First of its kind report ‘The Missing Millions’ by Viv Gordon Company reveals one in six people feel excluded from arts and cultural life
The Missing Millions is an independent, child sexual abuse (CSA) survivor-led report, born out of frustration and necessity.
It is a reflection of conversations we have at Viv Gordon Company everyday, shared here to inform the arts and cultural sector.
During Autumn 2025, we launched a survey to gather these conversations into one place for the first time, centring CSA survivors’ lived experience as a valid and essential form of knowledge. What follows is testimony from 88 respondents from the CSA survivor community – a first step towards building an evidence base and a plea for future dialogue and research.
There are an estimated 11 million adult CSA survivors in the UK or 1 in 6 adults. 500,000 children and young people are sexually abused each year.
At present, there is a lack of research that meaningfully examines access to the arts for our community.
We do not feature in local, regional or national cultural strategies or plans, in Arts Council England’s “Let’s Create” strategy or any national arts priorities. In nearly one thousand Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations – there is no specialist cultural offer for CSA survivors.
This is why we have named this report The Missing Millions. When marginalised communities such as CSA survivors are missing from data and research, our realities are easily misunderstood, minimised and overlooked.
Survivors face barriers to access and inclusion across every area of life including education, healthcare and employment.
As an arts organisation, our focus is on arts and culture, where we consistently witness systemic barriers, a lack of cultural infrastructure and visible role models within mainstream provision that limits participation, talent development and cultural leadership by CSA survivors.
