Child Sexual Abuse in Organizational Settings: A Research Framework to Advance Policy and Practice

Sexual Abuse ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 635-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Harris ◽  
Karen J. Terry
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
High Quality Research ◽  
Organizational Settings ◽  
Organizational Conditions ◽  
Viable Systems ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Institutional Settings

Recent decades have produced growing public attention to the problem of child sexual abuse (CSA) occurring within civic institutions, school settings, youth sports, religious institutions, and other youth-serving organizations. Often amid considerable media and public scrutiny, such institutions have been called upon to improve their responses to sexual abuse incidents, address underlying organizational conditions that may foster such incidents, and develop viable systems of early intervention and prevention. These system challenges, in turn, have produced growing demand for high-quality research that can refine our understanding of the correlates and dynamics of sexual abuse within institutional settings and can help identify the parameters of effective strategies and responses. This article introduces a special issue of Sexual Abuse featuring emerging scholarship focused on CSA within organizational settings and sets forth a framework for further advancing the base of knowledge in this vital area of policy and practice.

Child sexual abuse: A critical analysis of social workers' role in recognising and responding to it

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-33
Author(s):  
Gary Wade
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
It Services ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Critical Attention

The role of social workers in safeguarding and child protection has received much critical attention in recent years, in an evolving political and social arena, where policy and practice has shifted following both public outcry of serious case reviews and subsequent policy and practice changes concerning the profession and how it services the needs of the most vulnerable in society. This article seeks to critically examine the current methodology for identifying suspected child sexual abuse signs and indicators, the evolving spectrum of abuse, including critical evaluation of current perspectives on child sexual exploitation.

Sexual Abuse Within Employment Settings: A Comparison of Work-Related, Intra- and Extra-Familial Child Molesters

Sexual Abuse ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 524-542
Author(s):  
Diana M. Falkenbach ◽  
Antonia Foehse ◽  
Elizabeth Jeglic ◽  
Cynthia Calkins ◽  
Linsey Raymaekers
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Child Molesters ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Victim Selection ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Similarities And Differences

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a serious problem not only in the community but also in institutional settings such as youth-serving organizations, churches, and schools. Although research has started to examine the problem of abuse in institutional settings, there remains a dearth of information about the nature and context of CSA in different employment settings, including those that do not specifically cater to children. In addition, research on the similarities and differences between perpetrators who work with children and other sex offenders is scarce. As such, the present study compared offenders on variables relating to financial/employment lifestyle stability, risk/dangerousness level, abuse opportunity, and victim selection. Data revealed that child abusers who worked with children tended to be better educated, were less likely to be married, had fewer nonsexual convictions, and were more likely to abuse male post-pubescent children compared with intra- and extra-familial offenders who did not work with children. Implications for future research, prevention of CSA, and clinical practice are discussed.

Deconstruction of a taboo: press coverage of sexual violence against children in pedagogical institutions in Germany 1950–2013

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 973-991
Author(s):  
Arno Görgen ◽  
Heiner Fangerau
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Violence Against Children ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
The Media ◽  
Residential Educational

In 2010, Germany was shattered by a cluster of scandals concerning child sexual abuse in residential educational institutions. Previous attempts to broach the issue of child sexual abuse in institutions have repeatedly failed. This article investigates the historical preconditions that led to the immense awareness of child sexual abuse as raised by the media during this particular time. In order to create a holistic picture of the preconditions and awareness potential of the scandal, a database based on searching using a semantic field approach was created. The results were analyzed with respect to published discourses on child sexual abuse generally and in institutions in particular. Quantitatively, until the beginning of the 1990s, search results show a low but stable level of publication activity. This level increased strongly in the 1990s and, after a slight decrease in the new millennium, reached its peak in 2010. Qualitatively, the way violence against children in institutional settings was framed in the media coverage changed from emphasizing the motives of the perpetrator only (until the 1990s) to including more and more institutional and structural conditions that contribute to child sexual abuse.

