Rate of child sexual assault in New Brunswick 2nd highest in Canada [Video]

WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced​ ​​​sexual violence or know someone affected by it.

The girl was just seven or eight years old when she was sexually assaulted by a family friend.  

A teenager by the time her assailant was sentenced in 2024, she described for a New Brunswick court “being dead for 10 years” after the assault.

The sentencing judge called her victim impact statement “difficult to read for its description of how her happy family life, pre-assault, was cut short” by what had happened.

“The assault left [her] unable to function, suicidal, and self-harming,” the judge wrote. “That one sexual touch against this child negatively altered the trajectory of her life and that of her family.” 

That survivor’s experience is far from the only such story in New Brunswick, where the rate of police-reported sexual assault charges involving children has been among the highest in …