Child sexual abuse

• Child sexual abuse can have short and medium-term negative effects on the health and wellbeing of the child or adolescent, including urinary and genital symptoms, reduced self-esteem, suicidal ideation, and lower levels of educational attainment.
• The experience of child sexual abuse can exert long-lasting effects on brain development, psychological and social functioning, self-esteem, mental health, personality, sleep, health risk behaviours such as substance use or self-harm, and life expectancy.
• Inappropriate responses to disclosure and management of trauma (including denial by others and institutions) can potentially re-traumatise people who have been abused.
• People who have been abused may struggle to find practitioners who have the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to work in an effective and respectful manner. There are currently not enough services that can provide effective care.
• Historically, child sexual abuse has been studied through the lens of the individual, whether that of the individual who has been abused or the individual who has perpetrated abuse. The cultural, religious and situational contexts that facilitate abuse have not yet been adequately researched or addressed.

The APS is committed to support efforts to prevent child sexual abuse. Preventing child sexual abuse is central to the APS mission, values and ethics and relevant to many areas of psychological research and practice. 

The APS has strongly argued for the rights of people who have been abused to access psychological care as part of redress. In 2016, the APS won a tender to undertake a number of activities which would support the implementation of the Commonwealth Redress Scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse which included the development and management of the Trauma Support Directory.

In 2013 the Australian Government established a Royal Commission to investigate how institutions with a responsibility for children have managed and responded to allegations and instances of child sexual abuse. The APS provided evidence at several public hearings and contributed a series of submissions to the Royal Commission.

In 2020, a Taskforce was established to progress this work, and specifically to make recommendations to the Board on how the APS can:

• Set and maintain the highest professional standards around the conduct of members in relation to child sexual abuse; 
• Best serve the community to prevent child sexual abuse and ensure that responses to those who have been abused and those who perpetrate child sexual abuse meet the highest professional standards. 

1. World Health Organisation (2006). Preventing child maltreatment: a guide to taking action and generating evidence. Written in collaboration with the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.