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The Role of Grooming in Sexual Abuse
Research and theory about grooming in cases of sexual abuse has been around for a long time. But research specific to faith communities is emerging more lately as a result of investigations into the widespread clergy sexual abuse in the US Catholic Church that happened between 1950 and 2002. Grooming usually includes five stages: identifying victim, building trust, desensitizing them, threatening harm if they tell or keeping secrets from others. In churches, the number of sexual abuse cases which involve grooming are closer to 90%. It's estimated that across all populations and contexts, about half of all sexual abuse involves grooming.