A global perspective on child sexual abuse: meta-analysis of prevalence around the world

Child Maltreat. 2011 May;16(2):79-101. doi: 10.1177/1077559511403920. Epub 2011 Apr 21.

Abstract

Our comprehensive meta-analysis combined prevalence figures of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) reported in 217 publications published between 1980 and 2008, including 331 independent samples with a total of 9,911,748 participants. The overall estimated CSA prevalence was 127/1000 in self-report studies and 4/1000 in informant studies. Self-reported CSA was more common among female (180/1000) than among male participants (76/1000). Lowest rates for both girls (113/1000) and boys (41/1000) were found in Asia, and highest rates were found for girls in Australia (215/1000) and for boys in Africa (193/1000). The results of our meta-analysis confirm that CSA is a global problem of considerable extent, but also show that methodological issues drastically influence the self-reported prevalence of CSA.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Meta-Analysis
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Age Factors
  • Bias
  • Child
  • Child Abuse, Sexual / statistics & numerical data*
  • Child, Preschool
  • Cross-Cultural Comparison*
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Data Collection / statistics & numerical data
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Incidence
  • Infant
  • Male
  • Sample Size
  • Self Disclosure
  • Sex Factors