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Child Sexual Abuse

What is Child Sexual Abuse?
Facts About Child Sexual Abuse:

What is Child Sexual Abuse?

    Sexual abuse can be physical, verbal, or emotional, and includes: sexual touching and fondling, exposing children to adult sexual activity or pornographic movies and photographs, having children pose, undress, or perform in any sexual fashion on film or in person, "peeping" into bathrooms or bedrooms to spy on a child, rape or attempted rape.
    Child sexual abuse is the sexual exploitation of the child by an adult, adolescent, or older child. The sexual activity does not necessarily involve force; children are often bribed or verbally coerced into sexual acts. The difference in age and sexual knowledge between a child and older person makes informed consent to sexual activity impossible.

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Additional Facts on Child Sexual Abuse.
Facts are gathered from the NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
fact sheet.
  • Child sexual assault will affect a child in many ways. Within two years of the assault the child may experience fear, hostility, guilt, shame, depression, low self-esteem, poor self-image, physical and sleep complaints, sexual behavior disturbances, and poor social functioning.
  • 29% of all forcible rapes in America occurred when the victim was less than 11 years old.
  • Children are most commonly sexually abused by someone they know and trust. When these acts occur within the family, the sexual abuse is called incest. Since most children seek approval from adults, they are very vulnerable to abuse. They often do what is asked without questioning.
  • More than two-thirds of boys, who are sexually abused are abused by a man. Eighty-three percent of victims are under the age of 12; more than one-quarter are under the age of 6; 8% are abused by fathers or stepfathers.
  • Approximately one-third of all juvenile victims of sexual abuse cases are children younger than six years of age.
  • Children are often groomed for sexual assault. The grooming process includes building trust, bestowing favors, alienating others, demanding service, and violating boundaries.
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Women's Crisis Services is a Monadnock United Way Agency.
Women's Crisis Services of the Monadnock Region, 12 Court St. Keene, NH. 03431
Women's Crisis Services of the Monadnock Region, 47 Peterborough St. Suite B,
Jaffrey, NH. 03452
All graphics are the property of Women's Crisis Service's of the Monadnock Region, and New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, © Copyright 2002
Web site designed by Trudy Emmerick