Chasing Hope for America’s Children: Discovering Ways to Prevent Child Sex Abuse. A Conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau, Director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.

In the third episode of our “Chasing Hope for America’s Children,” Warren Binford interviews groundbreaking researcher Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau, who has dedicated her career to identifying effective ways to prevent the sexual abuse of children. 

Learn more about Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau here: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/faculty/2594/elizabeth-j-letourneau. Watch her TEDMED talk at: https://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=620399. 

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;19;17
Unknown
You're listening to Radio Kempe. We value the sense of community that connects people and helps them find ways to move forward. Join us on our journey to prevent child abuse and neglect.

00;00;19;17 - 00;00;44;03
Unknown
Welcome and welcome back. This is Radio Kempe. I'm Warren Binford with the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado. Thank you to our listeners for joining us for the second episode in our newest series, Chasing Hope for America's Children. Today we will be interviewing Doctor Elizabeth Letourneau.

00;00;44;05 - 00;01;15;02
Unknown
Doctor Letourneau is the director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins University and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Over the last 30 years, Doctor Letourneau has established herself as a world leader in proving that child sexual abuse is preventable, not inevitable. She has established her leadership both through research on perpetrator prevention and the development, evaluation and implementation of policies and practices focused on ending the sexual abuse of children.

00;01;15;04 - 00;01;39;05
Unknown
Doctor Letourneau even secured a dedicated federal funding stream for researchers who aspire to advance our understanding of how to prevent child sexual abuse and can frequently be found on Capitol Hill, testifying before Congress and advising lawmakers on what we need to do to keep America's children safe from sexual abuse and exploitation. Welcome, Elizabeth, and thank you so much for joining us today.

00;01;39;07 - 00;02;07;12
Unknown
It is my absolute pleasure. Thank you. Warren. So can you tell us a little bit about your journey? How did you first become interested in the prevention of child sexual abuse? I'm happy to. It's, It goes back to graduate school. I was in graduate school. And, my doctor degree is in clinical psychology, and I was, working on a paper, you know, a term paper in a class.

00;02;07;12 - 00;02;29;28
Unknown
And I wanted to impress that particular, teacher of mine. And she assigned the paper topic, so I'd been assigned, the paper topic. Pedophilia. I didn't know anything about it. I did not go to graduate school to learn about it or to do anything in this space. But I really wanted her to, to believe that I belonged in this PhD program.

00;02;30;00 - 00;02;50;04
Unknown
So I worked hard on it, and it turned out her husband, she had assigned the topic because her husband worked with people who had committed sex crimes. And so she showed the paper to him, and he invited me to join his lab. And I enjoyed the work. And it's not a lot of people that work on the offending side of child sexual abuse.

00;02;50;04 - 00;03;13;17
Unknown
It's a relatively small community and they were a very, very welcoming community. So that's what kept me in in the space. Honestly. What was it that you enjoyed about it? You said that you enjoyed it. And generally when we think about child sexual abuse, we don't think about it as a topic that people enjoy working in it. So help us to understand what it was that you enjoyed about that work.

00;03;13;20 - 00;03;37;23
Unknown
Sure. And and of course, every instance of child sexual abuse is, is a tragedy. And I, deeply understand that, you know, from the experiences of people that I love. But it was such a joy. And, again, this close community of, clinicians and researchers working in the space who are who are just so encouraging and welcoming.

00;03;37;25 - 00;04;09;07
Unknown
And over the course of this career of mine, which now is 37 years long, I hear from people all the time who appreciate the work that we do, hear from survivors. I hear from people who feel that they are risk of offending and appreciate that we're we're developing, you know, prevention programs for them. I hear from law enforcement, all, all kinds of individuals who just really deeply appreciate the work that we do.

00;04;09;10 - 00;04;31;01
Unknown
It is difficult work, and it turns out to be the case that I can leave the hard parts in the office. Usually, it sometimes follows me home. This is a career where you you do end up crying, you know, on the job. That definitely happens. But I really wouldn't change a day of it. Early on, when I was still in grad school, my dad called me.

00;04;31;01 - 00;04;56;17
Unknown
I will, I'll share a quick story. And I have a I have younger siblings. I'm the oldest and, I have a brother who is ten years younger than I am, and my dad called because, there was this, young man who moved into the neighborhood to live with his mom. And this young man was, buying, ten and 11 and, and 12 year old boys, you know, expensive sneakers.

00;04;56;17 - 00;05;14;23
Unknown
And he was taking pictures of them with their shirts off. And my dad sensed correctly that something was wrong. And so he called me, and I was like, that guy is definitely grooming, my brother and his friends to sexually abuse him. And you need to you need to intervene immediately. And he did. He went over and talked to the guy's, mother.

00;05;14;23 - 00;05;49;11
Unknown
He was very explicit about what would happen to this man if he kept doing this. And, the man left, and move somewhere else. Which kept my brother safe. And I was really glad my dad called me. I was really glad he intervened, but it didn't keep other kids safe. Right? So, another reason that I stayed in this field is because we've got to move beyond, you know, calling the one person you know, who's in this space to having a national, plan for preventing child sexual abuse.

00;05;49;14 - 00;06;12;11
Unknown
So you said you've actually been in the field for 37 years? I didn't realize it. I thought it was, you know, like, two to 2 to 3 decades. But 37 years, you're going on almost 40 years in this in this field. How has your research changed and evolved over that period of time? Yeah, it's it has been a long time.

00;06;12;11 - 00;06;34;20
Unknown
And I am getting to be, a legitimate old lady, which, which beats the alternative, I started out, as I mentioned, as a in clinical psychology, I have a clinical psychology degree. And so I started out working on assessment and treatment of people who had already offended and in particular adults, because that's who, my mentor worked with.

00;06;34;22 - 00;07;00;07
Unknown
And that work was rewarding. But then I started doing research with, a center that focused on adolescents and pivoted to, working with kids and families, of kids who had, been adjudicated, for sexual offenses. And that work was, you know, more rewarding because working with kids is just at least for me.

00;07;00;10 - 00;07;29;13
Unknown
So even more rewarding them than working with adults and trying to find solutions for kids, knowing that they have their whole lives ahead of them. And that behavioral change is easier when you're working with kids and it is with adults. And so that went on for a while. And then I got really interested in policies and policies specifically around, US sex crime policy and doing research there, and eventually came to the Bloomberg School of Public Health, which you mentioned.

00;07;29;15 - 00;07;51;25
Unknown
I got here in 2011, and this is the land of public health and public health really focuses on preventing harm from occurring in the first place, rather than waiting for harm to occur. And, and that's when I really started focusing on, preventing, you know, true prevention, prevention before a child has experienced harm and before a child has caused harm.

