[adrian_b]

I have no idea whether this statistic is true or not, but "nearly 1 in 10 children in the US will be sexually abused" is an incredibly high number.

I have no doubt that some cases of sexually abused children must have also existed in the environment where I have grown up as a child, in Europe, but I am quite certain that such cases could not have been significantly more than 1 per thousand children.

If the numbers would be really so high in USA, then something should definitely be done to change this, but spying on all people is certainly not the right solution.

[edmundsauto]

What makes you quite certain about your 1-1000 number? It’s really easy to mistake our experience for something generalizable.

[RealityVoid]

It's hard to say without data, but the number is so astonishingly high that, really, the first reaction is to call it into question.

It also seems to be the kind of thing that is hard to measure.

[edmundsauto]

I dunno, seems reasonable to me. Crimes of this nature are underreported, so I tend to assume I’m only aware of a very small percentage of these situations. I’m not saying you’re wrong - just that I had the reaction that it seemed within the general ballpark. For example, most of the apparently normal women I have known well have shared stories of abuse and trauma.

What makes you say it’s hard to measure? The definitions are pretty clear cut.

[tonyhb]

Of my female friends, I know at least 5 who are victims. Victims make up the majority of my closer female circle.

It is way more commonplace than you would like to think.