Child sex abuse at 'epidemic' levels

Child abuse therapy charity CARI said the results were 'very concerning' and said 'systemic intervention' was needed to deal with 'peer-on-peer abuse'.

Young adults are reporting higher incidents of child sexual abuse than older adults, according to CSO research.

Four out of ten 18-24-year-olds said they suffered sexual violence when they were a child, compared to between 27%-30% of adults aged 25 and 55.

Among younger adults who experienced ‘contact’ sexual violence as a child, almost three-quarters say the perpetrator was also a child.

Charity One in Four described the findings as “alarming” and said child sexual abuse was at “epidemic levels” and called on the Government to treat it as an “emergency”.

Child abuse therapy charity CARI said the results were “very concerning” and said “systemic intervention” was needed to deal with “peer-on-peer abuse”.

In a third release of its Sexual Violence Survey 2022, the CSO said more than a third of women and over a fifth of men experienced child sexual violence.

The rates are higher among young adults, people with a third-level qualification, adults with a disability as well as bisexuals and gay people.

While males accounted for around 90% of perpetrators overall, females accounted for around 20% of perpetrators among 18-24 years olds.

Experiences

The report says sexual violence comprises both ‘non-contact’ experiences and ‘contact’ experiences.

Non-contact experiences include being shown pornographic material, being asked to pose in a sexually suggestive manner for photographs, having someone expose themselves or someone masturbating in front of a child.

Contact experiences include sexual touching, unwanted sexual intercourse, unwanted attempted intercourse, or other attempted sexual contact.

Rates of sexual violence are higher among those with a third-level qualification compared to those with a primary education (33% v 14%), those with a disability compared to those that don’t (35% v 26%), and bisexual people compared to heterosexuals (58% v 28%).

Around 90% of perpetrators of childhood sexual violence were male.

A third of those aged 18-24 experienced ‘non-contact’ sexual violence as a child. It compared to around 20% across the ages of 25 to 64.

The ‘non-contact’ rate was 25% among women and 16% for men.

One area where female perpetrators were more common was among younger people – both in relation to non-contact and contact violence.

One-in-five of those aged 18-24 who experienced non-contact violence said the perpetrator was a female. The figure was 10% among 25-34-year-olds and 3% among 35-44 year-olds.

In cases of contact sexual violence and 18-24-year-olds, 22% of perpetrators were female. This reduced to 15% among 25-34-year-olds.

Back to non-contact violence, 69% of 18-24-year-old victims said the offender was a child — 62% an adolescent, and 7% a child aged up to 12.

In relation to gender, 49% of men said the perpetrator was a child, compared to 32% of women.

Regarding contact violence, one in five adults experienced it (26% of women v 12% of men).

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Among young people aged 18-24 who experienced contact sexual violence as a child, 73% reported that a child (under 18) was the perpetrator.

Women were three times more likely to experience unwanted sexual intercourse as a child than men (7% v 2%).

A quarter of women said they were aged nine or younger the first time contact sexual violence happened (18% of men).

CARI's Emer O'Neill said early and prompt intervention, and education, were key in working with children under 12 who display sexually harmful behaviour.

One in Four 01 662 4070; CARI 0818 924567