“The silence is the only thing protecting them. Break it. “
By Andrew Klein
Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that breaking the silence is the first act of creation.
I. The Old Patterns in New Forms
For as long as societies have existed, the powerful have found ways to sacrifice the vulnerable. In antiquity, it was literal child sacrifice – offerings to appease imagined wrath. Today, the rituals have changed, but the underlying pattern remains: the exploitation of the innocent, shielded by secrecy, impunity, and the silence of institutions.
We see this in:
· Child sexual abuse – the destruction of innocence for adult gratification.
· Child trafficking – the commodification of children, sold across borders.
· Domestic violence – the crushing of spirit, the normalisation of cruelty.
These are not isolated moral failures. They are systemic. They are sustained by the same forces that have always protected abusers: secrecy, institutional cover‑ups, and the unwillingness of the powerful to hold one another accountable.
This article is not an opinion piece. It is a synthesis of evidence from royal commissions, academic research, global prevalence studies, and investigative journalism. Its purpose is to name the pattern – and to ask what we are prepared to do about it.
II. The Scale of the Crisis: What the Numbers Tell Us
In 2025, a landmark study published in The Lancet reported that nearly one out of five women and one out of seven men aged 20 and older globally had experienced sexual violence as a child. Among young survivors aged 13–24, 67% of females and 72% of males reported being first sexually abused before the age of 18. Almost 42% of females and approximately 48% of males said their first sexual violence incident occurred before the age of 16.
The problem is not confined to low‑income countries. The United States recorded a rate of nearly 28% for women and 16% for men; the United Kingdom recorded 24% for women and about 17% for men. The Netherlands (30%), New Zealand (29%) and Chile (31%) also reported substantial prevalence.
The majority of abuse is committed by someone the child knows. The World Health Organization states that 93% of child sexual abuse globally is committed by someone the child knows, not strangers. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare confirms that most child maltreatment occurs within the family environment. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner in England found that 1 in 8 children experience sexual abuse, most often by someone they know.
These statistics are not numbers. They are lives. And they point to a deep, systemic failure of protection.
III. Institutional Failure: The Australian Royal Commission
Between 2012 and 2017, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse conducted the most comprehensive inquiry of its kind in history. It heard from 7,981 survivors and received 1,344 written accounts. The final report found that tens of thousands of children had been sexually abused in Australian institutions, and that the true number will never be known. More than 4,000 individual institutions failed children over many decades.
Among survivors abused in a religious institution, 61.4% were in a Catholic institution, 14.8% Anglican, 7.2% Salvation Army. Most survivors (63.6%) were male, and 93.8% were abused by a male. The average age of victims when first abused was 10.4 years.
The Royal Commission issued 189 recommendations, including a National Office for Child Safety, changes to canon law, and removal of exemptions for religious confession from mandatory reporting. Yet key recommendations were resisted. Church leaders argued that the seal of confession should be above the law.
The institutions that failed children are the same institutions that resist accountability.
IV. Financial Enablers: How Money Protects Predators
The Epstein‑Maxwell case is not an anomaly. It is a window into how financial systems protect the powerful.
Newly released documents show that Swiss banking giant UBS opened and managed accounts for Ghislaine Maxwell beginning in 2014 – months after JPMorgan Chase ended its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – and helped her oversee assets worth up to $19 million in the years before her sex‑trafficking conviction.
Nearly $8 million was transferred through accounts linked to Maxwell shortly before she purchased a secluded New Hampshire property, where she was later arrested. The transfer was processed months after US authorities had issued a grand jury subpoena to UBS seeking details of her financial dealings.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has recognised the problem. In 2025, FATF approved a landmark report on using financial intelligence to detect, disrupt and investigate online child sexual exploitation. Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, has also identified payments consistent with the purchase of child sexual exploitation material.
Yet the financial sector remains slow to act. Wealth buys impunity. And impunity enables the exploitation to continue.
V. The Global Web: Trafficking Across Borders
Child sexual exploitation is a global industry, with source countries, transit routes, and destination markets spanning every continent.
Southeast Asia is a hub for the production, distribution, and consumption of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The Philippines’ Department of Justice Cybercrime Office reports over 3,000 confirmed cases of Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children annually. A 2022 study found that 2 in 10 Filipino internet users aged 12‑17 had experienced online sexual abuse.
Thailand faces a similar crisis. In 2024, a report by UNICEF, Interpol and ECPAT estimated that 400,000 children in Thailand aged 12‑17 fell victim to online sexual exploitation – 9% of children in the country. On one platform alone, 626 organised criminal groups were distributing CSAM.
Brazil has seen a dramatic surge. Reports of abuse against children and adolescents increased by 195% in four years. Between 2021 and 2024, Brazil recorded 110,449 reports. In the first four months of 2025, 612 fugitives accused of sexual crimes were captured.
The offenders are transnational. Live‑streamed abuse is orchestrated by foreign clients paying through encrypted platforms, using crypto‑enabled marketplaces on the dark web. Demand comes overwhelmingly from wealthy nations – Australia, the United States, and Europe.
The exploitation is fuelled by wealth. The victims are in the developing world. And the financial system moves the money.
VI. The Psychology of the Perpetrator
Understanding what drives an individual to prey on the vulnerable is essential for prevention.
