5% of children have fallen victim to sexual violence
Study indicates parents fail to discuss potential dangers of sexual assault with their children: 25% of parents have yet to warn their children of trusting strangers while 40% say they have not forbade the disclosure of personal information over the internet
A worrying 2,500 complaints of sexual assault against minors under the age of 14 are filed every year – this according to a study presented by the Geocartography Institute on Monday at the annual Be'er Sheva Conference on Children's Well-Being held at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
The groundbreaking study, which polled 500 parents who constitute a representative sample of Israel's population, was based on a similar research project recently conducted in China.
According to the results presented at the conference, 5% of respondents said their children had fallen victim to sexual assault while an additional 8% refused to answer the question put to them.
Executive Director of the National Council for the Child Dr. Yitzhak Kadman said that the data indicates that the true number of children who have fallen victim to sexual violence over the past several years is likely close to 100,000.
"These are extremely difficult figures. We estimate that the true numbers are far higher than what was once assumed," said Dr. Kadman.
25% of parents believe children lie about sexual assault
The study also revealed that despite growing public awareness to the sexual abuse of children, a substantial number of parents choose not to discuss the potential dangers with their children and fail to teach them how best to respond to such a situation.
A quarter of respondents said they had not instructed their children not to go places with strangers or that others were forbidden from touching them intimately.
Over 40% of parents said they had never forbidden their children from disclosing personal information over the internet.
Some 80% of respondents said they had not installed internet monitoring or filtering software to protect children from adult content. However 72% of parents concurred that it was their responsibility to discuss the matter with their offspring rather than leave it to schools and professional service providers such as doctors, police officers and social workers.
The study also reveals widespread ignorance among parents regarding sexual assault. A quarter of respondents said that quite a few children make up instances of sexual violence against them while 16% said that if a child has indeed fallen victim – there will be physical evidence of the assault. 28% of parents said they believed women do not sexually abuse children.
Awareness of the subject was found to be directly connected to respondents' socio-economic status. Parents who reported low incomes or who identified as being ultra-Orthodox or new immigrants were likelier to be less informed.
