Ireland has a "more serious problem" with child sexual abuse than either the rest of Europe or North America, a conference in Dublin was told yesterday.
Prof David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Centre at the University of New Hampshire, said the figures were particularly stark for boys and men.
He was speaking at a conference to mark the publication of a study which shows more than 40 per cent of women (42 per cent) and more than a quarter of men (28 per cent) here have been sexual abused or violated in their lifetime.
The Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland report, commissioned by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, also finds the most serious form of sexual violence - forced penetrative abuse - has been experienced by 10 per cent of women and three per cent of men.
The study was carried out by the Royal College of Surgeons and involved telephone interviews with over 3,000 randomly invited adults.
Some 71 per cent of those invited to take part did so.
Sexual abuse is defined as either contact or non-contact abuse. Non-contact abuse could involve forcing someone to view pornography or watch sexual acts.
Comparing the findings of the report with findings from similar studies across Europe and North America, Prof Finkelhor described them as "sobering and certainly concerning".
"The numbers do appear particularly high in Ireland." He compared child sexual abuse rates in the three areas and found that while 17 per cent of women in Europe had experienced sexual abuse as children and 29 per cent had in North America, some 30 per cent of Irish women said they had been sexually abused as children.
Among men, 5 per cent in Europe and 7 per cent in North America had experienced sexual abuse as children. In Ireland, however, 24 per cent of men were sexually abused as boys.
"The rates for men are 3½ times higher here than in North America, where the rates are relatively high," he said.
Though conceding he was not an expert on Irish society, Prof Finkelhor said his findings from North American studies on the factors which made young people more vulnerable to sexual abuse might help inquiries into why Ireland had such "particularly high" rates of child abuse.
Among the factors in a young person's environment which seemed to render them vulnerable, he said were alcohol misuse, the nature of their schooling, especially gender segregation, social isolation and an excess of men without a sexual partner in their immediate area.
Among the more disturbing findings of the report was the "very low level of willingness among people to report sexual assaults to the gardaí," said chairperson of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Ms Breda Allen.
Almost half (47 per cent) of those interviewed said they had never told anyone about the abuse before. Just 1 per cent of men and 7.8 per cent of women had disclosed the abuse to the Garda.
"The big reason is the legal system," said Ms Allen. "It is adversarial, switches the onus from the alleged perpetrator to the victim." The report recommends that a public awareness campaign be developed and that barriers to disclosure of sexual assaults and abuse be lifted.
The Fine Gael spokesman on Health, Mr Gay Mitchell, said the Oireachtas should examine the report and "see what the State should be doing to call to account those who have been involved in abuse".
