An Australian Recourse
on
Child Sexual Abuse
Information
Guide
For Australia

Missing Children in
Australia

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Of Health & Welfare

Australian Child
Protection Alliance

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Australia Protecting
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Survivors on the 'Net

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Petition State
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WORLD WIDE

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WHAT IS CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
RITUAL ABUSE
STATISTICS
REFERENCES
PREVENTION
EMAIL

WHAT IS CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

The 16th century England saw a legislation that began the process of protecting children from sexual abuse and for years now, we have been trying to come up with correct and precise definitions of what child sexual abuse is. The important thing to remember with the definitions of child sexual abuse is the acknowledgment of the limitations of children in giving true and educated consent.

As written by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 'Sexual abuse is an act which exposes a child to, or involves a child in, sexual processes beyond his or her understanding or contrary to accepted community standards'

Simply, child sexual abuse is when a child is used for sexual gratification by and adult. This may involve exposing a child to sexually explicit materials, taking images of a child for pornographic purposes, touching a child in any way sexual, having a child touch, fondle or have sex regardless if it is anal or vaginal penetration.

In 1995 it was recommended that the child sexual abuse be referred as 'child sexual assault.' Using this term was supposed the highlight the true nature of the offense to avoid minimization of the abusive acts and to force the abuse to be considered as a criminal assault. A Victorian Parliamentary Crime Prevention Committee
recommended this

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RITUAL ABUSE: THE 'NEW' SEXUAL ABUSE

In the 1980s reports of a new form of sexual abuse had surfaced, creating confusion and controversy.

Some believed that the majority of concerns were based on hype and hysteria. Saying that most satanic or occult activity is that of no crimes and the occults that do, are only active in relatively minor crimes

The possibility of ritual abuse has remained open with many professionals involved with the protection or welfare services. They believe in the existence of ritual abuse, regardless of the lack of knowledge, but some confusions remains to what actually constitutes this maltreatment.

It was defined that ritual abuse occurs in the some group activities that have a magical or supernatural implications and where these are repeated and are used to frighten and intimidate the children.

Three sub-types of ritual abuse has been suggested

1.True cult based, one component of the child's involvement in a
religious cult's activities
2.Pseudo-ritualistic, where sexual abuse is the primary aim and
activities are secondary;
3.Psychopathological ritualism, where mentally disturbed adults
employ distinctive rituals, while abusing their children.
ome have chosen to include ritual or satanic abuse with the more general category of organized abuse or multidimensional child sex ring. Law enforcement officers appear to favor the term multidimensional child sex ring as not all ritualistic activities are spiritually motivated.

What is common in the occurrence of ritual abuse has been a lack of physical evidence to validate charges of such maltreatment, affecting the publics trust in child protection services.

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STATISTICS

Child Protection Australia 1998-99 shows that while the number of child protection substantiations increased slightly in some States, the total number across Australia fell slightly compared with the previous year.

The rates of children, aged 0 to 16 years, who were the subject of a child protection substantiation ranged from 1.1 per 1,000 children in Tasmania to 6.3 per 1,000 in Victoria. Much of this variation reflects differences in child protection policy and practices across States and Territories.

As at 30 June 1999, 17,811 children were on care and protection orders in Australia. This is an increase on the number of children on care and protection orders at 30 June 1998. Overall, 3.8 per 1,000 children were on care and protection orders in Australia at 30 June 1999.

Of the 8,487 children admitted to care and protection orders across Australia during 1998-99, 42% were aged under 5 years, and 13% aged less than 1 year.

Report author, Helen Johnstone, said that there were 15,674 children in out-of-home care at 30 June 1999, of whom 88% were in home-based care.

'Indigenous children were over-represented among children in child protection substantiations, on care and protection orders and in out-of-home care,' Ms Johnstone said.

'In Western Australia and South Australia, Indigenous children were five times more likely than other Australian children to be the subject of a child protection substantiation.

'And in New South Wales, Indigenous children were 8 times more likely than other children to be on a care and protection order and 9 times more likely to be in out-of-home care.

'Many reasons have been put forward for this over-representation. Among them are poverty, unemployment, parental health problems, and a possible lack of adequate support services for Indigenous families.'

Canberra, 16 May 2000
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HELPING IN PREVENTION

Child sexual assault prevention programs target victimisation, sexually abusive behaviour and the changing of community attitudes which allow the sexual abuse of children to occur.
To encourage acknowledgement in society regarding the problem of child sexual abuse, community education has been undertaken in most countries. While media campaigns have attempted to enhance public awareness. Media presentations have helped to expose and reduce the secrecy surrounding child sexual abuse.

While the general public is aware of the child sexual assault problem it is believed that the public does not have a balanced view of this area and that there is a need for a community education campaign to improve people's knowledge.

It was suggested that the same tactics used in the successful campaigns to discourage drink/drunk driving and driving without seatbelts be used to illustrate consequences of child abuse, sexual, physical or mental. Also using it to confront and expose; the undesirable nature and behaviour of such perpetrators.

For the victims, the campaign would be directed at encouraging them to come out and speak about what has happened to them, representing a way forward as a means to combat child sexual assault.

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REFERENCES

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Page created by
Lavinia Collis
August 2000

nlcollis@senet.com.au