00;07;51;25 - 00;08;18;05
Unknown
A lot of, sexual offenses against children are actually committed by children under the age of 18. And so this has been my focus for, the last 15 years or so. Elizabeth, we know that child sexual abuse has been around for thousands of years. I mean, in ancient Rome, man would be executed for raping a free child, but he could freely sexually abuse a child who was enslaved.

00;08;18;07 - 00;08;39;12
Unknown
And given how long child sex abuse has been evident in society and how prevalent it is today, you know, both in the U.S. and overseas, this is something that society really can prevent from happening. What have you learned from your research? Certainly we can prevent this. And it is, it is indisputable that child sexual abuse is preventable.

00;08;39;12 - 00;09;20;20
Unknown
And, these, these, these offenses go back probably to as long as we've had children and adults. The earliest legal code, written legal code that's been discovered is the Code of Hammurabi. And it lays out a bunch of offenses that lays out several offenses that would, be punished, were punishable offenses, and indeed it includes child sexual abuse among those, although early laws typically view child sexual abuse as wrong because it was damaging to the property of the man whose child it was and typically who's whose female child it was.

00;09;20;28 - 00;09;41;19
Unknown
So, in the course of legal, laws against child sexual abuse, we've really seen those transitioned from this is harmful to property, to this is harmful to children. And that's been a that's been a good, welcome evolution. But there's no question that the child sexual abuse is preventable. David Finkel here is a leader in this field.

00;09;41;19 - 00;10;15;23
Unknown
And in particular, he's he's led, on establishing the prevalence rates of child sexual abuse victimization. You know, how often does this happen and to whom and those rates, in person, victimization. So, you know, hands on types of offenses, have declined 60% or so from 1992 to today. So those in the United States and we've seen similar, reductions in other countries that have tracked, victimization over time.

00;10;15;26 - 00;10;47;01
Unknown
So, so we know that it can be prevented because we had these awful peaks of offending, that have gone way down. It's still too high. Again, a single case is one case, too many. And and, and we know that there are other areas where we're seeing increases, but we are seeing declines. Real declines. In, in child sexual abuse, for example, in the context of youth serving organizational settings in the United States, which is which is a welcome decline and, and elsewhere.

00;10;47;03 - 00;11;11;28
Unknown
So so there's just no question. I mean, this is a behavior that a person and acts against another person and we know we can prevent, for example, physical abuse and neglect, by focusing on people at risk of offending by focusing on, on, on young parents, for example, or parents with other other barriers that might make it difficult to, to appropriately parent without neglecting or physically abusing children.

00;11;11;28 - 00;11;42;07
Unknown
And so there's no reason why another type of child sexual abuse would be uniquely, preventable. Unfortunately, that's how many people view child sexual abuse as a as uniquely, preventable. So when you talk about youth serving organizations, are you talking about like churches and the Boy Scouts and USA gymnastics, some of those organizations that have captured the headlines for widespread child sexual abuse in their organizations?

00;11;42;10 - 00;12;27;16
Unknown
Yeah. One of the areas of research, that my center leads on in this work is led by my colleague, Doctor Luciano. Cindy Maiden is to look at, the victim of, say, victimization of of, children and child participants in, in youth serving organizational settings. And so these are there's the big six, so Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Big brothers, big sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, the why and for each and so she, led a program of research that she's still leading, that showed a 20% decline in the prevalence of child sexual abuse victimization of, people who participated as children in those big six recently, in the past two decades

00;12;27;16 - 00;12;50;18
Unknown
versus versus before then. And and we know that those organizations have really targeted, the prevention, preventing and addressing child sexual abuse, for for quite a while. I mean, Big Brothers Big Sisters started targeting this back in the, in the 80s. The Boy Scouts actually started in the late 80s. It's not been perfect.

00;12;50;20 - 00;13;14;22
Unknown
But we are seeing reductions. We we are also starting to see reductions, in important areas. So, we look not only at the prevalence of child sexual abuse, but we look at boundary violating behaviors which often precede child sexual abuse. So things like giving kids a gift or telling them secrets, or co-sleeping with them or bathing with them at camp or something.

00;13;14;24 - 00;13;44;09
Unknown
And so we saw reductions in the prevalence rates of victimization in those big six organizations. And we also saw reductions in several of the boundary violating behaviors that are typically, what organizations are targeting. So rules against co-sleeping or making sure there's multiple adults around or, or ensuring that adult child interactions can be observable and interruptible, are are some common strategies that these organizations have been implementing?

00;13;44;16 - 00;14;11;22
Unknown
Some for decades now. And so it's great to see those declines in boundaries, boundary violating behaviors. We did also document reductions in boundary violating behaviors in youth, participation in religious organizations, and youth participation in sports in the United States. Now, we didn't yet see reductions in the, significant, statistically significant reductions in prevalence rates in sports and religious settings.

00;14;11;22 - 00;14;41;04
Unknown
But we see these boundary violating reductions, and we believe that's going to translate into reductions in victimization and actual victimization. If we continue to to monitor this over time. And that's because, you know, in the United States, in particular, religious organizations, the Catholic Church in particular really started focusing on this just in the early 2000 after, you know, The Boston Globe exposures and sports really just started showing up, focusing on this.

00;14;41;12 - 00;15;08;22
Unknown
You know, in the in the 20 tens with Jerry Sandusky and then more recently with Larry Nassar. And so we think as time goes by and if they maintain their focus on preventing and addressing child sexual abuse, that we'll see reductions in actual in actual victimization and not only in these boundary boundary violating behaviors, however, where we actually seemed to see some increases was in educational K-Through-12 educational settings.

00;15;08;29 - 00;15;33;29
Unknown
So Louisiana, my colleague is leading a, a survey right now to get a better sense of what's happening there. And, we have some ideas about that, but but we are we are, continuing this work in educational settings as well. So to summarize, what I hear you saying is that you're seeing a reduction in the sexual abuse of children and youth serving organizations.

00;15;34;02 - 00;16;02;03
Unknown
You have not yet seen a reduction in sports organizations and religious organizations, but expect do because they're on a 20 year lag, it sounds like, from the youth serving organizations. And at the same time, you've seen an increase in school settings and are trying to understand that, is that an accurate summary of what you're seeing in the places where where kids go and where they're vulnerable to being hurt?

00;16;02;05 - 00;16;37;21
Unknown
That's exactly it. So what you've mentioned a couple of the policies that have been adopted by East serving organizations and churches. Are there are other highly effective policies and practices that can help prevent child sexual abuse, according to the research. There definitely are, in terms of practice there now. And just over the last 5 or 10 years, there has been an almost literal explosion in prevention programs and in the evaluation.

00;16;37;21 - 00;17;08;28
Unknown
Right? So the validation that the evaluation of these programs that are focused on people at risk of offending. And so we know that a lot of offending against kids is committed by kids. And there are now several well validated, or at least very promising, but also well validated prevention programs that are school based that show that you can prevent peer on peer sexual harassment, sexual violence, as well as, you know, physical violence and bullying, which we already knew.

