The high number of sexual assault cases against children on Guam remains alarming. So much so that a criminal justice class at the University of Guam rearched the problem to find way to prevent the abuse and protect the youth.

Rape, molestation, sexual abuse.

All crimes continously making its way through the judicial system on Guam.

"We noticed that from the numbers, there is actually a really high number of sexual assault cases and the numbers are generally around 900. But when we were looking at concentration of sexual assault cases, we noticed a lot of them were towards minors," said Zia Sandoval with UOG's criminal justice capstone LW480.

She along with her peers getting data from the Sex Offender Registry and reaching out to the Judiciary of Guam.

The class finding that most of the victims average around age 14.

"We thought - why are the numbers so high?" she questioned.

Sandoval, who plans to use her degree to go into criminal profiling and look into the motive of those that break the law, says they started researching further.

"My thoughts on this in one word: reality-check," she said.

Student Abigail Uy added, "I would describe it as tragic."

Kekoa Leon Guerrero, another student, said, "It’s very shocking to understand and learn about how some of the victims have to really and search for these services that we provide."

And classmate Delsherae Garcia said, "It’s shocking."

Jennisa Jaromay said, "Heartbreaking."

And one problem they realized?

"Some people have never been exposed to Western values. When I was talking to Senator Barnes about this project and the data, she added there are quite a few places in Micronesia that have high rates of domestic abuse because of the gap between genders and the superiority of men over females in certain societies," said Sandoval.

Sandoval noting their findings showed that age of consent differs elsewhere.

"So Guam is not the only place where we are struggling with high concentrations of low age of consent is affecting us, but it’s also a matter of we need to tell people this is happening and there are services that can really help people," she said.

This led the group to VARO – Victims Advocated Reaching Out - to get involved in outreach.

"Not to say that we are bashing these cultures but just to say these numbers are high because people aren’t understanding that things work a little bit different here to protect children in particular," she said.

Her class recently sharing that outreach during UOG’s Charter Day event.

"A lot of people don’t actually know that these resources exist," she said.

"Just a little bit of awareness can help toward the one step toward prevention."

Awareness to protect the youth and prevent others from becoming victims of sexual assault.