Children and young people with harmful sexual behaviours: Executive Summary (2014)

This is a contested area of policy and practice. The largely hidden nature of child sexual abuse makes recognition difficult; the stigma and shame associated with victimisation may lead to underreporting, making it difficult to accurately measure the true scale of the problem (Masson, 2001).

Nonetheless, official statistics and existing research suggest that children and young people account for about a quarter of all convictions against victims of all ages (Vizard, 2004) and a third of all sexual abuse coming to the attention of the professional system in the UK (Erooga and Masson, 2006).