Current policies relating to child sexual abuse have four parts: prevention programs, child protection services, therapy, and the criminal justice process. These strategies fail to address victims' needs, which include places of safety, availability of information, and some control over the outcome of the disclosure. The combined effects of a moral panic, the issue-attention cycle, and the perceptions of victims of child sexual abuse prevent it from being recognized and addressed in a systematic and thorough manner. The moral panic has resulted in a focus on social workers' abuse of their powers, on the family as victim rather than on the victims and the perpetrators, and on the false memory syndrome. Other factors impeding effective action are the lack of an identifiable group of villains, the political divisiveness of the issue, and the perceived lack of clear actions that politicians can take. Finally, crime victims are an unpopular cause; victims of child sexual abuse may be seen as doubly defiled because they usually know their abusers and often do not disclose the abuse at its onset. 13 references