@Dillydallyingthrough
OP thank you so much for starting this thread and being so honest with your answers. Please feel free to ignore my question, as I realise this is very sensitive.
I watched a documentary on JW/LDS and paedophilia and how they encourage the police not be called. So no charges are ever brought. In the doc was a guy that had been part of the LDS and said he left as an adult and by the time he reported the crime he was out of time (it was in the US). His abuser was still part of the church and was basically given a telling off. It was so awful, a young man who had lost all his family and friends and not able to get justice. Is this the case with Mormons?
Obviously there is no official data but I suspect it's a major problem in the church. What I do know is many many many people arrested these days, mostly in the State for child pornography or sexual assaults, HAD been reported to the Mormon church who had brushed it under the carpet.
I know of people who have done everything to try and bring their abusers to justice and the church has used their sensitive and private information to make them seem incredible witness, information gained via private "bishops interviews".
I know that from my own experience there isn't a safe and real means of making any complaints. I reported my stake president and bishop for their behaviour, albeit not the same thing as sexual abuse at all, and there isn't any real process. I reported by writing to their "superiors" who just sent the information back to them and gave them access to church lawyers to assess if they had any concerns and how best to play it out. My complains were never addressed other that that said Stake president me that he had spent hours on the phone to legal assessing if they had anything to worry about and that they didn't, so u was welcome to take legal action if I so desired.
I also know, in my own ward, of a child that was sexually assaulted, the church only found out as he had geotagged his photos and disturbed online and it was traced back. The ward did not make it public and did not contact parents whose children may have been in contact with the man. Despite the police asking them to. It's was just quietly swept under the rug.
As members we have "worthiness" interviews with an adult male leader, usually the bishop or his counsellors. These interviews include questions on if we are "chaste" or keeping the law of chastity. These interviews are conducted on children from aged 8 or just before and regularly as youth. With just the bishop and child present.
Recently there have been changes and they suggest inviting parents to attend if they desire and doing these interviews in rooms which have internal windows (these are usually very very small slit style windows in the door).
While the church only instructs the question, do you yourself chaste or do you keep the law of chastity, there is often a lot of conversation around this question. Bishops OFTEN ask youth if they understand the question and ask them to explain it back to them. Children sometimes ask what that means and the bishop will explain what that means.
Some, although rarer, will ask very sexually explicit questions, such as about Masturbation, oral sex, pornography, all of which the church discourages.
Finally, I think the sense of community that is lovely is also dangerous, you feel safe in community and let your guard down, children often run free after church with little supervision, we expect others to be safe adults, I know I did. The church doesn't require any DBS checks (it may in Scotland, not sure, but not in England and Wales), and there are definitely stories of people leaving their children with adults where horrendous things have happened. You trust other Mormons even if there are clear warning bells.
To add as well, I think we are taught young that parents are to be honour and obeyed and leaders and adults are to be honoured and obeyed. There is a conflicting message when things go wrong, I think Mormon/LDS children and youth are more at risk than other groups, although I suspect it's very common in organised religion.
There are so so many cases do child abuse and sexual abuse in the church, when you look at the real figure of the active membership which is around 4 million opposed to the 15 million the church quotes, then it makes the number of cases even more startling. We all know how few sexual abuse crimes get reported and convicted, it's really scary.
I was assaulted once as a teenager, it wasn't in church, it was in school. I learnt to keep quiet because we are taught that even sexual abuse victims carry seem blame. I felt guilt because a gang of boys thought it was ok to put their hands in my pants, when I was trying to push them off and get away. It's startling to be now. As I say, my assault was nothing to do with church, but how I reacted and how I felt was everything to do with it. I had a non member friend who had to explain to me what happened and why it wasn't my fault. Plus, of course, you have to forgive and forget because if you don't, you carry the bigger sin.
It's startling because I had locked that away, It only resurfaced during the metoo campaign and I was shocked when my husband was so angry someone did that and sad he didn't know. I hadn't even digested it myself.
So, yes, I think it's a major challenge/problem. I don't think it's unique to the Mormon church, but I believe their handling of it is very very poor. If anything, I would like to see more robust safety and complaints in place. They changed policies a few years ago but within the time of my complaint and clearly it's an exceptionally poor system.