Resources
Reporting
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Contact your local law enforcement for emergencies.
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Call or text 1.800.4.A.CHILD (1.800.422.4453).
Professional crisis counselors are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in over 170 languages. All calls are confidential. Offers crisis intervention, information, and referrals to emergency, social service, and support resources.
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Call your local Child Welfare agency
Visit childwelfare.gov for a listing of phone numbers by state to call and report child abuse.
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Learning More
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National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC)
The leading nonprofit in providing information and tools to prevent and respond to sexual violence.
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Empowering adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse through awareness, education, and stigma reduction.
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Educating parents and youth professionals on how to make their communities “off limits” to child sexual assault.
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A nonprofit organization changing the way people think, talk, and respond to child sexual abuse. Provides accessible and engaging prevention material.
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Provides education and resources that help families raise sexually healthy children.
Statistics
An estimated:
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1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men suffer sexual abuse before the age of 18. Of those, 1 in 3 suffers abuse before the age of 12.
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3 in 10 perpetrators are family members, 6 in 10 are acquaintances, and just 1 in 10 are strangers.
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Only 4% to 8% of child sexual abuse reports are made-up, usually by adults in custody disputes.
Body Safety Rules
I am the boss of my body. I don’t have to give or receive hugs, kisses, tickles, or other touches if I don’t want to.
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I know where private parts are on the body and their proper names. I know we don’t touch, play, or look at each other’s private parts.
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I don’t keep secrets, not even fun ones like getting an extra cookie or staying up late. I especially don’t keep secrets about touching or private parts.
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I get to have privacy when bathing, changing, or using the bathroom.
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If someone breaks a body safety rule, I have a Safety Circle of adults that I can tell who will believe me and act.
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The only exceptions to my Body Safety Rules are health and safety–like getting sunscreen put on or a doctor examining me. But if anyone makes me feel uncomfortable, even if they tell me it’s for health or safety, I will tell someone in my Safety Circle.
Signs of Grooming
A person grooming a child may
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Find ways to spend time alone with a child, like too-good-to-be-true offers to babysit.
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Be a child’s friend and confidante by filling an emotional need, often excluding others.
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Regularly give gifts outside of usual gift-giving occasions.
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Ask the child to keep innocent-seeming secrets that may escalate over time.
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Touch the child excessively or touch the child’s private parts accidentally, like during tickling or roughhousing.
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Normalize sexual behavior, like making sexual comments to or about a child or leaving sexual imagery out.
Some signs of grooming may look like behaviors of safe adults who care about a child. However, if you see a combination of these signs or have a gut feeling that something is not right, act.
Signs of Child Sexual Abuse
Behavioral Signs
Increased fear, anxiety, or depression; acting-out without a clear cause; changing eating habits; nightmares; behavioral regressions like thumb sucking or bed-wetting; refusing to visit particular people.
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Sexual Signs
Sexualized play with dolls; advanced knowledge of sexual acts and language; sexualized play with other children; drawing sexual acts; excessive masturbation; and new words for genitals.
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Physical Signs
Unexplained stomach aches and headaches; and evidence of self-harm; (less common) bruising, bleeding, redness, and bumps around the mouth, genitals, or anus; urinary tract infections; sexually transmitted diseases; and abnormal discharge.
Sources
Statistics
"Child Sexual Abuse Statistics: Reporting Abuse | Darkness to Light." Accessed November 10, 2021. http://www.d2l.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Statistics_6_Reporting.pdf accessed 11/10/21
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“Children and Teens: Statistics | RAINN.” Accessed October 22, 2021. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens.
Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., Lewis, I. A., & Smith, C. (1990). Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors. Child Abuse & Neglect, 14, 19-28.
Pereda, Noemí, et al. "The international epidemiology of child sexual abuse: A continuation of Finkelhor (1994)." Child abuse & neglect 33.6 (2009): 331-342.
“The Criminal Justice System: Statistics | RAINN.” Accessed October 26, 2021. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system.
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Body Safety Rules
“Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse | RAINN.” Accessed October 27, 2021. https://www.rainn.org/articles/adult-survivors-child-sexual-abuse.
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Honig, Alice Sterling. “Psychosexual Development in Infants and Young Children: Implications for Caregivers.” Young Children, July 1999.
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National Child Traumatic Stress Network. (2010). It’s never your fault: The truth about sexual abuse. Los Angeles, CA, & Durham, NC: National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
Sandy K. Wurtele and Maureen C. Kenny. “Normative Sexuality Development in Childhood: Implications for Developmental Guidance and Prevention of Childhood Sexual Abuse.” Counseling and Human Development 43, no. 9 (May 2011).
"What You Should Know About Child Abuse: (For Children Ages 6–11) | National Center for Victims of Crime." Accessed October 27, 2021. https://www.ncjrs.gov/ovc_archives/reports/help_series/pdftxt/whatyoushouldknow6_11.pdf.
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Signs of Grooming
Budin, Lee Eric, and Charles Felzen Johnson. “Sex Abuse Prevention Programs: Offenders’ Attitudes about Their Efficacy.” Child Abuse & Neglect 13, no. 1 (January 1989): 77–87.
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Elliott, Michele, Kevin Browne, and Jennifer Kilcoyne. “Child Sexual Abuse Prevention: What Offenders Tell Us.” Child Abuse & Neglect 19, no. 5 (May 1995): 579–94.
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Craven, Samantha, Sarah Brown, and Elizabeth Gilchrist. “Sexual Grooming of Children: Review of Literature and Theoretical Considerations.” Journal of Sexual Aggression 12, no. 3 (November 2006): 287–99.
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Mcalinden, Anne-Marie. “‘Setting ’Em Up’: Personal, Familial and Institutional Grooming in the Sexual Abuse of Children.” Social & Legal Studies 15, no. 3 (September 2006): 339–62.
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Signs of Child Sexual Abuse
“ACF Hotlines and Helplines.” Accessed October 27, 2021. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/acf-hotlines-helplines.
Darkness to Light. “Identifying Child Sexual Abuse.” Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.d2l.org/get-help/identifying-abuse/.
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Jensen, Tine K. "The interpretation of signs of child sexual abuse." Culture & Psychology 11.4 (2005): 469-498.
“Tip Sheet: Warning Signs of Possible Sexual Abuse In A Child’s Behaviors | Stop It Now.” Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.stopitnow.org/ohc-content/warning-signs-possible-abuse.
“Warning Signs for Young Children | RAINN.” Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.rainn.org/articles/warning-signs-young-children.