The concerning rise of sexual abuse claims in the UK have made headline news for a number of years and the latest news comes a day before Dame Lowell Goddard become the third chairwoman to quit as head of an inquiry into historical child sex abuse.
Classic case of establishment diversion and obsfucation… looks like Dame Lowell #Goddard was getting too close to the truth perhaps?
— Billy (@blimeybilly) August 5, 2016
The survey showed that at least 11 percent of women and 3 percent of men, an average of 7 percent, said that they had experienced some type of sexual abuse as a child, according to research released by the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
The survey also found that 567,000 adult women aged between 16 and 59 and 102,000 men in the same age bracket suffered sexual assault by rape or penetration as minors.
The findings came after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) introduced new questions about childhood abuse in the survey for 2016, which was released on Thursday.
John Flatley from the ONS's crime statistics and analysis department said that the police in the UK have been dealing with a growing number of reports of child abuse in recent years.
"Many of these have been historical cases reported by adults many years after the event. These new ONS estimates, based on asking adults to recall abuse experienced during their childhood provide a more comprehensive picture than has previously been available," John Flatley said.
Women 3 x more likely than men to experience sexual assault by rape or penetration during childhood https://t.co/Ixl3TFHfhg
— John Flatley (@ONSJohnFlatley) August 4, 2016
In addition to the sexual abuse, 9 percent of adults said that they had suffered psychological abuse and 7 percent said they had endured physical abuse, whereas 8 percent said they had witnessed domestic violence or some type of abuse at home.
Only 8% of victims of child sex abuse told the police about it https://t.co/z4g8Dp6zMd
— John Flatley (@ONSJohnFlatley) August 4, 2016
Women were also more open to reporting abuse compared to men; the survey said that women were "significantly" more likely to report that they had been an abuse victim than men, the ONS report found.
While it found that 42% of victims suffered two or more forms of abuse, more than half of sex attack victims suffered no other form of abuse.
Those blamed for psychological or physical abuse were most likely to be the person's parents.
A further alarming result from the survey was that rape and penetration attack survivors said that the most likely attacker was a friend or acquaintance (30 percent) or other family member (26 percent).
Three in four victims also said they did not report what happened at the time. The most common reason given was "embarrassment or humiliation, or thinking that they would not be believed," the report found.
