Up to 25,000 complaints of sexual abuse of children are recorded every year in Mexico, meaning 70 cases every day and three every hour, according to Rosario Alfaro, head of Mexican NGO Asexoria.
During yesterday celebration of the World Day for the Prevention of Children Sexual Abuse, Alfaro expressed that the age of the victims is on the decline because there are more and more children under the age of 10 years and even newborns are suffering this sort of incidents regardless of social status.
Albeit people think this sort of attacks are more common among poor families, but "in reality is happens in all socioeconomic strata. In the higher levels, the responsible cannot only be some relative, but the chauffeurs, security personnel and other employees can come to be aggressors".
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has expressed that "sexual abuse happens between a child and an adult who is the father, caregiver or responsible for the girl or boy. Typically involves the sexual exploitation of a minor or serves to gratify or sexually stimulate the adult".
Alfaro emphasized the increasing vulnerability of children via internet and child pornography, particularly with the practice known as grooming.
The Save the Children organization defines grooming as "sexual cyber-bullying children on the internet. A bully can take 12 minutes to convince the victim to remove his or her clothing. Grooming can scale to pressure to have physical meetings, leading to child trafficking, pornography, or sexual abuse".