00;17;09;00 - 00;17;35;28
Unknown
And, you know, we have a school based program that that targets not only, peer on peer, sexual violence, but also, the sexual abuse of younger children. And we're getting promising results from that program. So there are those kinds of programs that target kids that have got some strong evidence behind them. There also are programs that target adults at risk of offending that also have strong evidence behind them.

00;17;35;28 - 00;18;03;12
Unknown
There's an online prevention program called Prevent It that targets people on the dark web and also on the surface web who are seeking help, because they fear that they're at risk of or have already begun accessing child sexual abuse materials. And there are now three randomized controlled trial evaluations and randomized controlled trial valuations are the gold standard for establishing the effectiveness of drugs.

00;18;03;12 - 00;18;42;07
Unknown
You know, medical, drugs as well as, therapeutic interventions and prevention interventions. So there's three, three evaluations that show, that this prevented intervention for at risk adult men is effective at reducing the use of child sexual abuse materials and an increasing, self perceived control over these behaviors. So those are a couple of the things there's many, many other prevention programs that we're evaluating and strategies like helplines, particularly hotlines for kids who are calling in, with questions about questions and concerns about their own sexual thoughts, feelings or behaviors.

00;18;42;07 - 00;19;09;21
Unknown
So we're there's evaluations of these that are going on right now. And we're going to know a lot in just a year. We've talked a lot about different programs that have proved to be effective in preventing, perpetration. Are there common elements of of those programs that that are effective? What is it about those programs that do you believe works?

00;19;09;23 - 00;19;35;29
Unknown
Yeah, we are we're actually leading a program of research to evaluate seven different, prevention, strategies and programs. And we also are leading our research that's evaluating our own programs. So these are programs developed primarily by other, other, research teams. And we are certainly we're going to look for what are what are some what are some across the board conclusions we can draw.

00;19;36;02 - 00;19;59;21
Unknown
But we do know that in general and this is from prevention research in general. So kind of it doesn't matter what the focus is, but there's there's been enough prevention research, you know, that goes back many, many more years. And this research, which really kind of only goes back about, five years or so. But we do know the elements of effective, prevention programing in general.

00;19;59;21 - 00;20;26;18
Unknown
And those include things like targeting the right audiences. So, for example, school based prevention programing typically focuses on teaching kids to recognize, resist and report abuse, sexual abuse. So we call these the three R's recognize, resist and report. Know your boundaries. Know your own personal boundaries and so on. Those are often target very young kids, with information that's designed to kind of make them keep themselves safer.

00;20;26;20 - 00;20;53;23
Unknown
And while those programs can be helpful, they, they, they have not really been shown to reduce victimization. Young kids don't really have a lot of agency when it comes over to when it comes to keeping themselves safe. So I think programing that targets kids at an older age who might be at risk of causing harm, again, largely through ignorance or impulsivity or for any number of reasons, is going to you're going to get a bigger bang for your buck there.

00;20;53;23 - 00;21;24;19
Unknown
You're going to you're going to get more, a stronger prevention effect, size or effect in general. So targeting middle school kids, you know, who are right on the cusp of puberty and starting to engage in sexual behaviors with other kids, that's when you really want to target them with information and, and, and skills and tools and knowledge to, to make sure that they, they engage in this very complicated behavior, you know, intimacy with another person in a way that's not harmful to themselves or to anyone else.

00;21;24;21 - 00;21;50;25
Unknown
So targeting folks who, again, the online programs that target people who who are searching for child sexual abuse materials, that is a very important group that we need to be targeting because they're obviously about to or have already begun engaging in the abuse of children online. And it does look from the evidence, like they we can really intervene with them in ways that that prevents them from taking that next step.

00;21;50;27 - 00;22;17;17
Unknown
And, and and can be very helpful in keeping kids safe. So targeting the right populations at the right time, targeting them with interventions that, that make them feel, hopeful, that make them feel, you know, it does not it does not help. And it is not effective to have an intervention that's going to vilify the person you're trying to treat.

00;22;17;19 - 00;22;38;20
Unknown
You need to you need to have a clear you need to provide clear information on why child sexual abuse is harmful, why it it's never, ever tolerated. Why no one should be engaging in these behaviors. And also you need to, set the interventions up in a way that says you are not responsible for your feelings, but you are responsible for your behaviors.

00;22;38;26 - 00;23;09;00
Unknown
And we can help you keep those behaviors safe. So providing that hope and empathy and then clear effective strategies for, for then doing that for, for helping people keep themselves safe and keep others safe. Those are some of the strategies. And then there's just general barriers that you have to overcome. Like the great thing about the internet is you can provide services that are free, that are online and easily and easy to to access, that are anonymous, even, so that someone doesn't have to, disclose their own identity.

00;23;09;00 - 00;23;30;06
Unknown
And this is a very hard thing for people to do. People who have sexual attraction to children. Yeah. Certainly feel and are stigmatized in our and our maybe very embarrassed, people who are searching online, for child sexual abuse or maybe who haven't yet, but here they might be at risk to do their to do so because of their other online behaviors.

00;23;30;09 - 00;23;52;16
Unknown
You've got to set up a way that welcomes people in one place where we don't have, prevention programing that we know we need. It is with families, particularly blended families, where, unrelated biologically unrelated men are residing with children. Most blended families do just fine. But we know that that's a risk setting for child sexual abuse.

00;23;52;16 - 00;24;12;15
Unknown
And it's also a risk setting for child physical abuse, but for child sexual abuse. And so my colleague Doctor Michael Sito is and his colleagues are trying to develop a prevention program that's for families. But you can't call it that. Don't sexually abuse your stepdaughter program or no one will come to it. Right. You can't say, oh, blended families are this big risk factor.

00;24;12;15 - 00;24;46;08
Unknown
So you should come get this prevention training that is never going to work. And it should absolutely not be the way the prevention programing, is framed. It should be around healthy families, just like our school based program is responsible behavior. It's framed around responsible behavior. We need to to frame around, you know, healthy, successful families, healthy, caring, loving families, something along those lines that will draw people in and then give them the information they need in a way that they they can use it themselves and they can see themselves as needing this.

00;24;46;10 - 00;25;08;09
Unknown
So when, when when you have an adult male who is online, maybe searching for C Sam child sex abuse material, what we used to refer to and is still referred to in many laws as child pornography, and they see that there's a program that's available to them that can help them so that they don't continue to traffic in NC.

00;25;08;09 - 00;25;36;08
Unknown
Sam, or actually, you know, physically, sexually abuse a child, you know, what are the components in the program that help them to not, you know, commit those crimes to, well, there are light touch programs or strategies, and there are there are more, therapeutically, heavier. And in-depth programs. Light touch programs are really fascinating right now.

