D 05 - The Sexual Trauma Pandemic

It is a fact that the sexual trauma pandemic is progressing and, from a preventive and therapeutic point of view, is only receiving insufficient resources for dealing with and overcoming it. According to WHO figures, one in five women and one in thirteen men aged 17 or younger have been sexually abused worldwide. Thus, at least 250 million child/adolescent victims of sexual traumatization can be assumed worldwide.

The steps to be taken would be straightforward by conceptualizing a pandemic: They would have to concentrate on the causes, the transmission paths and the victims - in each case embedded in accompanying research.

Causation-related would be all measures that contribute to the goal that sexual traumatization does not occur in the first place, i.e. a potential offender does not commit an assault and does not use child sexual abuse images. This is done, for example, by making use of therapy offers, which consequently have to be easily accessible (including remote offers).

Concerning the transmission routes, the Internet needs to be focused: It provides the breeding ground for the viral spread of child sexual exploitation material. At the very least, effective containment measures for the spread of sexual traumatization on the Internet (e.g. regarding grooming, bullying and the use of abuse images) should be demanded.

Concerning dealing with the consequences, there is a need to expand therapeutic measures for victims of sexual traumatisation, which would have to be made available as low-threshold as possible (e.g. via remote treatment concepts).