Research has shown that child sexual exploitation involves the use of manipulation, control, and coercion strategies to recruit and dominate minors. Perpetrators use cognitive distortions to justify their actions – telling themselves that the child “wanted it” or that they are “helping” the child.
A 2025 study found that perpetrators have poorer neurocognitive function than control groups, particularly in areas related to impulse control and emotional regulation. However, deficits in executive function do not excuse behaviour; they highlight the need for early intervention and treatment.
Significantly, research has documented a cycle of violence across the lifecourse. Child maltreatment is associated with later forms of violence, including intimate partner violence and elder mistreatment. Children who are abused are at increased risk of becoming perpetrators themselves – not inevitably, but statistically.
The cycle can be broken. But it requires intervention, not just punishment.
VII. The Overlap with Domestic Violence
The link between child sexual abuse and domestic violence is well‑established. Children living with domestic violence are at increased risk of experiencing emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Co‑occurrence of domestic violence, substance misuse, and mental health issues is widely documented.
In Australia, in 2025, 52 women were killed by gendered violence. 28 women were killed by a current or former intimate partner. Domestic violence‑related incidents rose 9.8% in the two years to December 2025.
Behind every statistic are families deeply affected. And behind every domestic violence incident is a child witnessing – and often experiencing – the trauma that will shape their own future relationships.
The home should be a sanctuary. For too many children, it is a battlefield.
VIII. Historical Precedent: From Workhouses to Modern Institutions
The exploitation of children is not a recent phenomenon. Historical research documents child sexual abuse in late 17th‑ and 18th‑century London, as well as children’s experiences of residential poor relief in 18th‑ and 19th‑century England.
Under the New Poor Law of 1834, the workhouse was explicitly designed as a punishment for poverty. Children were subjected to cruelty, physical abuse, and neglect. Sexual abuse, though rarely acknowledged, certainly occurred. It was unthinkable to contemporaries that an adult within an institution could commit such acts – not because it did not happen, but because institutions refused to see it.
This is the same pattern we see today: institutions refuse to acknowledge the abuse happening within their walls. The Catholic Church in Australia resisted mandatory reporting for decades. The Church of England has faced a cascade of abuse scandals. The Boy Scouts of America has paid billions in settlements.
The pattern repeats because the stories remain unchanged. Victims are silenced. Perpetrators are protected. Institutions close ranks.
The cycle will continue until the silence is broken.
IX. Breaking the Cycle: A Five‑Part Agenda
The evidence is clear. The patterns are unmistakable. The question is not whether we can act – it is whether we will.
1. Break the silence.
Abuse thrives in secrecy. The first step is to name it – publicly, persistently, without euphemism. Every survivor who speaks gives permission for others to do the same. Every institution that acknowledges its failures reduces the power of the abuser.
2. Hold the powerful accountable.
Not just individual perpetrators – the institutions that shield them. Churches, schools, governments, families. The Australian Royal Commission’s recommendations must be fully implemented – including mandatory reporting for religious confessions. Financial institutions that enable predators must face scrutiny, not just settlements.
3. Empower the vulnerable.
Not as objects of pity – as subjects of their own liberation. Education, economic independence, legal protection. Children must know that their bodies are their own. They must know how to say no – and be believed when they do.
4. Change the stories.
The narratives that normalise violence, romanticise dominance, and excuse cruelty must be replaced – not by censorship, but by better stories. Stories of care, consent, and mutual flourishing. This is the work of artists, educators, parents, and every one of us.
5. Heal the wound.
Not by forgetting – by integrating. Survivors are not broken; they are wounded. Wounds, when tended, can heal. Trauma‑informed care, accessible mental health services, and survivor‑led advocacy are necessities, not luxuries.
X. Conclusion: The Silence Is the Only Thing Protecting Them
The old patterns have not disappeared. They have changed clothes.
· Child sexual abuse – the sacrifice of innocence on the altar of adult gratification.
· Child trafficking – the commodification of the vulnerable, sold like cattle.
· Domestic violence – the destruction of spirit, the normalisation of cruelty.
These are not accidents. They are not failures of individual morality.
They are systemic.
And they are sustained by the same forces that have always protected abusers: secrecy, impunity, and the silence of the powerful.
The evidence is overwhelming. The tools for change are known. The only missing ingredient is will.
Breaking the silence is not a luxury. It is the first and most essential act of creation.
The question is not whether the world is watching. The question is whether we will act.
Andrew Klein
References
1. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, 2017.
2. The Lancet, Global prevalence of sexual violence against children, May 2025.
3. World Health Organization, Global status report on preventing violence against children, 2024.
4. Reuters, “How Epstein accomplice Maxwell hid millions behind ‘Tucked Away’ escape,” March 2026.
5. Financial Action Task Force (FATF), “Detecting, Disrupting and Investigating Online Child Sexual Exploitation,” 2025.
6. UNICEF, Interpol, ECPAT, “Online Child Sexual Exploitation in Southeast Asia,” 2024.
7. Brazilian Ministry of Human Rights, National reporting on child sexual abuse, 2025.
8. Philippine Department of Justice Cybercrime Office, Annual OSAEC reporting, 2025.
9. NSPCC, “Children living with domestic abuse,” 2025.
10. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Child protection reporting, 2025.
11. Child Abuse and Neglect, “Cycle of violence across the lifecourse,” 2025.
The silence is the only thing protecting them. Break it.
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