00;25;36;08 - 00;26;19;29
Unknown
We're just starting to get to, to, to understand, the scientific and the clinical impact of these. But I want to talk briefly about one. So our colleagues at Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which is in the UK, partnered with the Internet Watch Foundation and some, some researchers in at the University of Tasmania in Australia to look at what would happen if, when people started searching for child sexual abuse materials, they got, they got a warning message that was coupled with another message that's, you know, so the warning message is, hey, you know, you seem to be looking for something that's illegal and harmful to children and you can get in trouble for this.

00;26;20;01 - 00;26;43;14
Unknown
But coupled with a message, you can get help here if you're interested in learning more, here's a place to go get help. And what? And they they did this project. This particular project was done in partnership with Pornhub. Allo, is, is the company that owns for Pornhub or did I lose track? But it was for a long time known as Pornhub.

00;26;43;17 - 00;27;04;00
Unknown
And most people go to Pornhub to look for legal adult, sexual images and videos and whatnot. Pornography. But but that is where some people are at risk of, of then kind of sliding into looking for or sinking in to looking for child sexual abuse materials, maybe because they get bored with what they've seen with adults.

00;27;04;03 - 00;27;26;27
Unknown
And so so they ran this study, and 80% of the men who had started searching for child sexual abuse materials when they got this warning, plus to get help message when that's the thing that they got, they went back, they stopped searching for child sexual abuse materials and then went back to searching for legal adult pornography. So they didn't leave the Pornhub website.

00;27;27;00 - 00;27;48;26
Unknown
They just went back to searching for what was legal. So they needed a pretty short light touch. Of course correction, which is, I think, just mind boggling that that we might be able to deter people with something as simple as that. And then some people did engage with this very rudimentary chat bot to get some help.

00;27;48;26 - 00;28;06;16
Unknown
And it and, and it basically sent them to the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, site that that is there for, for people seeking help to, you know, you know, have been searching online for child sexual abuse material. And so a minority of folks who got the warning went to that site. But like I think it was over 1000 did.

00;28;06;16 - 00;28;35;25
Unknown
So it's still a large number, but most people just stopped doing it. And now some people certainly will have gotten us with Pornhub and gone on to the dark web to to continue the search. I'm not saying that this is a 100% effective intervention, and no intervention is really, but it's just so incredible to think that something as easy and inexpensive and universal as that, like you could apply that kind of logic universally to people searching online for for child sexual abuse materials.

00;28;35;27 - 00;29;00;18
Unknown
And you can deter so many of them. It, it bears repeating. We always say in science that you need to replicate the findings, but I think that's very exciting. The at the other end of the scale is, is a more treatment, focused intervention. And that's, that's what prevent it is prevent it blends an on site website that provides information with, with videos that are very encouraging and hopeful and again, clear about the harmful.

00;29;00;18 - 00;29;21;25
Unknown
And as a child sexual abuse and, with some therapeutic content contact. So it's got nine sessions. You meet with a therapist. I think it's I should know this. I think it's asynchronous. Which means not at the same time, but you have contact with a trained therapist. And so that intervention is, of course, more expensive, more intensive.

00;29;21;29 - 00;29;57;09
Unknown
The the train therapists all have master's degrees at this point. It's led by it was created by and led by, a colleague of mine, Christopher ROM. Doctor Christopher ROM. He's a psychiatrist at Karolinska University in Sweden. And he initially ran, randomized, controlled trial, of his intervention. And it looked like it worked. And then it has had two other randomized controlled trials that that show, you know, even increasing improvement in terms of reduced dropout and people making it through more of the sessions.

00;29;57;12 - 00;30;36;05
Unknown
And so that is a much, you know, it's a more expensive, intensive intervention, which of course, some people will need. So it runs the gamut from very light touch course correction to, a multi session therapeutic intervention. And do we know of therapeutic interventions that work and you know, having someone who is really not just curious but driven more driven and needs that, that heavier touch, intervention.

00;30;36;07 - 00;31;09;12
Unknown
I it's not a good phrase you're touching. I can't, I apologize, but you know that intensive intervention like, do we have therapeutic approaches that are supported by, by research and are shown to work? Yes, absolutely. So again, prevent it is the intervention that's got three randomized controlled trial evaluations that show that it works so that that shows significant reductions in the use of child sexual abuse materials, significant increases in, self-control over those behaviors.

00;31;09;14 - 00;31;41;29
Unknown
So that is one of the most well validated intervention right now. And it's it's still relatively new. I should note that the doctor, Rand Christopher, my colleague, has also run he also led one of the first ever, what's called a double blind, placebo, randomized, controlled trial evaluation, which is just a fancy way of saying a really well designed drug trial that looked at the impact of, medication for intense urges that really reduces, intense urge urges.

00;31;41;29 - 00;32;10;14
Unknown
And he ran that trial with, with men who identified as having, you know, strong, strong sexual attraction in children that was so strong, they were afraid they couldn't control it. And they showed again, several things in that particular study, but, significant reductions in arousal in general. So including to children, but also to adults, if they had attraction to adults, reduced risk of offending and the men just feeling much more in control and much more hopeful about their lives.

00;32;10;18 - 00;32;30;00
Unknown
And also those men drove hundreds of kilometers to get to this, to Karolinska Institute to get those meds. So, so some people, who we might think of as, you know, lost causes, people with sexual attraction to children, they are not lost causes. Many of them don't ever want to harm a child. And we can reach them.

00;32;30;00 - 00;32;50;18
Unknown
We can reach them with effective interventions. And I think we can reach them earlier. Than than we are with, with good, well crafted, you know, kind of interventions that are focused on young people. And that's what our center is really turning its attention to is how do we how do we address, young people at risk?

00;32;50;21 - 00;33;07;15
Unknown
But again, people with sexual attraction to children are not the only people who are against children. Many of them don't offend. Many people who do offend don't start out with strong sexual attraction to children. They again, they can be young teenagers who really just don't know the rules. They can be adults who are surrounded by children.

00;33;07;15 - 00;33;29;04
Unknown
So we see that, you know, teachers, among educators who have found it's really the only place where we see that, that, there's a, there's a, a larger percentage of women. They're not larger than men in terms of offending, but they're there there are women who offend, typically in the context of being surrounded, by children day in and day out.

00;33;29;04 - 00;33;53;04
Unknown
If you're an educator and you work with them all day. So educators, people, again, in those kind of basics, you know, youth serving organizations or other use of organizations who are surrounded by kids. Many of them want to work with kids. They are not sexually attracted to kids. And yet they they seem to drift into offending, perhaps because they are immature themselves.

00;33;53;04 - 00;34;17;17
Unknown
Immature themselves. Maybe they're they've got some mental health issues or substance use issues, or even financial issues. Anything that might make interacting with peers, uncomfortable. And, and so they start interacting with, with children as if those children were peers. So that's a, you know, when and again, I mentioned blended families. Again, not because men are seeking out women with kids in the age of their attraction.

