By MARYANNE TWENTYMAN - Waikato Times

Harrowing accounts of violent sexual abuse have been revealed as victims plead with the Government not to cut their ACC entitlements.

The Waikato Times has been inundated with calls from victims who can't be identified but who say the proposed new criteria for sexual abuse cases will cost lives.

Under the new criteria, survivors will be eligible for counselling paid for by ACC only if they have been diagnosed as having a strictly defined mental injury.

One Waikato woman who was abused between the age of 4 and 15 by eight different men, mostly family members, said it was hard enough for people to seek help without being challenged about it.

"The only reason I'm still here today is that I got the help I needed through counselling," she said. "The Government needs to prevent victims getting to that point with fast intervention, not wait till they are so desperate that they are mentally ill and trying to kill themselves."

The woman, now in her 40s, fell pregnant through abuse when she was 14.

"I didn't know I was pregnant until I was six months on.

"I had the baby which was then abused at the hands of my own attackers. I was powerless to stop it as it was the only life I knew and back then it was bloody hard to get the help I desperately needed."

Years of shame, abuse, prostitution and self-harm followed as the woman struggled to "deal with her demons".

"It's incredible that ACC are now making it harder to get help. A rugby player makes a choice to play the game and if they get injured then ACC help them every step of the way ... do they think I `chose' to be abused," she questioned.

The woman has shared her story along with more than 20 others in a book to be released next year by the Child Abuse Prevention Agency.

Under the working title Hidden In Front Of Us, the book aims to educate others to recognise signs of abuse.

In another case, a Waikato father of two said his family faced constant fear and pain and he was outraged over ACC's plan to change the criteria for covering the cost of counselling for victims of sexual abuse. It had been 10 years since his daughter was a victim of serious sexual abuse and just three weeks since she last attempted suicide, prompting the man to speak out about the changes. "ACC wants the victims to be diagnosed as having a mental disorder before they will pay for counselling.

"If we didn't have that counselling I don't know where we would be," he said.

He was upset that future sexual abuse victims may fall victim again – this time at the hands of ACC.

His concerns were echoed by Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Waikato co-ordinator Mike Holloway who said victims needed support and time, not a one-off assessment.

"It can take up to six sessions with experts just to scratch the surface. There is no way victims can be assessed and labelled mentally ill when they have been through such an ordeal," Mr Holloway said.

Mr Holloway was a victim of sexual abuse for three years from the age of 9.

"I now work with victims of sexual abuse and they can trust me because I have been there and know what they go through. They can't be expected to open up to a complete stranger let alone expect to be diagnosed with a mental injury." Mr Holloway said the new criteria undermined all the work he was trying to do around education and prevention of abuse.