Children and young people who have been sexually abused sometimes disclose that abuse soon after the event or events occurred, or at least later during childhood. However, many children and young people do not tell anyone about the abuse until decades later, long after they reach adulthood. An unknown number, the ‘dark figure’, never tell...

Child sexual abuse is difficult to prosecute and has one of the highest attrition rates of all criminal offences. Part of the difficulty in prosecuting these cases is that offending is often hidden from public view, leaving only the complainants’ evidence to establish the defendants’ guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The ability of child sexual abuse...

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (the Royal Commission) contracted researchers from the Gendered Violence Research Network (GVRN) at UNSW Australia to provide a literature review on the support needs of specific population groups affected by institutional child sexual abuse. Two core questions were agreed with the Royal Commission to comprehensively...

The purpose of this review is to support the Royal Commission’s work in developing recommendations for both preventing institutional child sexual abuse and improving institutional responses to this type of abuse.

The ICPS Research to Practice Series links the findings of research undertaken by ICPS, to the development of policy and practice in the area of child, youth and family welfare. Issue 11 explores children and young people's conceptualisations of interpersonal safety, and what gives rise to these perceptions. This issue is based on the findings...