Title: Risk Factors | Sexual Assault | INSPQ
Headings: Risk Factors
Risk Factors
A word of caution on the interpretation of risk factors
Factors associated with an increased risk of being sexually abused during childhood (0-18 years of age)
References

Content: These characteristics may affect the parents’ ability to properly supervise their children. Family problems also seem to increase children’s vulnerability to sexual abuse by contributing to the presence of characteristics sought by perpetrators. 3
The community and societal factors identified as being associated with an increased risk that children and young people will be sexually abused show that sexual abuse is a social phenomenon that concerns the population as a whole. Identifying factors that are associated with an increased risk that children will experience sexual abuse helps to better plan preventive interventions in the area of sexual abuse by making it possible to target higher-risk groups and act on the risk factors concerned
Individual factors 4,5,6,7
Certain individual factors have been associated with an increased likelihood of being sexually abused as a child. The most consistently reported factors include: being female, being between the ages of 6 and 11 (for intrafamilial sexual abuse alone), being between the ages of 12 and 17 (for extrafamilial sexual abuse alone), having experienced physical or sexual abuse in the past, and having special needs (handicap, intellectual disability, chronic illness, mental health problems). Relationship/family factors 4,5,6,7,8
Certain relationship factors have been associated with an increased risk of being sexually abused as a child. The most consistently reported factors include: limited supervision by parents, use of drugs and alcohol by parents, having parents with mental health problems, and being in a family where the mother’s spouse is not the child’s biological father (i.e. a stepfather family). Community factors 9,10
Community factors associated with an increased likelihood of being sexually abused as a child have been studied to only a limited extent thus far.