevalence of child sexual abuse is based on victim reports and criminal justice data, which don’t paint an accurate picture of the issue of child sexual abuse perpetration because of underreporting and because perpetrators can have multiple victims.
Seto is the director of the Forensic Mental Health Research Unit at the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research at The Royal. He’s co-principal investigator of the project, along with Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Greta Massetti, who leads the research team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This research program will partner with various international organizations including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the U.S., who have developed an international infrastructure to measure violence against children and youth through surveys called Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS). VACS are household surveys aimed at males and females between the ages of 13 to 24, and are administered in 24 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
The new funding from Human Dignity Foundation will expand the VACS to include a module about child sexual abuse perpetration. The findings will provide the evidence that is needed for governments and organizations to make decisions regarding education and prevention programs.
“Research on the behavior of people who have offended, but not been detected and on the behaviour of people who are at risk, but have not offended will provide essential, new insights to our prevention-focused research,” says Seto.
This work will span five years. According to Seto, by that time the team will have established high-quality methodology, gained a better sense of the perpetration prevalence rates of different forms of child sexual abuse – both online and offline – and they’ll have information for countries where “typically the data are very thin.” And having developed a surveillance model, they’ll know if rates are improving or not.
The new funding builds on a US $10.3 million grant from The Oak Foundation grant to identify, evaluate, and share information about new and existing child sexual abuse
perpetration prevention programs worldwide.
“Child sexual abuse is a very serious social and public health problem - one that is preventable, and requires our attention,” says Dr. Florence Dzierszinski, president of the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research at The Royal and vice-president of research at The Royal. “I'm encouraged major foundations such as Human Dignity Foundation are stepping up to fund these important initiatives. This work will result in real change that keeps children safe from sexual abuse and will have deep impact all around the world.”