Advances in child sexual maltreatment epidemiology - Testing hypotheses on international variation

It is becoming increasingly clear that there are important cross-national variations in the prevalence of child sexual abuse. A key research challenge is to find ways to develop and test hypotheses to account for these... [ view full abstract ]

It is becoming increasingly clear that there are important cross-national variations in the prevalence of child sexual abuse. A key research challenge is to find ways to develop and test hypotheses to account for these differences. This presentation suggests a conceptual framework for organizing the hypotheses and variables to be included in prevalence surveys. The conceptual framework uses the 4 Preconditions model to locate variables relevant to cross-national variation in categories like “children’s ability to protect themselves” or “external inhibitors”, i.e. the degree to which children are supervised or “internal inhibitors”, i.e. the degree to which potential abusers are restrained by taboos and fear of detection. The presentation suggests the addition of some key variable to national survey projects to test these hypotheses as well as the hypothesis that the differences are due to reluctance to disclose. Specific questions should be added about failure to make full disclosure in the questionnaire as well as a measure about shameful feelings about sexual abuse in general. Questions should also be added about such variables as children’s supervision, men’s sexual entitlement, victim blaming attitudes, and the dating social activity practices of teens. An example will be given about the analysis of sexual abuse prevalence patterns in China in efforts to test various hypotheses.