“Child Sex Abuse: Power, Profit, Perversion” by Beverley Chalmers

Child Sex Abuse: Power, Profit, Perversion

Beverley Chalmers
Grosvenor House Publishing Limited (2022)
ISBN: 978-1839759567
Reviewed by Jen Oliver-Rigsby for Reader Views (10/2022)

“Child Sex Abuse: Power, Profit, Perversion” by Beverley Chalmers goes into the history of child sex abuse and the overwhelming statistics of current cases. This book is not for the faint of heart, especially if the reader has survived any type of abuse themselves. It discusses the global view of child sex abuse instead of focusing on one country. This shows that child sex abuse is not only a problem in America or Canada, but across the world.

“Child Sex Abuse” is broken down into four different sections: abuse in the home setting, abuse in institutional settings, global enabling, and preventing abuse. Each section contains a lot of journalistic research, so there are a lot of numbers, facts, and references to articles. Many of these articles are not written by well-known people (like Freud) so if a reader wants to get more information on the writers, they have to do a bit of digging to find out the authors’ first names.

It is very clear that Chalmers did a lot of research for this book, however, it reads very technical, like a psychological paper instead of an everyday book. This might hinder getting it into the hands of everyday readers who might want to learn more about the subject or try to figure out solutions to this issue.

I didn’t find “Child Sex Abuse” to be very balanced. It has a lot of facts about the causes of sex abuse but not a lot about how to fix the global issues. This is a global wide problem that needs solutions that work. With that said, the insights of how to help resolve child sex abuse are solid and on point. Now if this book could get into the hands of the people (i.e., governmental officials) that can make the necessary changes…

Overall, “Child Sex Abuse” is a tough read given the subject matter and the fact that it reads like a journal article or paper. But it is evident that a lot of research and time was put into creating this book and that research and time should not be ignored. It is also like a rude awakening to those who might not be aware of the extent of child sex abuse and how it truly is a global issue.