Good Afternoon Folks,
We have completed Part 1 on an analysis of similarities and differences based on participants' heritage and religions.
Please join us next week for an open discussion via a livestream on Youtube.
Thank you!
Mary Byler and Dr Tara Mitchell
*The tables included here show the number of participants that indicated their experiences in the category specified. These numbers are compared in a statistical analysis to see if the groups are different enough to be considered of statistical significance.
Narrative Summary:
There was no significant difference in the likelihood of the participant indicating they experienced child sexual abuse whether they were born in an Anabaptist church, joined in an Anabaptist church or raised in a different religion. Participants indicated similar experiences regardless of their church affiliation in childhood.
There were 30 participants that joined the Anabaptist church which makes it difficult to draw any definitive conclusions about their experiences. Although this data did not reach statistical significance due to the low number of participants who joined or were raised in Anabaptist churches, we compared the rates of abuse among the 30 participants with the rates of those born in an Anabaptist Church (250 participants) or other church (61 participants).
There is a significant difference in the child sexual abuse experiences of the people who are currently Anabaptist. People who are still Anabaptist were less likely to report childhood sexual abuse. People who have exited an Anabaptist church were more likely report childhood sexual abuse. 53 % of the people who were still Anabaptist said no, they had not been sexually abused as a child and 40 % who were still Anabaptist said yes, they had experienced childhood sexual abuse. Of the participants who exited an Anabaptist church, 54% said they had been sexually abused as a child and 36% said they had not experienced child sexual abuse.
These are the questions we have based on this information:
Do current Anabaptists have access to information that helps them understand what child sexual abuse is?
Are people leaving the church because they have been sexually abused as a child?
What effect does the language barrier have on current Anabaptists understanding of child sexual abuse?