Who are the Perpetrators of Child Sexual Abuse?

Who are the Perpetrators of Child Sexual Abuse?

Studies on who commits child sexual abuse vary in the findings, but the most common finding is that the majorities of sexual offenders are family members or are otherwise known to the child. Sexual abuse by strangers is not nearly as common as sexual abuse by family members. Research further shows that men perpetrate most instances of sexual abuse, but there are cases in which women are the offenders.

The key statistic that is so often overlooked and rarely discussed is that 95% of Child Abuse and Sexual Abuse are perpetrated by family members. 79% of perpetrators are parents. Other relatives accounted for 7% and unmarried partners of parents and “other” accounted for 4% and 5% of abuse.

Therefore, most of the perpetrators of child sexual abuse are from the family members of the child. Thus, if we want to decrease child abuse our efforts would be far more effective if we focused our attention on the family rather than the few sensationalized Internet-based incidents.

A great place for schools to put their efforts if they want to reduce the incidence of child and sexual abuse is in training their staffs to identify the warning signs. Although educators report more abuse than any other sector of society, incidents continue to be severely under-reported.