Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whether by asking or pressuring, or by other means), indecent exposure (of the genitals, female nipples, etc. ), child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, such as using a child to produce child pornography.Child sexual abuse can occur in a variety of settings, including home, school, or work (in places where child labor is common). Child marriage is one of the main forms of child sexual abuse; UNICEF has stated that child marriage "represents perhaps the most prevalent form of sexual abuse and exploitation of girls". The effects of child sexual abuse can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, propensity to further victimization in adulthood, and physical injury to the child, among other problems. Sexual abuse by a family member is a form of incest and can result in more serious and long-term psychological trauma, especially in the case of parental incest.The global prevalence of child sexual abuse has been estimated at 19.7% for females and 7.9% for males. Most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approximately 30% are relatives of the child, most often brothers, fathers, uncles, or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances, such as "friends" of the family, babysitters, or neighbors; strangers are the offenders in approximately 10% of child sexual abuse cases.
One notorious example is the Boston Globe coverage of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston for which the newspaper received a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. Another award-winning example is the Indianapolis Star coverage of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal in 2016. Media reporting can be very beneficial by giving survivors a voice and informing the public.Media reporting can also violate the rights of abuse survivors and disseminate misleading and harmful messages. Content analyses of news reporting have revealed several quality issues such as a focus on sensationalized individual cases (so-called episodic framing) and neglect of thematic framing in the sense of contextualizing individual cases and pointing to the systematic problems that enable child sexual abuse. When media reporting on child sexual abuse is investigated, usual methodological approaches are the media content analysis and the media quality analysis. Here it is important to not only analyze text but also documentary and stock photos commonly used in media that report about child sexual abuse. Research shows that myths and stereotypes about child sexual abuse are disseminated through text and images alike. Several checklists and guidelines for journalist have been published by violence prevention and journalism organizations to help improve the quality of news reporting on child sexual abuse. Future media content and media quality analyses will show if and how the quality of news reporting on child sexual abuse will be improving over time in different countries and across different media systems.