Prevention

Prevention programmes and the duty to report

School-based prevention programmes increase children’s knowledge and self-protection skills. A 2023 meta-analysis found moderate effects on knowledge measured by questionnaires and by vignettes (Lu, Barlow, Meinck, Walsh and Wu, 2023), and another, on school-based and other prevention programmes published between 2014 and 2021, found a large effect on knowledge, measured before and after the programme and without a comparison group (Ferragut et al., 2023). The Cochrane review found no increase in anxiety or fear among participants, but its data on disclosure were inconclusive and do not allow the conclusion that the programmes reduce abuse (Walsh et al., 2015). A review of economic evaluations of child sexual abuse prevention, mostly of programmes aimed at offenders, found scarce but growing evidence on its cost-effectiveness (Wanni Arachchige Dona et al., 2025).

Prevention depends on children and adolescents being able to tell and on the adults who listen taking action. According to the Amparo y Justicia study, in 2024 one in five cases of sexual offences against children and adolescents entering the system came from organisations with a duty to report, including schools and health centres (policy brief). A procedure that exposes those adults to being declared false reporters when the case does not end in a conviction works against that channel. Unreported abuse prolongs exposure: every report that is not made for fear of its consequences can leave a child or adolescent in contact with the perpetrator.