(Elsevier, 2006) McCrann, Denis; Lalor, Kevin; Katabaro, Joviter K.
Child sexual abuse is a serious breach of basic human rights and is responsible for
numerous adverse sequelae (Roberts, O’Connor, Dunn, & Golding, 2004; Steel, Sanna,
Hammond, Whipple, & Cross 2004); its wide-spread presence in both developing and
developed countries is well documented (Finkelhor, 1994; Back, Jackson, Fitzgerald,
Shaffer, Salstrom, & Osman, 2003; McGee, Garavan, de Barra, Byrne & Conroy, 2003).
Gorey and Leslie (1997) reported a 22.3% prevalence rate of child sexual abuse among
women and 8.5% prevalence rate among men from an aggregate of 16 studies. A review
of about 30 studies of community and convenience samples found widely varying
estimates of the prevalence of child sexual abuse ranging from 3% to 30% for males and
from 6% to 62% for females (Fergusson & Mullen, 1999). Child sexual abuse appears to
be a universal phenomenon; wherever it has been sought out it has been found (Finkelhor,
1994). The latter study reported that most perpetrators were male and that one third of
sexual abuse was intra-familial.