Child sexual abuse in religious institutions: A comparative study based on sentences in Spain

2021 ◽  
pp. 147737082098883
Author(s):  
Josep M. Tamarit ◽  
Alazne Aizpitarte ◽  
Laura Arantegui
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Severe Form ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
High Exposure ◽  
Civil Compensation ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Psychological Harm

Child sexual abuse is a global problem that has several physical and psychological health implications for the victims. This study aimed to analyse the way criminal courts respond to allegations of child sexual abuse in religious institutions in Spain compared with cases of abuse committed in other institutional contexts. The sample is composed of 97 abusers from three institutional settings (religious institutions, educational centres, sports centres), responsible for a total of 335 child sexual abuse victims. Some of the results are similar to those found in other countries regarding the sex and age of the victims. There is a predominance of abuse involving bodily contact but without penetration, the abusers’ profiles are diverse, high exposure to minors was paramount as a risk factor, and there is a higher prevalence of diocesan priest abusers compared with members of religious orders. Significant differences were found between the three institutional groups (that is, religious, educational, and sports) in terms of penalties and civil compensation orders imposed on the abusers. The criminal courts consider sexual abuse committed by religious leaders to be a more severe form of the crime compared with abuse committed in other environments. Our study also revealed that several factors substantially influence the criminal courts’ response (for example, proven psychological harm, continuing crime, and the act of penetration), resulting in longer prison sentences and higher civil compensation. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.

scholarly journals Identity, Forgiveness and Power in the Management of Child Sexual Abuse by Personnel in Christian Institutions

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jodi Death
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Christian Institutions ◽  
Pastoral Power ◽  
Power Effect ◽  
Anglophone World

The ongoing crises of child sexual abuse by Christian institutions leaders across the Anglophone world continue to attract public attention and public inquiries. The pervasiveness of this issue lends credence to the argument that the prevailing ethos functioning within some Christian Institutions is one which exercises influence to repeatedly mismanage allegations of child sexual abuse by Church leaders. This work draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with 15 Personnel in Christian Institutions (PICIs) in Australia who were identified as being pro-active in their approach to addressing child sexual abuse by PICIs. From these data, themes of power and forgiveness are explored through a Foucaultian conceptualising of pastoral power and ‘truth’ construction. Forgiveness is viewed as a discourse which can have the power effect of either silencing or empowering victim/survivors. The study concludes that individual PICIs’ understandings of the role of power in their praxis influences outcomes from the deployment of forgiveness.

scholarly journals Public attitudes toward child sexual abuse in Serbia

Temida ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Nikola Petkovic ◽  
Mirjana Djordjevic ◽  
Vasilije Balos
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Abuse ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Five Dimensions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sexual Harrassment

Bringing public attention to the topic of sexual harrassment of children in Serbia during 2010 as well as the series of arrests of persons suspected of ?peadophilia?, encouraged authors to conduct a study which will analyze the public opinion about sexual child abuse. The study is conducted using a sample of 804 people in three comparative categories, laymans, professionals who work with potential victims and sexual abusers, and students of the Belgrade university. Besides assessing how well the persons in question are informed and assessing their concrete knowledge, the authors will evaluate standpoints in five dimensions questioning the perception of the term child, the term abuser and cause often abusing, stands regarding punative measures for sexual delinquents, stands regarding victimization of children with developmental disorders and finally the perception of the child regarding the abuse.

scholarly journals Trapped in a Maze: Arab Teachers in Israel Facing Child Sexual Abuse Among Their Pupils

2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052098327
Author(s):  
Laura I. Sigad ◽  
Dafna Tener
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Qualitative Thematic Analysis ◽  
Everyday Work ◽  
The Status

Cultural contexts are formative of and fundamental to how individuals understand, conceptualize, and act within a context of violence. Conceptually and methodologically, however, research from a culturally informed perspective on the experiences of teachers contending with the violence of child sexual abuse (CSA) in particular is broadly limited. As educators frequently confront cases of CSA in their everyday work, their ability to promote detection, disclosure intervention, and especially prevention gives them the potential to be agents of social change; however, while their responsibilities are critical, they are simultaneously members of their communities and cultures, and their interactions are bound by these dynamics. The purpose of the study is to analyze the experiences of Arab teachers in Israel who confront CSA in their everyday work. The findings are based on qualitative thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 female Arab teachers working within the Arab school system in Israel. Results indicate that when facing CSA, the teachers experience an ongoing conflict between their cultural and professional codes, trapping them in a maze of intertwining and oppositional demands. On the one hand, they are constrained by the norm of protecting the honor and maintaining the status and reputation of those involved, including themselves; on the other hand, as empathetic professionals, they desire to aid their pupils. While the participants do not accept the status quo, they are effectively at a loss as to how to change it. In order find a way out of their entrapment in coping with CSA among their pupils, the only currently available path is to act as a lone hero; there is, however, the potential to foster the development of a secondary culture within the school to inaugurate cultural change in coping with CSA. Implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed.

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