According to a 2024 CDC report, at least one in four girls and one in twenty boys in the United States experience child sexual abuse, leading this traumatic experience to have long-term consequences. This remains a widespread issue both in the United States and globally. The National Children’s Alliance reports that 1 billion children globally are estimated to experience sexual violence.
Sexual abuse within religious institutions is a complex issue that goes beyond individual cases to expose patterns of systemic failure, denial, and institutional betrayal. Survivors often face not only the trauma of abuse but also the added wounds of being silenced, dismissed or gaslit by the very institutions meant to protect them.
This conversation explores the roots of institutional cover-ups, the long-term psychological impacts on survivors, and what accountability and prevention should look like in faith-based communities. Cultural factors, power dynamics and inadequate systems have allowed abuse to persist and what must change to rebuild trust and ensure safety for future generations.
Dr. Elizabeth L. Jeglic specializes in sexual violence prevention, sexual grooming, child sexual abuse and sexual assault. Dr. Jeglic is a licensed clinical psychologist and Professor in the Psychology Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.
Dr. Jeglic has served as an expert witness in different civil, criminal and military court-martial cases involving child sexual abuse, sexual grooming and sexual assault, along with historical cases of sexual abuse and institutional responsability for sexual violence prevention. Dr. Jeglic is the author of the books Protecting your Child from Sexual Abuse, Sexual Grooming and Sexual Violence: Evidence Based Policy and Prevention. She has published over 180 books, articles and book chapters and is on the Editorial Board of the Journal Sexual Abuse.
The Q&A has been edited for clarity.
Interview highlights
Maria: Dr. Jeglic, here are clearly so many ways to be held accountable, but what do you think people expect when it comes to accountability in religious institutions?
Dr. Jeglic: Broadly speaking, accountability is that sense of some acknowledgment and some consequences for a behavior. So when we talk about institutional sexual abuse, I think, the acknowledgement that it has happened, that it has caused harms and that those who have experienced the harms, somehow received some sort of peace. Whatever that peace might be, it could be some apologies for some, others are alright with the acknowledgement of the situation. For others that might be financial compensation, etc.
However, the most important thing is going forward, that we recognize where those mistakes were made and how we can improve it for kids in the future so that nobody else has to go through situations of abuse.
Maria: How is accountability perceived by the victims of sexual abuse?
Dr. Jeglic: It’s a very individual perception. I think different people want different things as part of their healing process. There are stages to the healing process and at different stages people want different things. But ultimately, you know, if there is something that the individual wants is the acknowledgement that harms have been done and some form of restitution with perpetrators ultimately being held accountable.
Maria: What are the psychological impacts or affects that victims of sexual abuse face especially within a spiritual or religious context?
Dr. Jeglic: In general, children who’ve experienced sexual abuse have psychological impacts, physical impacts and even psychosocial impacts.
For example, children who’ve experienced abuse usually have trouble in relationships, trouble holding their jobs, educational attainment and socioeconomic impact–meaning that, you know, all those difficulties that they had are somehow going to impact their ability to earn a living to the same level as if they had not experienced childhood sexual abuse.
When we see religious organizations, one of the concepts that has been emerging is a construct called “institutional betrayal”, which defines institutions that were supposed to be, you know, keeping us safe and protecting our children and then ultimately they were the ones that kind of betrayed the individuals. So, there is a lot of that especially within religious context, and as consequence, we see that people have lost some of their faith and their trust in religious institutions.
That’s all under the umbrella of institutional betrayal, especially spiritual betrayal.
Maria: What makes religious institutions susceptible to cover up or enable abuse? Is it bad publicity, shame? What are the most common factors from inside and outside of the institution?
Dr. Jeglic: There are a lot of factors. Researchers have been studying and continue to study how institutional abuses happened throughout history. I think part of it was that we just didn’t recognize the scope and breadth of the problem of childhood sexual abuse within institutions.
