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Keywords

Child Sexual Abuse, Disclosure, Barriers

Abstract

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a worldwide issue leading to problems shortly following abuse and well into the victims’ lives. Specific barriers have been found to delay one’s disclosure of CSA. Common reasons for delayed CSA disclosure among recently abused children and adult survivors of CSA are the fear of not being believed and not having a trusted adult with whom they can disclose their CSA experience. Feelings of shame brought on by comments from the perpetrator were also common among those who delayed CSA disclosure. Action is needed to transition CSA disclosure from being an event into more of a lifelong process, and researchers are looking for new ways to better address the needs of CSA survivors.. These findings have implications for policy changes in educating children and adults on how to better respond to cases of CSA and shows the importance of further future research on this subject.

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