00;34;17;17 - 00;34;56;12
Unknown
That can happen. But that if you're living with a, child within your unrelated, you just may be at risk of having sexual thoughts or feelings randomly about that child. One study that we and and we absolutely believe those people can be deterred from acting on those. I'll mention a study that that Michael and I collaborated on, where we looked at web traffic to a website that's run by Stop It Now, which is an organization in the United States, that's been around since the early 1990s, that was started by, by a survivor of child sexual abuse, but who wanted to focus on perpetration prevention.

00;34;56;15 - 00;35;21;27
Unknown
And they have a website that that is, you know, it's a web page, really, if you're it and you'll find it if you type in, you know, I'm a stepfather who's sexually attracted to my stepdaughter, I need help. I need help with sexual attraction to my stepdaughter. And this web page comes up and it offers a lot of, very, useful, concrete steps for, for dealing with that attraction and not ever acting on it.

00;35;21;29 - 00;35;51;09
Unknown
And we saw, an a very large increase in, in website traffic, you know, visits to that web page during Covid. And what they told us was that parents, some parents may experience sexual attraction to their child, that that is fleeting, and that they're able to manage in the course of the normal day where they go to work, their kid goes to school, you know, on weekends, you know, everyone's home, both parents are home, you know, the mom is home.

00;35;51;09 - 00;36;19;20
Unknown
And so, you know, they're able to manage those, those fleeting moments, but that when everyone is together, when when systems all get disrupted and you have all this uninterrupted time together, that might really set the stage for an increased risk. So whether it's a pandemic, whether it's a humanitarian situation where family families have been disrupted, maybe even something, and I don't know this, but maybe even something is moving, you know, from one city to another.

00;36;19;20 - 00;37;13;00
Unknown
And now you're all together more maybe the job hasn't started, maybe school hasn't started, and you don't know anyone else yet. But disruptions to family life, are another place where we might see people who could otherwise control these feelings. Have trouble with, so you mentioned, the triple validated program at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and I'm wondering if you, in the evaluations of that intervention program, if you were able to identify the secret sauce in that program, like, what is it about that program that makes it more effective at preventing child sex abuse perpetration then other, you know, going down to your local therapist and say, help me.

00;37;13;03 - 00;37;35;28
Unknown
You know, I'm I'm attracted to children, right? So definitely go to your local therapist and that's all you have access to. Because, they're there. You know, I think, there's not going to be one single thing that makes one intervention work for a certain population or even a certain person. There's we're always going to need, a lot of different interventions.

00;37;35;28 - 00;37;59;22
Unknown
But you want interventions that target known or suspected risk factors, right. So again, puberty is a risk factor for kids just because we don't give them a lot of information. And they're just suddenly swimming in hormones without a lot of information and not knowing what's appropriate or inappropriate. And of course kids are also now exposed online, to, to, sexually explicit content that is developmentally inappropriate for them.

00;37;59;24 - 00;38;20;05
Unknown
So there's all these risks for, for preventing and, you know, it might be worth talking to Christopher around himself and his colleagues who have been running these programs. But I would say it is, again, targeting the right group of people who are very much at risk. They identify that they're at risk, so they seek it out.

00;38;20;08 - 00;38;47;16
Unknown
They they are engaged. They, want to not to cause harm, which is the case of most people who are coming into therapy. But really looking at their risk factors, really looking at what, what places them at risk. Is it lots and lots of time online? Is it lots of time? Do you are you targeting other risk factors, like some people will use sexual behavior as self-soothing, right?

00;38;47;16 - 00;39;11;09
Unknown
To to manage stress and anxiety. So then we need other strategies which they provide for managing stress and anxiety. How do you how do you manage high risk situations where you might be around children, you know, avoid them? One but if you can't avoid them, what are other strategies that you can use? For example, is there an adult that you trust that you can talk to and say, listen, I can't be alone with kids.

00;39;11;12 - 00;39;37;03
Unknown
And so taking, you know, making very concrete steps, doable that really do address known risk factors or risk factors that we think that we strongly believe, place people at risk. Maybe alcohol is a risk factor for an individual, and I'm never and I'm definitely not saying that alcohol causes someone to sexually abuse a child, but if that's a risk factor for you, then you need to you need to know how to manage that.

00;39;37;03 - 00;40;04;04
Unknown
And so Christopher's intervention is based on cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. So cognitive behavioral therapy is targeting the thoughts and cognitions you might have. Like you might believe that it doesn't hurt a child to have sex with them. Right. Or it does is not going to hurt this child because this child's precocious that is a cognitive distortion. And it's an A it's obviously an offense supportive and abuse supportive distortion.

00;40;04;09 - 00;40;24;01
Unknown
We've got to get rid of those. We have to counter those effectively. So there are cognitive strategies. And then there's also behavioral strategies. As I mentioned. What are ways you can do to to reduce risk. Maybe it's staying offline for longer periods of time. Maybe it is, building a support group around you that knows your vulnerabilities, and can help you stay safe.

00;40;24;01 - 00;40;52;04
Unknown
Maybe it's avoiding kids as much as possible and so on. So it's a very practical. It's a very well proven therapeutic strategy in general. You know, we we use cognitive behavioral therapy for depression and anxiety. And and these are very effective individual focused interventions and in general. And so and Christopher has figured out how to really drill down these cognitive behavioral principles for this at risk population of, of of adult men.

00;40;52;04 - 00;41;20;11
Unknown
And and has and has plans to also, adapt it, for religious contexts, which is great. And also for for youth, who might be at higher risk because they have sexual attraction to children, which, which, which some kids do. I mentioned that these are individual level focused interventions and these are great, but what we really need are societal level policies because that's where you can get prevention at scale.

00;41;20;14 - 00;41;45;07
Unknown
Right. So what are the things we can do as a nation or as a multi multi nation group like the European Union or the UK. What can we do? What are policies we can do that reduce the likelihood of child sexual abuse. And there has been there's, there's, there are some positive signs there as well. If, if that's something that, that I can talk about for another minute.

00;41;45;10 - 00;42;17;00
Unknown
Yeah. No, I would love to hear how we can eliminate child sex abuse across the nation or throughout a, you know, a region or a continent or all around the world. So have you identified research that shows nationally, internationally, what policies and practices are effective in preventing the sexual abuse of our children? Yes. And and again, this is going to vary by country because there's different kind of risks at different countries.

00;42;17;00 - 00;42;42;25
Unknown
So countries with deep, deep, deep poverty, the Philippines, for example, families are at risk of exploiting their children because they get contacted, online by folks, for pictures of new children. And then that escalates to videos of children being sexually abused. And if it's between, doing that to your child or feeding your child. Right. That's a pretty difficult choice.

