• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.255-280
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• 2016

This study examined sexual violence characteristics among the individuals who utilized victim support services provided by National Rape Crisis Intervention Centers in Korea. The study is the part of a Korean longitudinal study on sexual assault characteristics and its implications for post-abuse adjustments, which is supported by Korean Mental Health Technology R&D Project. Eleven national rape crisis centers nationwide and 29 NGO's participated in the study. The participating centers provided the data on sexual abuse characteristics from their standardized case management system. The cases were randomly selected from the system. Total of 1077 cases were gleaned from the system and utilized for this analysis. Results indicated that the abuse characteristics differed by victims' age (children, adolescent vs. adults) as well as relationship with perpetrator. We could identify six different profile groups based on the detailed violence characteristics. The results assured us of the importance to understand the detailed characteristics of sexual violence and the old notion that 'one size may not fit all'. The results from the profile analyses may have important implication for developing victim support programs and appropriately allocating agency resources according to the different profiles of the service users.