Learn about child sexual abuse
Please be aware that this page gives information on child sexual abuse and may bring up emotions for some readers.
We encourage readers to take care while engaging with this content and seek support if needed. Support is available for anyone who needs it. Visit the 'Get support' page to find a service that suits you.
If you have concerns about the safety of a child or young person, you must report it. Visit the 'Make a report' page or visit the National Office for Child Safety’s website for more information.
Child sexual abuse is any act that exposes a child or young person to, or involves a child or young person in, sexual activities that:
- they do not understand
- they do not or cannot consent to
- are not accepted by the community or
- are unlawful.
Grooming is behaviours that manipulate and control a child, their family, kin and carers or other support networks, or organisations. The intent of manipulation to:
• gain access to the child
• obtain the child’s compliance
• maintain the child’s silence
• avoid discovery of sexual abuse.
Grooming can be done by people already well known to the child, including by a child’s family member, kin or carer. Grooming can take place in person and online and is often difficult to identify. Behaviours related to grooming are not necessarily explicitly sexual, directly abusive or criminal. They may only be recognised in hindsight. Some grooming behaviours are consistent with behaviours or activities in non‑abusive relationships. In these cases, the main difference between acceptable behaviours and grooming behaviours is the motivation behind them. Online child grooming refers to the process of establishing and building a relationship with a child through the use of the internet or other technologies to facilitate sexual contact with that child, either physically or online. Online grooming may include perpetrators encouraging victims to engage in sexual activity or to send the perpetrator sexually explicit material. It may lead to perpetrators meeting the victim in person or blackmailing the victim to self‑produce explicit materials. To evade detection in the grooming phase, perpetrators may also convince the victim to migrate to and from multiple online platforms, including those using encrypted technologies
Harmful sexual behaviours are behaviours displayed by children and young people that fall outside what may be considered developmentally typical or socially appropriate, and cause harm to themselves or others. When these behaviours involve others, they may include a lack of consent, reciprocity, mutuality, and may involve the use of coercion, shame, force, or a misuse of power. Harmful sexual behaviours evoke worry about the development and wellbeing of the child, young person, or others involved, and where they involve other children or young people, the behaviours may cause significant harm and may be experienced as abusive by other children and young people involved. Harmful sexual behaviours may include illegal behaviours that require a criminal justice response. Harmful sexual behaviours can occur in any setting, including in person and online.
Institutional child sexual abuse is abuse that occurs within, is enabled by or attributable to the premises, action, inaction, activities or operations of a government or non-government organisation and/or its employees/volunteers in the course of, or in connection with, their duties or on the premises by a third party (for instance another child). This may include child sexual abuse that has occurred on an organisation’s premises or at other locations where the operations of the organisation are taking place.
Sexual extortion, also referred to as sextortion, is a form of online blackmail where a perpetrator threatens to share a person’s personal sexual images or videos, unless they give into the perpetrator’s demands. These demands can be for money, more graphic content, or sexual favours in exchange for not sharing the personal sexual images or videos of the person.
For a full list of terms, definitions and key concepts go to Appendix 2 of Change for Children.
For more information about child sexual abuse, signs and indicators and information on who perpetrates child sexual abuse go to the National Office for Child Safety’s website. This includes useful information on how to respond to a child sexual abuse disclosure. More information can also be found in the Change for Children Strategy Companion Document, Understanding child sexual abuse: prevalence, risk factors and drivers.
You can also find more information about child sexual abuse on the Tell Someone website.