00;42;42;25 - 00;43;09;26
Unknown
And so we we need to both ensure, you know, so there need to be policies, you know, honestly policies improve poverty, reduce child sexual abuse. So that that is, one strategy because it reduces the risk of parents will engage in these behaviors, out of, out of absolute sheer desperation or send their children away, to so-called jobs where the it turns out to be, child sexual abuse through prostitution rings and so on.

00;43;09;26 - 00;43;36;04
Unknown
So, so, so different countries are going to have different, different risk factors. You know, there is some evidence that ensuring that girls get education through grade 12 reduces their risk for, future sexual abuse as well as for future, intimate partner violence. And so, equal education of boys and girls is really, really important.

00;43;36;06 - 00;43;59;14
Unknown
And probably also reduces likelihood of perpetration, although I don't think that's been looked at yet. In the States, you know, identifying kind of national level policies that might reduce child sexual abuse, there hasn't been a lot of work. We looked at my, my center and some colleagues of ours, in other parts of, of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, looked at the impact of Medicaid expansion.

00;43;59;14 - 00;44;19;19
Unknown
So what happens when you give more adults access to affordable health care? And we saw reductions in neglect of their children. We saw, trends for the reductions in physical abuse, but we did not see an impact on child sexual abuse in that we believe that's because, for the most part, parents are not the ones sexually abusing their own children.

00;44;19;22 - 00;44;47;04
Unknown
So, an intervention that impacts family finances and family physical and mental health by giving them access to low cost, health care can reduce neglect and physical abuse. But at least in the United States, it doesn't seem to impact child sexual abuse. One thing that might there's a very interesting study that was published out of, Wayne State University, and these are by folks that I don't know personally, but I love this study.

00;44;47;06 - 00;45;12;09
Unknown
They looked at, something called gender wage gap. So that's when a woman makes, much less than a man does in a partnership. So, so a married couple or a couple that's living together, there's a gap. If the woman makes a lot less than the man does, it's called a gender wage gap. And in, in, in couples where there was not a gender wage gap or it was small, there was less child sexual abuse.

00;45;12;12 - 00;45;47;16
Unknown
And their thinking was that women who have economic parity, who who make as much as their male partners, have more bargaining power over how they are treated themselves, but also how the children are treated in their family and, if they need to, they have the economic, choice to leave so they can depart. And so that effect was actually stronger in step families, in blended families of this gender wage gap or or rather, the, the, the erasure of this gender wage gap.

00;45;47;18 - 00;46;05;28
Unknown
And they think it's because if you are married to somebody who's not the father of your children and he seems to be about to or maybe has started engaging in sexual abuse of your children, and you leave, that man no longer has any access to the kids. He doesn't have parental rights. So that would explain why they saw a stronger effect for this.

00;46;06;00 - 00;46;24;28
Unknown
The absence of a gender wage gap in, in blended families than even in, families where both parents are biological parents. Because even if you leave the dad, could easily still have access to those kids. So there are some things that I think are very intriguing. But again, the caveat is we would need to see more research around that.

00;46;24;28 - 00;46;53;00
Unknown
That's one study that got published. Just, I think back in 2023. And we we want to see a lot more. Are there particular policies and practices that have been found to be clearly ineffective at preventing child sex abuse? There are I mentioned, but, you know, at the start of this conversation that the US public is and other publics as well, but the US public is is deeply fatalistic about preventing child sexual abuse.

00;46;53;00 - 00;47;19;23
Unknown
And when you're fatalistic about prevention, then you lean really hard into into punishment because it feels like it's the only thing you can do. And so in this country, in addition to appropriately, you know, detecting and, and, and holding offenders accountable, people who offend sexually against children accountable, by punishing them, we also subject them to what's called sex, sex offender registration.

00;47;19;23 - 00;47;42;23
Unknown
So when somebody comes out of prison, they can be put on a registry and then that and then the registries are public very often they're public. And those seem like reasonable responses to trying to figure out how do we keep somebody from offending, again, particularly if you believe that the risk of offending again, is 100%, that anyone who's once offended sexually gets a child will always offend sexually against a child.

00;47;42;29 - 00;48;05;08
Unknown
We know that recidivism rates are actually much, much lower than than than we used to think. In the US, there's strong evidence that adults who have offended sexually have about as less than a 10% chance of re-offending. We don't want any of those people to re-offend. But it's not 90%. It's 10% even even perhaps as little as 6%.

00;48;05;08 - 00;48;23;11
Unknown
Kids are even less likely to offend. So kids adjudicated for sex crimes, it's less than 3% are going to go on to ever have a new sex, new sex crime, charge or conviction. And so, well, but what we've done is, is we've we've convinced ourselves that anyone that's done this before is going to do it again.

00;48;23;11 - 00;48;52;21
Unknown
And so we put them on what's often a lifetime registry or very we put them on a sex offender registry for decades. And those don't reduce, sex crimes. So they don't they don't prevent them from happening in the first place. And they definitely don't have any impact on sex crime, recidivism rates. What they do do is make it virtually impossible for people on registries to integrate back into society as law abiding, you know, taxpaying citizens.

00;48;52;21 - 00;49;16;24
Unknown
So what registries do is it make it very hard for kids to stay in school? They make it hard for adults to go to college, to find and maintain jobs, to find and maintain housing and define and maintain pro-social relationships and education. Jobs, housing and pro-social relationships are the keys to successful reintegration for anybody coming out of prison.

00;49;16;24 - 00;49;52;10
Unknown
We know this, and now we have policies that instead of supporting those those goals of improving, you know, increased education, finding and maintaining good jobs and housing and good friends and family. Registration and notification put up barriers. In addition, because the registries are often public, it's easy to find people on them. And they're, we showed that, young people who are 12 to 18 and then also young people who are 18 to 21 who are on registries are five times more likely to attempt suicide.

00;49;52;13 - 00;50;18;03
Unknown
And then kids who are adjudicated for sex crimes, but who weren't put on registries, for for other reasons. So we matched groups of kids who committed similar sex crimes, similar age. And, and, and looked at what happens when you put kids on registries and young and very young adults on registries, 18 to 21 and they get so despondent and are so fearful, that they attempt suicide.

00;50;18;06 - 00;50;51;27
Unknown
And they're also more likely to be approached by adults for sex. So we actually when we put kids on registries, kids under the age of 18 on registries, which we deal with abandoned in some states, it increases the likelihood that they will be sexually assaulted by an adult. And this just absolutely. When we found this, I thought it would be the end of juvenile registration because I just couldn't see how anyone would ever argue for a policy that is designed to prevent child sexual abuse, but instead increases the risk of child sexual abuse.

