Protect your child from sexual abuse

Child sexual abuse is a crime.

It involves abuse of an unequal power relationship between a child and another person and is a betrayal of the child's trust.

For example when an adult, a bigger child or an older child involves a child in any sexual activity or sexual threat.

These acts can include:

• sexual touching
• penetration
• oral sex acts
• involvement with pornography
• taking sexualised photos of a child
• sexually explicit talk
• indecent exposure
• involving a child in prostitution
• female genital mutilation
• threats or bribes to keep a child silent.

Child sexual abuse can happen in families and communities of any income, culture or religion.

While abuse by strangers does happen, most sexual abuse is committed by someone a child knows and trusts.

There are things you can do to keep your child safe. It is important for your child to know when something is wrong and how to tell others about it.