Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Preventing child sexual abuse is possible if we work together, Johns Hopkins researcher says

deseret.com · 6dShare

“Child sexual abuse is preventable, not inevitable.” That is the most important message Elizabeth J. Letourneau hopes people take away from her new book, “ One in Five: Why Child Sexual Abuse is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis and What We Can Do To Stop It .” Many believe “there’s nothing we can do about this,” she told the Deseret News. Letourneau is the director of MOORE , a research center in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her new book, co-written with journalist Luke Malone, draws on Letourneau’s 38 years of experience studying this social problem, which affects 1 in 5 children worldwide (including online exploitation). But Letourneau said “incorrect thinking” makes this crisis worse. “The public is deeply fatalistic about the prevention of child sexual abuse,” she said, with most seeing it as a “criminal justice problem” that has to be dealt with “after the fact.” Letourneau’s nearly four decades of research says otherwise. Risk factors are key In 2012, Step

First report: In child sexual abuse, focus on healing the survivor — thehindu.com, 8d