Celine,

the figures for the incidence of sexual abuse vary wildly. I have seen them much lower and even much higher than 1 in 4.

There are three reasons for the extreme variation:
(1) The definition for sexual abuse varies largely from study to study. If only intercourse or genital manipulation are counted the figures are low. In the extreme cases, even forced kisses of the kind "Now, be a good child and kiss your aunt Griselda goodbye" are counted and you come to figures close to 100 %.

(2) The populations from which the figures are gathered differ wildely. The lowest figures come from counting court cases, the highest come from self reports women self help groups.

(3) In some studies corrections for the figures gathered are introduced to account for 'it has happened but is forgotten now' cases. These corrections are very controversial, but when they are made the reported figures of incidence get higher.

If you don't know from which type of study the figures come, you are completely lost at interpretation. The last figures I have read in studies in peer reviewed journals involve genital manipulation or more and come to roughly 5 % incidence, that is 1 in 20. Even that is much too large a figure to shrug shoulders and declare it as a minority problem for that means about one child in each class.

Wolfgang