The aim of this research was determining the prevalence and characteristics of sexual victimization in a national sample of Chilean children and youth. We worked with secondary data of Encuesta Nacional de Polivictimización (2017). The sample was probabilistic and included 19,684 participants between 12 and 18 years (M = 14.7, SD = 1.59) from all regions of Chile. The participants answered an adapted version of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) to assess different forms of violence, however, for the present study only seven items related to sexual victimization were considered. The results show that 26.4% report at least one type of sexual victimization throughout lifetime and 16.7% report at least one sexual victimization during the last 12 months. Logistic regression analysis showed higher probability of sexual victimization in women, older adolescents, students from lower socioeconomic level schools and cities outside Santiago (capital). In addition, the probability was greater in migrants, in participants belonging to ethnic minorities and in those with some disability. These results are discussed the magnitude of this issue of child and adolescent sexual victimization and to promote generation of prevention strategies
Keywords:
sexual victimization, sexual abuse, prevalence, childhood, Chile
Pinto-Cortez, C., & Guerra, C. (2019). Child Sexual Victimization Among Chilean Children and Youth: Prevalence and Characteristics. Revista De Psicología, 28(2). https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-0581.2019.55658
Twitter