I have been on the board of one charity which focused on child sexual abuse, and another which tackled sexual abuse (not specific to children). I’ll share some thoughts based on child sexual abuse (CSA) because that’s the area I’m familiar with (even though I appreciate that the question is broader).
The TL;DR is that the area has caused a large scale of suffering; it’s hard to tackle, but I’m optimistic that there might be tractable options out there.
Prevalence: I’ve heard people mention CSA prevalence rates that are disturbingly high (e.g. %age rates in the teens or twenties or even higher). I found this surprising. There seems to be some evidence to support this (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3518746/ ) however this is not a universally held view (e.g. Radford (L) et al 2011 give a figure of 5%, although even “only” 5% is horrible).
How bad is it per person: Through some of my other volunteering I have encountered many people whose lives have been made dramatically worse because of their CSA, with sequelae including dramatically lowered self-esteem, deliberate self-harm, suicidal ideation/intent and major depressive disorder. In short, there can be grave life-long consequences. However that’s just the people I’ve encountered; how often do people survive relatively unscathed? (I know such people exist)
Tractability: Some factors will make it difficult to tackle this topic, including the fact that over 90% of sexually abused children were abused by someone they knew (again from Radford (L) et al 2011); this introduces complex family/social dynamics. Furthermore, it’s hard to identify those at elevated risk of perpetrating CSA. Past behaviour is hard to use a predictor because it’s disturbingly easy to perpetrate CSA and get away with it. Also, anywhere from one-fifth to two-thirds of sexual abuse is committed by other children and young people (source: Hackett, S (2014)). Educating potential victims (i.e. everyone) may be more fruitful, but I haven’t looked into this.
Neglectedness: The ratio of (annual spend on issue by larger charities) / (number of sufferers of issue) seems to be middling for child abuse (not specific to CSA); i.e. probably higher spend (i.e. less neglected) than international aid but less spend (more neglected) than more popular causes such as homelessness and veterans. Note that this is a very rough-and-ready calc
Happy to support/ be involved if anyone wants to look into this further
I have been on the board of one charity which focused on child sexual abuse, and another which tackled sexual abuse (not specific to children). I’ll share some thoughts based on child sexual abuse (CSA) because that’s the area I’m familiar with (even though I appreciate that the question is broader).
The TL;DR is that the area has caused a large scale of suffering; it’s hard to tackle, but I’m optimistic that there might be tractable options out there.
Prevalence: I’ve heard people mention CSA prevalence rates that are disturbingly high (e.g. %age rates in the teens or twenties or even higher). I found this surprising. There seems to be some evidence to support this (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3518746/ ) however this is not a universally held view (e.g. Radford (L) et al 2011 give a figure of 5%, although even “only” 5% is horrible).
How bad is it per person: Through some of my other volunteering I have encountered many people whose lives have been made dramatically worse because of their CSA, with sequelae including dramatically lowered self-esteem, deliberate self-harm, suicidal ideation/intent and major depressive disorder. In short, there can be grave life-long consequences. However that’s just the people I’ve encountered; how often do people survive relatively unscathed? (I know such people exist)
Tractability: Some factors will make it difficult to tackle this topic, including the fact that over 90% of sexually abused children were abused by someone they knew (again from Radford (L) et al 2011); this introduces complex family/social dynamics. Furthermore, it’s hard to identify those at elevated risk of perpetrating CSA. Past behaviour is hard to use a predictor because it’s disturbingly easy to perpetrate CSA and get away with it. Also, anywhere from one-fifth to two-thirds of sexual abuse is committed by other children and young people (source: Hackett, S (2014)). Educating potential victims (i.e. everyone) may be more fruitful, but I haven’t looked into this.
Neglectedness: The ratio of (annual spend on issue by larger charities) / (number of sufferers of issue) seems to be middling for child abuse (not specific to CSA); i.e. probably higher spend (i.e. less neglected) than international aid but less spend (more neglected) than more popular causes such as homelessness and veterans. Note that this is a very rough-and-ready calc
Happy to support/ be involved if anyone wants to look into this further