When that which should not happen happens : A study on sexual abuse and its emotional effects in sport from a child's perspective

Sexual abuse is well known problem in society, but less in a sport context. Protection organizations and their work to prevent children from getting hurt in a physically manner as well as emotionally has developed to become increasingly more relevant since the research in the field has gone forward. Previous research has investigated who usually commits sexual actions against children and how the situations expresses itself. Since the research about sexual abuse in sports generally has been qualitatively oriented it has raised questions about a need to investigate the problem through a quantitative perspective by studying the extent. The purpose of this study has thereby been aiming at a sport context in a middle-sized city to investigate how widespread the experienced insecurity in relation to sexual abuse is. The method for the study was questionnaires to keep the respondents totally anonymous. Results showed that experiences of sexual abuse occurred within the researched group, where 7,14% stated experiences of sexual abuse in shape of caresses, degrading comments and invites through social media. Results also expressed the emotional effects the exposed ones felt in shape of anger, fear and a feeling of unfair treatment. The main conclusion of the study is that more actions is needed to prevent sexual abuse in sports since the victim quantities are not down on zero. For instance, more rigorous suitability checks of leaders for children groups. But also spreading the conventions of children’s rights