who are the victims?
- One in three girls are sexually abused before the age of 18.
- One in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18.
- One in five youth received a sexual approach or solicitation over the Internet in the past year.
- The average age for first abuse is 9.9 years for bots and 9.6 years for girls.
- Abuse typically occurs within a long-term, on-going relationship between the offender and victim, escalates over time and lasts an average of four years.
- Many child sexual abuse victims never disclose their abuse to anyone. Less than 10% of child sexual abuse is reported to the police.
- Children are most vulnerable between ages 8-12.
- 29% of all forcible rapes occurred when the victim was under 11 years old.
- 15% of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age of 12.
- 44% of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age of 18.
- Children with disabilities are 4 to 10 times more vulnerable to sexual abuse than their non-disabled peers.
- Nearly 30% of child sexual assault victims identified by child protective services were between 4 and 7 years of age.
- 93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker, 34.2% of attackers were family members and 58% were acquaintances and only 7% of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim.
- Nearly 50% of all the victims of forcible sodomy,sexual assault with an object, and forcible fondling are children under the age of 12.
- 60% of girls who had sex before the age of 15 were coerced by males averaging 6 years their senior.
- Women who experienced sexual abuse as a child are 2 to 3 times more likely to be sexually assaulted later in life.
- Like rape, child molestation is one of the most under reported crimes: only 1-10% are ever disclosed.
- Fabricated sexual abuse reports constitute only 1% to 4% of all reported cases. Of these reports 75% are reported by adults. Children fabricate sexual abuse less than 1% of the time.
- It is estimated that there are 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in America today.