Nearly 3,500 women and over 1,000 men turned to the 22 centres protecting against incest and sexual assault last year. This is an increase of 14%.
In total, there were 33,574 user requests to incest centres, showed the annual statistics of the Children, Youth and Family Directorate (Bufdir).
“It is positive that more people use the centres,” said Bufdir Director, Mari Trommald. This indicates that the centres, over several years, have been working actively to promote their offers and their existence.
“We hope that this disclosure of the offer, as well as increased transparency in the community around sexual assault, leads to more people wishing to make use of the offer,” Trommald said in a press release.
Most of the users, nearly eight out of ten, have themselves been exposed to incest.
But relatives are also looking to the centres. Nearly half of the relatives were the mothers of someone who was subjected to sexual assault.
Such abuse is most often in close family relationships, Bufdir stated. Only 13% of the victims were subjected to abuse by an unknown person, while every fourth had been subjected to abuse by a parent.
Most had been exposed to abuse at very young age, almost four to ten before they reached the age of seven years.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