00;50;51;29 - 00;51;29;22
Unknown
But then, unfortunately, that study finding just has not been enough to really, end this failed policy. It's expensive. It's it's absolutely a failed policy that that does not help children. It does not keep children safe from abuse, but in fact, it increases their risk of abuse and of other harmful outcomes. Like you know, attempting suicide. Okay. So I, I hear you saying that the the sex offender registries for both adults and children, are, are not effective.

00;51;29;24 - 00;51;56;01
Unknown
At the same time, you and I have been watching the last 8 or 9 years, as we've seen, a significant increase in youth offending in the United States. And we're seeing more and more kids who are sexually abusing other kids, often younger kids. You know what is causing this, Elizabeth? Is it the lockdowns? Is it the unlimited exposure to online pornography?

00;51;56;01 - 00;52;18;11
Unknown
And more importantly, what can we do about it? What is an effective strategy? I'm so glad you asked that because I, I, I hate to say registration notification don't work without saying what does work. Because you can't just pull something away. People want solutions. This feels, you know, registration, notification, feel like a solution. They're failed solutions. We've known this now for decades.

00;52;18;11 - 00;52;42;04
Unknown
There's there's loads and loads of science is just, I think, incontrovertible at this point. But things do work. So for kids who have offended, there are two really well validated treatment programs. One is called multi systemic therapy for problem sexual behavior, and the other is called cognitive behavior therapy for problem sexual behavior. So these are two, you know, different interventions.

00;52;42;04 - 00;53;07;19
Unknown
But they both have have got great evidence behind them. They're both clinically effective in terms of making it less likely that someone that a kid who has offended will offend again and also their cost effective. So by averting new crimes, you really have a lot of cost savings. So they make economic sense to really, it makes economic sense to really disseminate these, these, these well validated evidence based treatment programs.

00;53;07;21 - 00;53;31;10
Unknown
In addition, as I already mentioned, we know that prevention works. And so we've got school based prevention programs, which is excellent. Proof of, of evidence that they work. So we should be broadly disseminating what works. We should definitely be disseminating that with abandon in the same way that we disseminated registration notification before we knew it was, they didn't work.

00;53;31;12 - 00;53;55;09
Unknown
What's causing this increase? You know, we are seeing, some evidence of an increase, in, in, child sexual abuse that that is caused by other kids, as you said. That's absolutely true. We've seen that in the US. We've seen it in our own research. David Finkel, who I think is identified it and, colleague of mine, Ben Matthews, just did a wonderful, survey of the prevalence of child sexual abuse in Australia.

00;53;55;10 - 00;54;28;29
Unknown
And I also saw, decreases in similar places where we saw decreases, like you serving organizations, but increases with kids and. Yes, absolutely. This, you know, we absolutely believe that that this exposure to online sexual content with, you know, no or few filters, has been problematic. We've absolutely abdicated our responsibility as adults and as parents, in terms of just not requiring that there be systems in place and there can be technological solutions so that kids are not exposed, to nudity before they are developmentally ready for that.

00;54;28;29 - 00;54;55;00
Unknown
They're not exposed to, you know, being able to share naked images or, or have, these kinds of, experiences at a young age. So there are solutions for that, and we're starting to see them get implemented. Also, you know, we give kids access to the internet and before that, you know, to to anything without giving them much education around what is appropriate sexual behavior.

00;54;55;02 - 00;55;18;06
Unknown
What's an appropriately age partner. What are how what is consent? How do you get it? How you give it? How do you keep getting it? You know, in over the context of, of a relationship that might last, what are the laws, you know, in your area. And so we don't give kids this information often we shield kids, from information about sex and sexuality and sexual behavior.

00;55;18;11 - 00;55;38;21
Unknown
And this is a mistake. We know this is a mistake. And it's something we we have just really got got to get around. Kids are, you know, people are built to be sexual, really in utero, you know, and, and on. But it but but but, you know, it really, comes, it comes to a head, so to speak.

00;55;38;24 - 00;56;01;21
Unknown
During puberty, when kids are starting to engage in behaviors. These are very complex behaviors. Consent is, you know, very complex concept. And in the just an absence of of information and, and education, it's it's just a, it's a recipe for disaster. And that's, it's exactly what we're seeing. And so, you know, again most kids get through get through adolescence without engaging in inappropriate behaviors.

00;56;01;21 - 00;56;19;12
Unknown
And there's a lot of reasons why they might, and harmful behaviors. You know, how to say that they're only inappropriate, but they can be harmful. But we know that we can that we can prevent this. We can give kids the information they need. We can give parents and educators the information that they need to keep kids safe, to help kids stay safe.

00;56;19;14 - 00;56;43;05
Unknown
We don't have to wait for, you know, offending to happen and then put a kid on a lifetime registry or on a registry for 20 years because of something he did when he was, when he was a minor? We can do so much better than that. The course of our conversation, you've talked about, system in the Philippines that evolves into livestreaming.

00;56;43;08 - 00;57;13;23
Unknown
And of course, we have live streaming in the U.S. in other countries as well. You you've talked about, children being exposed to adult content online, you know, the unregulated access to, yeah, to to pornography and to you talked about the increase in, peer offending kids, offending other kids. And are there any other ways that, child sex abuse is changing in the 21st century?

00;57;13;23 - 00;57;35;12
Unknown
And do these changes require us to change our prevention efforts? Well, I think we have to get on top of adults, you know, reaching out to kids through social media, and more with more grooming activities. So you know, adults searching online for child sexual abuse materials is one type of harm, but there's another type of harm which is more direct content contact.

00;57;35;12 - 00;57;58;10
Unknown
And so we we need there to be more protections for kids against adults reaching out to them, via social media and also, training kids around appropriate behavior, in, you know, in their own social media usage. And we're starting to see again, some policies around that to try to that, that, you know, policies often can take a very blunt approach, as do laws.

00;57;58;10 - 00;58;39;03
Unknown
Right? So, you know, not allowing kids to have social media until they're 16 or older is a is a pretty blunt approach that a couple of countries are going to start experimenting with. But there's a there is another good research study, that shows that parents who talk with their kids about their online behavior, about where they go online, what they're doing online about social media, and talk with them in a way that is, open and and collaborative and teach them to, to, you know, kind of look for, red flag behaviors, red flag, behaviors that others might be engaging in and, and that and that convey to their kids.

00;58;39;03 - 00;59;05;15
Unknown
Listen, I'm here for you. I want to talk about this. And I'm open to talking with you about these issues that that kind of parenting is effective at reducing children's risks for online harm. What is not effective is this very, reactive kind of strategy where you tell your kid you're not allowed to go on these websites and you're not allowed to do these things, and I'm going to take your phone away if you do.

00;59;05;17 - 00;59;23;03
Unknown
And so what happens then is kids don't want to lose their phone or they don't want to get in trouble. And so if they do start experiencing online harms, they can't go to their parents because they've already broken the rules, perhaps by even being online at night or on a specific site, and they're going to get in trouble.

