Neglect, online invasive exploitation, and childhood sexual abuse in Hong Kong: Breaking the links

Abstract

Background: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a form of maltreatment that involves a child in sexual activity that she or he cannot fully comprehend or is unable to give informed consent to. The empirical link between child neglect and contact child sexual abuse is well established but little research examines mediators that explain this link. Objective: This study tests online risk behaviors and unwanted sexual experiences online as sequential mediators of the neglect – CSA relationship. Participant and setting: The study uses a representative cross-sectional sample of 1097 Hong Kong adolescents. Methods: Preacher and Hayes' (2008) non-parametric bootstrap approach was used to test three mediation hypotheses. Results: Baseline logistic regression models showed neglected children had 11.2 times higher odds of reporting contact CSA (p < .001). Similarly, neglect was associated with 3.5 times higher odds of more online risk behavior (p < .001), which in turn was associated with 2.7 times higher odds of more online invasive exploitation (p < .001). Online invasive exploitation was associated with 2.7 times higher odds of reporting offline contact CSA (p < .001). The study found online risk behaviors to be a significant mediator of the relationship between neglect and online invasive exploitation (unwanted online sexual experiences). Online invasive exploitation, in turn, mediated the relationship between online risk behaviors and offline contact CSA. Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of intervening against neglect as it appears to play a vital role in the etiology of contact CSA in Hong Kong.