The good news is that it's going down. We do have problems with the hierarchy, you know, not everybody knew everything back then when cases from religious places started to come out.
So I think as we study and understand the different dynamics that were involved such as how the abuse happened, we get to understand more and more about what we have to do to prevent it.
Maria: What have you found are the best practices for churches to apply in order to prevent, investigate and report sexual abuse without protecting their reputation?
Dr. Jeglic: Since the Boston Globe scandal in 2002, we have learned about the scope of that sexual abuse. That was 4% of the priests within the Catholic Church in the United States having credible allegations against. So that’s a tremendous amount. In this same scandal, over 10,000 children were harmed.
Since that moment, and I think what we recognize now, is that sexual abuse involves grooming behaviors. We want to make sure that when we are developing policies and procedures to address any kind of sexual abuse especially within these institutions, it’s important to know how sexual abuse has perpetrated that institutions: What do we know about the allegations, how do we investigate it, what are the due deligiences on the case and how can we keep the victim safe? And then, ultimately, what can be done to prevent this from happening ever again.
So, there have been policies and procedures that have been put in place in religious institutions in order to recognize how the abuse happens, when and where it happens and what are the things that lead up to it. For example: Spending time alone with a child.
Maria: Have you noticed situations where religious leaders—or people in their congregation, like pastors, volunteers, or staff—know about abuse but still stay in power? Do you think this might come from the way power works or from them being abused before and repeating the behavior?
Dr. Jeglic: This is a very big question and we don’t quite have the answer. It’s multifaceted and there are different ways into what makes somebody a perpetrator. What we have learned from the child sexual abuse literature is about a third of individuals are drawn to youth serving organizations in a predatory way, looking for children to abuse. The other two thirds of abusers are situational, meaning that they have access to a minor, and they have potentially some vulnerabilities themselves. They cross those boundaries but they don’t go into the situation thinking “I am gonna hurt this child” but it happens. That doesn’t make it any better or worse than somebody who is predatory because ultimately the behavior is the same. The child is hurt in the same way.
We still don’t know what makes somebody a sex offender and somebody not. But I think that the important thing is to do what we can to prevent it because 95% of all those who commit sex crimes have never had a past conviction. So we don’t have an easy way of determining who will do it and who will not.
Maria: What happens to members of the institution who witness sexual allegations and institutional denial?
Dr. Jeglic: We have to understand this in the context of what we knew about sexual abuse throughout history. If we think about the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, we didn’t talk about child sexual abuse. Most of the kids who were abused didn’t come forward until much later and that’s why we have a lot of these laws that are allowing people to look back because it does take a long time for kids to disclose. Sometimes it’s 20 plus years and some kids never disclose, ever in their lives.
So the scope of the problem was not known. We also really didn’t understand grooming behaviors, so a lot of the things that we now recognize as indicative of possible abuse such as isolating a child, giving a child rides and giving a child special attention. Back then we took that as pro-social behaviors, right? Like we thought this person was a good mentor, somebody who cares about the child. As our understanding of these kinds of more positive strategies and as the abuse process developed, we are now recognizing those patterns and we can prevent them from happening.
Back then they didn’t have training on what to do if abuse happened, there were no guidelines on how to recognize it and what to do. So there were a lot of factors leading into this unfortunate and horrible situation. Studying these historical cases enabled us to recognize how it happened and what we can do moving forward.
Maria: From a public perspective, what should people do when a church is denying, minimizing or even gaslighting their own people?
Dr. Jeglic: I am not a member of the church so I can’t speak on what their perspective is but I think people want to hear the truth, especially in faith-based organizations since part of it is, you confess and you ask for forgiveness.
So I think part of healing is that you ask for forgiveness and that you’re held accountable as well. That’s what many people want to hear and it might take time before forgiveness can be given, if at all.
But that’s what I generally hear from survivors, is that they want somebody to say, / “Yes, we’ve made a mistake. Yes, that was wrong. Yes, that was bad. But here is what we are going to do to make this better”.
