The awareness of sexual abuse in the world, especially in rural communities, has increased. Sexual abuse awareness has definitely aided people to seek adequate help and to be more aware of what counts as sexual abuse. However, there is still a high incidence of late reporting in Zimbabwe.

Poverty is one of the greatest contributors to sexual abuse in the rural and urban areas of Zimbabwe. Poverty has a direct impact on the education level of most of the sexual abuse survivors. Most of the pre-teens who present to the hospital because of sexual abuse have had little to no education due to financial constraints. This lack of education directly correlates to their lack of understanding of what sexual abuse is, due to illiteracy, as well as a lack of formal teaching about sexual abuse. The parents of these children have also had minimal education having been brought up in similar circumstances to their children whom they likely had at a young age. Additionally, the cultural taboo of speaking about sex has also not been combated yet in these communities, and thus “the talk” is never had. Consequently, parents do not bridge the gap by teaching their children about sexual abuse at home.

Furthermore, in markedly impoverished settings where children do not have adequate access to food, they become easy targets for well-off members of the community who seek to exploit them by offering them food, sweets, and even just USD$1 in exchange for not reporting incidents of abuse. The children are usually easily bribed by the perpetrators with sweets or USD$1 to remain silent about the incidents. This coupled with the threat of death, leads to late reporting or no reporting at all.

As stated above, poverty has a direct impact on the sexual abuse of teens. Poverty affects education level, nutrition status, and self-worth. This is a cycle that can definitely be broken by providing more awareness, self- worth workshops, and family-building exercises for easier and more effective communication.