The United Nations Children’s Fund defines child sexual abuse as the involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to, or for which the child is not developmentally prepared and cannot give consent, or that violates the laws or social taboos of society. It is estimated that at least 150 million girls and 73 million boys under the age of 18 years had experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence involving physical contact. Although child sexual abuse has serious consequences for many of the victims, the extent and nature of the impact vary considerably, and no symptom or disorder is found universally in every victim. One of the risk factors for CSA is broken or dysfunctional homes. Strategies targeted at stabilizing and making homes more conducive for child nurturing such as providing parenting skills education to parents, and available and accessible counseling services for troubled families can be employed to reduce the occurrence of CSA.
