Roughly one in three sexually abused children in Japan choose to seek help from their schoolteachers, and more than half of all cases come to light when the victims decide to disclose their ordeals, according to a recent study.
Of the 166 cases of abuse handled by child counseling centers in seven prefectures and one large city during fiscal 2001, 51 percent of the victims showed evidence of psychiatric maladies, including an unstable temper, depression and self-laceration.
The victims took an average of 2 1/2 years before coming forward to discuss the abuse, according to the study by a research team led by Osaka Kyoiku University professor Masako Okamoto, a child psychiatrist. Six victims took more than seven years.