Do Children Lie About Sexual Abuse?

This interesting article was written for teachers to assist them in investigating allegations of sexual abuse. While it contains some helpful information including a “validity checklist” to assess children’s statements, I thought the best advice in the entire article was contained in one sentence:

“…education staff are not in a position to investigate possible abuse, and child protection procedures should always be followed when a child discloses abuse.”

I have been representing victims of sexual abuse for almost two decades. I have found that in most cases, persons in authority who were charged with “investigating” the allegations, simply did not take the allegations seriously, or worse, ignored or covered up the allegations.

It bears repeating that sexual abuse is a serious crime and ANY allegation of abuse must, by statute, be reported to the appropriate authorities.