Study: Prevalence of UK child abuse ‘vastly underestimated’

The prevalence of child sexual abuse in England has been vastly underestimated after a major new study suggested only one in eight victims come to the attention of authorities.

Around 50,000 cases of sexual abuse were recorded by police and local authorities in the two years to March 2014, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner said.

But the true number of children abused in that time is thought to be as many as 450,000, meaning around 85% of sexually abused youngsters are not receiving vital intervention to keep them safe and overcome their experiences.

The majority of victims remain unidentified because services to protect them, including police and social services, rely on children to speak out, the report found.

It called for children as young as five to be given lessons at school to teach them about relationships and encourage them to discuss any concerns.

Simon Bailey, the national police lead for child protection and abuse, warned that the ease with which children can access pornography through technology was creating a generation who are “living out” what they see.

He said: “I have had cases whereby 12, 13-year-old boys are abusing four, five-year-old girls because what they have seen online they just thought was normal behaviour.”

Child sexual abuse is thought to cost the UK economy £3bn a year, the NSPCC said. Previous research has estimated that 1.3m children in England will have been a victim of “contact” child sexual abuse by the time they are 18.

The inquiry, carried out using data from every police force in England, focused on abuse in the family environment, which it said accounts for two-thirds of all child sexual abuse.

Abuse was most likely to occur at the age of nine, but victims often did not speak out for years, until they were adolescents.

Many did not recognise that they had been abused until they were older, and children did not speak out because of guilt and blaming themselves, fearing the person who abused them or the consequences of reporting it or loyalty to family members.

Other barriers included the shame of the abuse being discovered and the fear of family breakdown.

A quarter of the perpetrators of child sexual abuse were found to be children themselves, while 75% of the victims were girls.

Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, called for “urgent action” to prevent abuse, identify it early and provide better support for victims.