Date: June 23, 2018
01) Victims of Sexual Abuse Face a Lifetime of Costly Problems
“Why are these costs so high? I don’t think most people realize just how many children and adults are victims of child sexual abuse. Based on federal reporting data, tens of thousands of children are exposed to child sexual abuse each year.
Children who experience sexual abuse are at increased risk for problems across their lifetimes, including mental health issues like PTSD and depression; chronic physical health problems like diabetes, heart disease and an increased risk for acquiring HIV, and social problems including involvement in crime. Girls exposed to child sexual abuse also have substantially lower lifetime earnings than girls not similarly exposed. These costs quickly add up.
For women (who composed 75 percent of the reported cases of child sexual abuse survivors we used for this study), we estimated an individual lifetime cost of approximately $283,000. Lifetime costs for men in the study were lower because the economic impact of child sexual abuse on male victims is sorely under-researched.”
02) One Year’s Losses for Child Sexual Abuse in U.S. Top $9 Billion, New Study Suggests
“A new study at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the annual economic impact of child sexual abuse in the U.S. is far-reaching and costly: In 2015, the total economic burden was approximately $9.3 billion and includes costs associated with health care, child welfare, special education, violence and crime, suicide and survivor productivity losses.
The study, published in the May 2018 edition of the journal Child Abuse and Neglect, used data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System to gather a full census of all child sexual abuse cases reported to child protective agencies across the U.S. In addition to estimating the 2015 annual cost, the researchers calculated the average lifetime cost per victim based on specific categories such as health care, child welfare, etc. These costs were tied to the incremental effects of child sexual abuse, over and above what the cost would be to someone who wasn’t a victim of child sexual abuse. All costs were estimated in U.S. dollars and adjusted to the reference year 2015 using the gross domestic product deflator.
The highest costs for women and men affected by child sexual abuse – more than $1,000,000 in estimated losses – were associated with the rare cases of fatal child sexual abuse. In 2015, the majority of child sexual abuse survivors were female, 75 percent versus 25 percent male survivors of 40,387 total cases reported in the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. Nonfatal child sexual abuse was associated with nearly $283,000 in costs over the lifetime of each female survivor. Lifetime costs for male survivors were lower, most likely because the economic impact of child sexual abuse on male survivors is underresearched.”
Of course…given the collectors and compilers of the data…this is guaranteed to be biased…and distorted…
Did they make any attempts at distinction, between children who were legitimately brutalized, and the happy kids who were merely snagged into the system, by dumb luck?…and as further consequence, have been forced into unnecessary expenses by the system?…
Of course…they’d never imagine forgetting the inclusion, of the potential “one million dollar lifetime earnings”, of children who’ve been murdered, or man-slaughtered by fatal injury…Though I’d argue, in this modern economy…using an antiquated standard like that, can only lead to gross over inflation of the total…
Your average child’s lifetime earning potential, is likely far below one million dollars…So much of the country [USA…as well as the UK] is living in poverty, incase anybody has failed to notice…The “recovery” has been a fraud. In this economy…children cannot even expect to earn half as much as their parents did.
It should also be noted, that these kinds of studies are notorious for collecting [and gratuitously piling on] all “negative symptoms” reported by “abuse victims”, without caring to take into consideration a myriad of other life experiences which might be the true cause.
“Sex abuse” [and “pedophiles”] end up being a convenient dumping ground, for this sort of blame…even when it is unwarranted.
This is the primary reason why I don’t like these kinds of studies.
They usually just take for granted, that “sexual touch before a certain age [regardless it’s nature], is a bottomless pit of ill consequences and trauma”…and then move forward from this grossly faulty starting point.
…That, alone, renders them little more than propaganda.
