The following is part of our project “Increasing Access to Justice for Older Adult Victims of Sexual Assault: A Capacity Building Approach”, funded by the Justice Canada Victims Fund.Learn more about this project or consult the full list of resources
This Learning Brief is part of a series developed for our Access to Justice Project.
The available literature provides several suggestions for the identification, prevention, and intervention of sexual violence in later life. These suggestions are typically categorized into recommendations for future research, policy, and practice.
While research studies on sexual violence in later life come from multiple areas of study (e.g., elder abuse, sexual violence, intimate partner violence), and are conducted with different samples using different methodologies, underscoring the bulk of recommendations and suggestions across studies is the need to focus on sexual abuse in older age as distinct from other forms of abuse, and as distinct from sexual violence in younger victims.
Distinguishing between types of abuse, and viewing sexual victimization as a distinct victimization experience can facilitate the development and implementation of appropriate prevention and intervention strategies and approaches that are attentive to the unique needs of older persons and older victim-survivors.
Companion piece: Learning Brief: Sexual Assault in Later Life - Mini LIterature Review
Authors:
Amy Peirone, PhD, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Guelph
Myrna Dawson, PhD, Professor of Sociology, University of Guelph, Director,Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence
