What is Child Sexual Abuse?
Any sexual activity between an adult and a child is sexual abuse. Sexual abuse between children is often defined as when there is a significant age difference (usually 3 or more years) between the children, or if the children are very different developmentally or size-wise. Sexual abuse does not have to involve penetration, force, pain, or even touching. If an adult engages in any sexual behavior (looking, showing, or touching) with a child to meet the adult’s interest or sexual needs, it is sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse encompasses “contact” or “touching” and “non-contact” or “non-touching” actions.
Examples of abusive physical contact:
- Touching a child’s genitals or private parts for sexual purposes
- Making a child touch someone else’s genitals or play sexual games
- Putting objects or body parts (like fingers, tongue or penis) inside the vagina, in the mouth or in the anus of a child for sexual purposes
Examples of non-contact sexual abuse:
- Showing pornography to a child
- Deliberately exposing one’s genitals to a child
- Photographing a child in sexual poses
- Encouraging a child to watch or hear sexual acts
- Inappropriately watching a child undress or use the bathroom
Sexual Abuse Material
Additionally, there is a serious and growing problem of people making and downloading sexual images of children on the internet. Viewing sexually abusive images of children supports and encourages sexual abuse. Viewing images of child sexual abuse may cause someone to consider sexual interactions with children as acceptable. For many survivors of sexual abuse, it is a source of great anxiety and pain to know that images of their abuse continue to be distributed and consumed.
We know now more than ever, that direct family members and people who care for children are responsible for producing the greatest amount of online exploitation of children. Very often it is parents, babysitters, and even older siblings producing these images to share with intimate partners, people online, or through force or blackmail.
