- The best evidence of this comes from the 2023 Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS), which surveyed 8,500 Australians aged 16 and over.
- The ACMS found 28.5% of the national population has experienced sexual abuse before age 18 by any person (adult or adolescent).
- Reducing child sexual abuse is a major challenge for public health and gender equality.
- This means not everyone who experiences child sexual abuse has the same outcomes.
Who inflicts child sexual abuse?
Our analysis identified four different types of adult who inflict child sexual abuse:
We also identified four classes of perpetrators aged under 18:
This is important because while it is well understood that adults inflict child sexual abuse, discussions about its prevention often overlook that it is often inflicted by people aged under 18, and do not consider perpetration by specific groups.
Read more:
Major study reveals two-thirds of people who suffer childhood maltreatment suffer more than one kind
Child sexual abuse by adults
- Child sexual abuse by adults has always been and remains a major problem.
- The ACMS found a devastating 18.5% of all Australians aged 16 and over had experienced child sexual abuse by an adult.
- However, child sexual abuse by adults has declined, especially by parents/adult family members and institutional adults.
Child sexual abuse by adolescents
Worryingly, child sexual abuse by adolescents aged under 18 has increased in recent years. The ACMS found 18.2% of Australians aged 16-24 (nearly 1 in 5) experienced sexual abuse by an adolescent before age 18. The majority is inflicted against girls by:
male adolescents the victim knew, and who were not their current or former boyfriend
current or former boyfriends.
- These conditions have driven major initiatives such as Teach Us Consent and have galvanised other new approaches to reduce teen sexual violence.
- Read more:
There are reports some students are making sexual moaning noises at school.
From evidence to opportunity
- But this evidence provides an opportunity for those involved in its prevention and the community to reduce sexual violence in the next generation.
- However, increased child sexual abuse perpetration by males in this age group highlights a contemporary normalisation of sexual violence.
What more can be done?
- Educating children about their bodies, healthy relationships, consent, sex, empathy and gender equality instils key prosocial attributes required to reduce sexual violence.
- Governments also play a huge role in implementing preventive public health approaches.
- In a landmark advance, the Australian government recently committed to mandating consent education in the National Curriculum.
Shaping our future
- We must change the still too-common sense of entitlement to girls’ and women’s bodies.
- Instead, we must help boys and men develop more empathy and respect for girls and women.
Ben Mathews is the Lead Investigator of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS). The ACMS received research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, and additional funding and contributions were provided by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Social Services, the Australian Institute of Criminology. Chanel Contos is the founder of Teach Us Consent.