00;59;23;03 - 00;59;43;11
Unknown
And so those kids are at, significantly higher risk to experience harm because they can't go to their parents for help. So we we definitely need to be working with parents on what are what are effective strategies for both online behavior and again, also in-person behavior. What are what are our family expectations, expectations for how you're going to treat other people?

00;59;43;18 - 01;00;05;07
Unknown
When you become sexual and we need to help parents get much more comfortable with those kinds of conversations. But we've managed to secure millions of dollars for researchers who want to focus specifically on discovering how we can end child sexual abuse once and for all. What's the status of that funding in DC right now? Yeah, we were we were really excited.

01;00;05;07 - 01;00;24;29
Unknown
We we collaborated with a lobbying group and of course with, with with other with other groups that supported this effort to, to get a federal funding budget line, a budget line that was specific to child sexual abuse prevention research, because we knew we needed this research. We we don't have it. We didn't have it funded, really, hardly ever in the United States.

01;00;25;04 - 01;00;46;21
Unknown
Maybe just for a few years in the 1970s and early 80s. And so we, we advocated with, federal policymakers for funding that would go to the child, the, the center for Disease Control and Prevention and specifically, division within that, that center, within the CDC called the Division of Violence Prevention because these are prevention experts.

01;00;46;21 - 01;01;06;15
Unknown
And it's and they should be handling federal funding. And we want policymakers really, focused on prevention. And in 2020, we were successful. We we were able to get the line item approved. Congress approved it. We were very excited. Initially, it started out as $1 million. It went to the CDC, for child sexual abuse prevention research.

01;01;06;15 - 01;01;33;10
Unknown
And then we were able to grow that to $3 million in 2023. So in 2023, it was 3 million. In 2024, it was 3 million. In 2025 was it was 3 million altogether. And there's been somewhere between 12 and $15 million. That has been, appropriated, to the CDC to fund child sexual abuse prevention research. There is nine, clinical trials and other strong evaluation projects that are ongoing right now.

01;01;33;12 - 01;02;02;08
Unknown
And I don't know if it's because of an oversight. I can't imagine that this was on purpose. But the president's budget for fiscal year 2026 no longer includes this line item, so that funding is at risk of disappearing. Now, we're advocating with, with senators and with members of the House to put that funding back in. It is a it is the definition of a drop in the bucket of the federal budget.

01;02;02;11 - 01;02;28;16
Unknown
Eliminating $3 million is not going to balance the books. It is going to set us back decades. And we can't afford to lose this focus on children. You know this. We are fighting a fight. We're expecting children to fight a fight that they didn't sign up for and that they can't they can't win. We have to have evidence based solutions, and the only way we're going to get there is with dedicated funding for child sexual abuse prevention research.

01;02;28;16 - 01;02;52;18
Unknown
So we really need that money not only to come back into the budget, but to grow $3 million to prevent an issue that affects 1 in 5 children. 1 in 5 children will experience child sexual abuse, either in real life hands on or online before they reach the age of 18. And as we've been saying, much of that abuse is going to be at the hands of other children.

01;02;52;20 - 01;03;10;11
Unknown
We putting $3 million into that was never enough. But it was more than zero, and it was really starting to lead to a really strong program of research in this country. And we don't want to lose that program of research, and we don't want to lose sight of what the goal is. The goal is to go from 1 in 5 children to zero.

01;03;10;14 - 01;03;36;12
Unknown
We want no child. To experience child sexual abuse from our children, to grow up safe from this type of harm. I want to make sure that I heard you correctly. President Trump's budget eliminated the prevention. And the research on the prevention of child sexual abuse. But you think that was just an oversight? You don't think that was intentional and that hopefully they'll put it back in the budget?

01;03;36;12 - 01;03;58;25
Unknown
Is that right? Yes. I can't imagine that it was intentional. There was a senator who actually told me, you know, nobody nobody wants to be the person to end child sexual abuse prevention research. Right? So I just I can't imagine I know that, the first lady has a strong focus on cyber crimes, which, of course aligns aligns well with this area of research as well, is absolutely critical.

01;03;59;01 - 01;04;33;29
Unknown
So I think in the in the rush to, to, to create a smaller budget that this was sort of a, a casualty, not of intent, but perhaps a little bit of neglect. And we really, really hope, the Senate puts it back in the labor, HHS, HHS budget that they're that they're, trying to put together right now and that between the Senate and the House that they, they they resume this funding for fiscal year 2026 and increase it and continue it, until we no longer have any child sexual abuse.

01;04;34;01 - 01;04;58;08
Unknown
Before we close, Elizabeth, will you just tell me what gives you hope in the current landscape? Oh, so much. I mean, there is so much. Again, we've seen dramatic declines in child sexual abuse victimization. We know we have got evidence based prevention programs that focus on kids in schools, kids that might be at risk, adults who are at risk.

01;04;58;11 - 01;05;24;21
Unknown
The evidence is going to just, you know, double and triple and quadruple over the next year. Yeah, the next the next 24 months are going to be huge in this area. Hopefully we get that funding line back and we can keep this fund, this, research going in the states, but EU, Australia, the UK, these are countries that have absolutely committed, to driving down rates of child sexual abuse.

01;05;24;21 - 01;05;55;02
Unknown
And those governments are putting real money into this Australia in particular by my calculations, has put nearly $1 billion since 2012 into preventing and addressing child sexual abuse. And that is a model that we should all be looking at. The EU is on the cusp of establishing a center that will focus on, you know, prevention, healing and justice of prevention of harm, healing of survivors, justice for people who offend.

01;05;55;05 - 01;06;14;05
Unknown
Those are the three legs that we that we need. We can't we can't do anything without prevention. But we do need justice. And we do need absolutely all the supports that survivors deserve and need to lead to live, healthy, happy lives. So, you know, Australia has doubled down, the EU has doubled down, the UK is.

01;06;14;08 - 01;06;38;12
Unknown
America just took a step backwards. But again, I hope it was just an oversight and that we can, you know, put that funding back in. And as I said even increase it so that we are on par with our peer countries in terms of really addressing this. But I think the, the science that shows that we can we can prevent child sexual abuse, both perpetration and victimization is

01;06;38;23 - 01;06;39;12
Unknown
growing.

01;06;39;12 - 01;07;03;04
Unknown
And there are so many different ways, so many different places that we can intervene. This is what gives me hope that that there really is, and really can be an end to child sexual abuse. Thank you so much, Elizabeth Letourneau, for your discipline and your dedication in advancing research to end child sexual abuse. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us today.

01;07;03;06 - 01;07;09;21
Unknown
Please tune in again soon for our next episode here on Radio Kempe.

01;07;09;21 - 01;07;26;08
Unknown
Thank you for listening to Radio Kempe. Stay connected by visiting our website at kempecenter.org and follow us on social media.