Protecting children from harm: a critical assessment of child sexual abuse in the family network in England and priorities for action

This is the first report of the Children's Commissioner's inquiry into child sex abuse within the family and its network. Although child sex abuse is the subject of considerable public concern, abuse within families has been largely absent from the national conversation. This is despite the fact that the majority of victims are abused by someone within their family network, which has a particular impact on the victims themselves and the entire family structure. This report is a critical analysis of the scale and nature of this form of child sex abuse, bringing to light revealing statistics about the extent of abuse known to authorities and estimates of that which goes unreported.