CSA Centre Report 2026

The Centre for Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse have released their 2026 report on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse in the UK. It's looking at data from the last two years, comparing official statistics with reports from professionals who work directly with people who have experienced, or are experiencing, CSA. 

Unsurprisingly for anyone who knows anything about the subject matter, the report found that official statistics hugely underestimate the scale of the problem and that several important areas are currently being overlooked. 

This is an update on the 2021 report of the same name, and the situation is... not getting better. One of the things that gives me The Rage as a survivor of CSA trafficking is that people will hear my story and learn about the number of nets I slipped through, and then they'll say things like "Oh but that wouldn't happen nowadays, would it?" 

LIKE, YES, BITCH. IT WOULD.

This is a problem that requires a solution that involves ALL of us. And things are never going to change while people who don't want to think about it are sticking their fingers in their ears and humming away to themselves that everything's fine. 

How badly are things being underestimated?

Oh, pretty badly. For example: in 1/6 of cases of child neglect or abuse under investigation, the professionals involved are looking into the possibility of sexual abuse as part of what's happening. However, when researchers spoke to people who had been abused or neglected in childhood, they found that one third of cases had involved sexual abuse, a lot of which hadn't been picked up by the authorities. 

© CSA Centre 2026

The North-East of England saw the highest rates of child sexual abuse being identified by authorities; more than twice the rate in London, for example. 

Overall, more cases are at least being reported. However, they're taking much longer to be resolved, and one in five services are being shut down due to budget cuts. 

Let's see if Andy Burnham does anything differently; his promise to put more resources into the North could genuinely provide help to overlooked children who need it. Ultimately, what we really need is to prevent CSA from happening in the first place, but that won't be possible without huge societal change. 

We all love an iceberg infographic on the internet, and this one’s actually important rather than just a list of horror movies

Key takeaways

Child sexual abuse is becoming more common

...with at least 20% of girls and at least 10% of boys being sexually abused in England and Wales during their childhoods. Some of this may be attributed to increased reporting and decreased stigma, but some might also be due to the ease of online access which allows children to abuse each other in ways that historically were unavailable to them. 

At least 500,000 children experience in-person contact sexual abuse each year

...in other words, one or more abusers are physically in the same space as the child, making actual contact with the child's body in some way. This therefore doesn't include things like grooming and online-only abuse, in which children may be instructed to create abuse-based content of themselves which is then shared online. 

If your life’s more difficult to begin with, it’s more likely to get even worse

...children who grow up in poverty; whose parents are alcoholics or drug users; who have spent time in care; who are disabled in any way; or who are LGBT+ are more likely than others to be sexually abused. Because life just loves to kick you when you're down. 

And, as you'll know if you follow me anywhere else, once you've survived child abuse you're also more likely to end up with physical and mental health problems; in abusive relationships; or dying early than your non-abused peers. 

We need to talk about COCSA

Child-on-child sexual abuse, known by the acronym COCSA, is an important aspect to consider and one that is often overlooked. There are a couple of TikTok accounts run by COCSA survivors which have some really good info; I'll try to find those and add the links. 

It's a growing problem, like I mentioned above, given the availability of internet access. But it's also always been there, and always been overlooked or not taken seriously. At least one celebrity even admits to being a perpetrator of COCSA in her memoir, which received little attention from anyone who wasn't already aware of COCSA and its effects. 

Want more info?

You can read the report in its entirety here (English) or you can read an executive summary in Welsh here. You can also find a number of useful infographics here (which is where I got the images in this post from), and if you're a stats nerd, here are the official data trends.