About

Despite the high prevalence and potentially serious impacts, child sexual abuse remains a societally taboo topic and many people “flinch” from or avoid engaging with  it, which can affect survivors’ well-being. Contrary to the avoidance in the real-world, child sexual abuse is frequently depicted in fictional works – sometimes in a sensitive and survivor-centred way and sometimes in a sensationalised way. Although created for entertainment purposes, fictional works can also help to construct social understandings of complex issues, such as child sexual abuse. Therefore, it is important to study the potential role of fictional representations of child sexual abuse, to see, for example, whether they spread myths or foster empowerment for survivors.

As well as exploring how audiences respond to child sexual abuse fiction, the project aims to develop a guide for authors and directors on survivor-centred depictions, create a database of child sexual abuse fiction for victim-survivors, support professionals, and researchers, and produce teaching materials based on child sexual abuse fiction for schools. The project consists of two different strands.