CEVAW Analysis

Child sexual abuse (CSA) affects over a quarter of Australians, yet many victim-survivors never disclose their experiences or do so decades later. Responses to disclosure strongly influence safety, wellbeing, and long-term healing. Disclosure is increasingly understood as a gradual, lifelong process shaped by personal, social and institutional factors. Improving professional and community responses requires a deeper understanding of victim-survivors' experiences.

Perpetrators are frequently offering children monetary resources to self-produce child sexual exploitation material (CSEM). There has been little exploration of how victim children make sense of this form of exploitation, which is frequently facilitated by technology.

This paper reports evaluation research of a pilot of Stop It Now! Australia, a child sexual abuse perpetration-prevention programme. While the service continues, this paper relates to a 13-month trial period between September 2022 and September 2023.