Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered achieving quality information and support for adult survivors of child sexual abuse.

It is a true pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I declare an interest as an ambassador for the National Counselling Society. Child sexual abuse in the UK is a public health crisis. The number of victims is simply staggering: 7% of people aged between 16 and 59 report being sexually abused as a child, which equates to more than 2 million survivors in England and Wales alone.

The all-party parliamentary group for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, which I chair, recently published the results of a six-month inquiry into the impact of abuse, and the support and information that survivors need to recover. Of the 365 survivors who responded, 90% said that their intimate relationships had been negatively affected by abuse, 89% said that their mental health was negatively affected, 72% said that it was damaging to their career, 65% said that their education was affected, and 46% said that it had a detrimental impact on their financial situation.

It is common, if not typical, for mental health conditions triggered by the trauma of childhood sexual abuse to have a detrimental impact on all aspects of a survivor’s life if left untreated. They can cause survivors to fall out of employment, which jeopardises their financial situation and puts a strain on their family life. Some survivors accrue substantial debts while trying to pay for private therapy after they have failed to access appropriate support on the NHS. Others struggle to find jobs in the career they want to pursue, because their education was severely disrupted as a result of missing education because of abuse. For many survivors, the trauma of abuse makes it difficult to develop close trusting relationships.

The APPG’s report recommends that the Government publish an assessment of the economic and social costs of child sexual abuse, as the Home Office has recently done for domestic abuse. Having that information will help policy makers and the public to understand the scale of the issue.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent point. Of course, we have all seen many sufferers of sexual violence live with that for years and years, unable to express it, until a sudden trigger point means that they can come forward and say what has happened. Will she review those trigger points, so we understand them and can encourage them? Can she also tell us what she would recommend to encourage people to come forward as early as possible to discuss such issues? The earlier they are discussed, the easier it will be for the person involved.

[Sarah Champion]

The hon. Gentleman makes profound points that go to the nub of the argument. If survivors had confidence that the system would support them, I genuinely believe that they would come forward earlier. Early intervention is key—having a few sessions where people are listened to and fundamentally believed, and can then continue with the rest of their lives.

What tends to happen, however, as the hon. Gentleman has alluded to, is that survivors do not have that trust, so it can take decades for them to come forward, if they ever do. As a result, the spectre hanging over them infiltrates every aspect of their life. A trigger can be anything—the same aftershave that their abuser was wearing or a feeling of being enclosed in a space—so unless we address the actual issues and recognise that these people are victims of crime, they will not be able to lead their full lives and reach the potential that we all deserve to achieve.