Maria: Does someone’s ethnic or cultural background change how abuse or grooming is perceived or reported?
Dr. Jeglic: Sex is viewed differently in different cultures and backgrounds. Some people in Western cultures tend to talk about it more–now, today, you see it everywhere. It’s talked about more and more. We also talk about abuse more, we have the #MeToo Movement.
In other cultures, it’s still considered shameful and it’s kind of hidden. Especially since the majority of sexual abuse is perpetrated by somebody who is known to the child, which could be a family member. So it’s usually considered a family issue and it’s not reported outside of the family, even if people know.
So we sometimes see those kinds of cultural factors that are impacting the people’s awareness and comfortability to talk about the problem. These are taboo topics.
Maria: Can trust ever be rebuilt in institutions where abuse and cover-ups occurred and what does that process look like?
Dr. Jeglic: I have not studied that personally but I think it’s something that doesn’t happen overnight.
You have to “walk the walk and talk the talk” and people, those who are harmed, have to see evidence to rebuild trust. However, some people will never regain that trust because the harms were so severe. It could be a generation again before that trust is rebuilt in the institution.
Taking accountability and making changes is a good step in that direction towards healing those wounds.
Maria: How can lawsuits contribute to systemic reform in religious institutions?
Dr. Jeglic: Sometimes in some cases, especially with these historical cases, the perpetrator can’t be prosecuted criminally because the statute of criminal limitations has expired, or the perpetrator has passed away. So in some instances there was knowledge about it but the appropriate actions were not taken.
There are now ways for people to have civil restitutions, where they can get money for the harms that they’ve experienced, holding the institutions that the perpetrators were part of accountable for those crimes. For some people, this is a very helpful process because there is somebody saying, “They are being held liable for what they did”.
For other people, that may not ultimately bring them peace but it’s an avenue out there for people if they choose to go that way.
Maria: What would you recommend to parents to protect their children from sexual grooming or abuse, especially at school, camps and in other activities?
Dr. Jeglic: We are now seeing abuse within the school system as well and 40% of sexual abuse of children is by another youth. So I think the biggest thing that we recommend to parents is to have open and honest conversations at age appropriate level with their children.
Use age appropriate names for body parts because if you give them names that are not the correct names, that says that there’s something different about those body parts and they are shameful. Ultimately, parents don’t want that. We want to take the shame away from it because that’s what holds that “secret inside” and causes a lot of long-term psychological consequences.
Teach your child like nobody else has a right to touch them in a way that they don’t want. Show them the consequences, “This is what can happen” and “This is what you do if this happens". Tell your child that you are always going to believe in them. So having those conversations where you teach them critical thinking skills is very important. Ask them, “What would you do in this situation? Why would you do that?” so that they are prepared. If they find themselves in a situation or they see another child in an uncomfortable situation, how can they be upstanders and give some help?
The more we talk about it and we take away that shame and stigma, the more likely kids are to share that information with you and then we can protect them.
Maria: It's like recreating scenarios like in self-defense classes, right? Where they explain to you what you could do depending on the situation that you’re involved in.
Dr. Jeglic: It is interesting that you bring up self-defense because it’s the only evidence-based treatment for women, adult women, to prevent sexual abuse. Not only because they can actually hit someone or keep the person, but it’s the perception of having control over the situation.
So now they are starting to incorporate that into child sex abuse prevention training to empower them with skills and techniques and things that they could do to feel more empowered in those situations as opposed to feeling helpless and vulnerable.
Giving kids those skills, whether they are physical skills or verbal skills on how to handle things prepares them if they find themselves in abuse situations.
Maria: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Dr. Jeglic: Sex abuse is something that is unfortunately insidious in our culture so we all have to be part of the solution. It’s not like we can just, you know, stop the perpetrators or fix the institutions. This is broader, like we have to work with the children, the parents, the institutions and society as a whole in order to make this problem go away because it is 100% preventable.
