A new study shows that survivors of sexual abuse and children

A new study shows that survivors of sexual abuse and children of residential school survivors are at a disproportionately higher risk of sexual assault. The study by The Cedar Project identified risk factors for sexual assault among young Aboriginal women who use drugs.

The Cedar Project is a partnership between Indigenous leaders and health researchers to examine vulnerability to HIV among Indigenous people who use drugs in Prince George and Vancouver, reads a press release. The findings, they say, point to alarming patterns of historical trauma, childhood sexual abuse, and vulnerability to sexual assault among at-risk Aboriginal young women in British Columbia.

Researchers found that women who had a parent who attended a residential school were 2.35 times more likely to be sexually assaulted. Women were also nearly 10 times more likely to be sexually assaulted later in life if they had a history of childhood sexual abuse.

Researchers with the University of British Columbia School of Population and Public Health and the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences followed a group of 259 young Aboriginal women who use drugs (aged 14 to 30) in Vancouver and Prince George over a seven-year period. More than a quarter of the participants (28 per cent) reported they were sexually assaulted, and 41 per cent were assaulted more than once.

Indigenous leaders in B.C. are calling for an integrated and trauma-informed response to address childhood sexual abuse and sexual violence.

“These statistics are more than just numbers,” said Chief Wayne Christian, co-principal investigator of The Cedar Project. “They are our children, our relations. Some are being hurt this way before they can even speak. I myself am a survivor of multiple forms of trauma. I have walked the pain of these young people and they are calling for change. We need to stop this cycle. We’ve lived in denial for long enough and it’s high time for a response.”