Differing Risk Factors and Characteristics of Intrafamilial and Extrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse

• In Event: Victimization During Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

The purpose of my paper is to identify differences in risk factors like age and the presence of a stepparent and differences in the characteristics of intimacy and repetition in intrafamilial versus extrafamilial child sexual abuse.
The data I am using was collected in Finland through three separate surveys done in 2008 and 2013. This data includes demographic information on the victim as well as information on the child’s family. The portion of the data that deals with child sexual abuse looks at abusers who are at least 5 years older than their victim. The data does include what the abuser’s relationship was to the child and the abuse itself. I use logistic regression.
The results suggest that the younger a child is the more at risk they are for family sexual abuse. Reconstituted families and single parent families are particularly likely to increase the risk of sexual abuse in general and by family members. Abuse by outsiders is likely to involve more intimate sexual encounters than family abuse.
This knowledge gives us a greater understanding of who is at risk and what they are at risk of when looking at family and outsider child sexual abuse.

Author

• Sarah Henry, Pennsylvania State University