Child Sexual Abuse Website
Educate Yourself. Empower a Child!
Awareness of the Issue:
Child sexual abuse is a crime that affects a significant number of children in our communities every day. Statistically, about one in two females and one in three males will experience some form of sexual abuse or exploitation in their lifetime and about four in five of the victims will be under age 21 when the offences are first committed against them (Badgley Report, Volume 1, p. 193, 1984).
Children and youth are the most vulnerable to experiencing various forms of sexual abuse in their young lives due to their physical and emotional dependency on adults; their isolation from community supports; the existence of the myth that strangers mostly perpetrate sexual abuse; and most of all, their tendency to believe that sexual abuse when it happens is their own fault.
Sadly more often than not, these young survivors are left on their own to deal with these experiences and subsequent impacts for years.
CCASA realized that there was an information service delivery gap surrounding the issue of child sexual abuse, and saw the need to create a resource for those needing information and support. It was decided that a child sexual abuse safety and information support and resource website for children, adolescents, adults and educators would be the best resource to reach the largest number of people. We believe that education and information empowers individuals to take action in response to the crime of child sexual abuse and works to reduce the risk of this crime and its effects on victims and families.
Education on the Issue:
Although we believe that addressing child sexual abuse must be a community response and that educating children is part of this, we do not believe that children are responsible for stopping or preventing abuse.
We do believe that it is important to educate children on child sexual abuse just as they receive other safety information about other areas of concerns (ie) fire safety; staying home alone safety etc..) as it is important that they have the knowledge and tools to recognize abuse and tell an adult if something were to happen to them.
The Child Sexual Abuse website is under development updates are coming soon.
