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Sexual Abuse Facts in Brief

Child sexual abuse is any sexual act or threat imposed on a child. It involves a range of sexual acts including fondling genitals, masturbation of, or in front of a child, oral sex, vaginal or anal penetration by a finger, penis or any other object. It also includes exhibitionism, child pornography and suggestive sexual behaviour.

Adults or adolescents who perpetrate child sexual abuse exploit the dependency and immaturity of children. Coercion, which may be physical or psychological, is intrinsic to child sexual abuse and differentiates such abuse from consensual peer sexual activity.

Who could be victims?

• Research indicates 1in 3 to 1 in 5 girls and 1in 8 to 1 in 10 boys experience sexual abuse in childhood(1)
• Victims include children of any age, from infants to teenagers.
• Children with an intellectual disability are at greater risk(2).
• Sexual abuse of children mostly commences at a young age, pre-puberty'.
• Child sexual abuse may occur once, a few times or be a repeated occurrence particularly if the offender is a relative(1). Offenders may abuse the victim whenever access and opportunity are there.
• Some research indicates that boys are more likely than girls to be sexually abused by young offenders and outside their home while girls are more likely than boys to be sexually abused by relatives and inside their own home(1).

Who could be offenders?

• In the vast majority of cases the offender is known to the child, rather than a stranger. Fleming's 1996 study of females found only 8% strangers, Finkelhor's 1994 research review states 70-90% were known.
• Vast majority of offenders are male (90% Finkelhor 1994, 98% Fleming 1996). This has been confirmed in every major study (1 & 6)
• Offenders come from all races, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, occupations and levels of intelligence. There is no evidence of greater levels of offending by people with intellectual disability(2).
• Most offenders are heterosexual even if they abuse boys.
• The majority of adult sex offenders report beginning their offence patterns in adolescence(3).
• There is no reliable profile for offenders. They are generally very average men who could not be identified in a crowd. It is very common for those who know the offenders not to suspect them and to shocked or surprised when the offender's sexual abuse behaviour is exposed.
• Recidivism (re-offending) rates for sex offenders are high (Broadhurst and Maller 1992 in James 1996).
• Most offenders sexually abuse a number of victims.
• Offenders may sexually abuse children within their own family or outside it or both (Abel 1985).
• Offenders may sexually abuse adults, children or both; boys, girls or both (Abel 1985).

The nature of child sexual abuse

• Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a crime which offenders perpetrate in secret to avoid taking responsibility or being held accountable.
• CSA is premeditated. The offender deliberately sets up their victim, emotionally entrapping the child in a gradual, controlled way. This process often includes manipulating the victim's parents. Trust is built, a positive reputation is set up so if children complain about the offender's behaviour, adults find it hard to believe (Conte 1989).
• CSA happens anywhere: at home; school; at sporting facilities; in a car, church or the home of the offender or a friend ... anywhere that the offender can be with the child out of the sight of other adults. It is not uncommon for children to be sexually abused in a house while others are at home.
• Offenders generally escalate the type of sexual acts over time. They move from nonsexual to sexual behaviour commencing with acts which can be blurred with acceptable behaviour and can be easily claimed as accidental (e.g. "helping" in the bath and slipping hands onto the child's vulva or penis). The child is likely to be confused by this rather than clearly recognise the offender's behaviour as wrong.
• CSA offenders misuse the power adults have over children. Explicit violence and physical force are used in the minority of cases (Okami and Goldberg 1992 in James 1996). Mostly offenders use implied force, threats and manipulation of children's trust, immaturity and lack of knowledge(1).

Offender tactics

Offenders usually put much effort into silencing the child and hindering potential suspicion and protection by adults around them.

Offenders set up the relationship with the child and others in order to deny:

• the existence and extent of their abusive behaviour
• the significance of their abuse and the harm to the child
• responsibility for their abusive behaviour
• the likelihood of them continuing their abusive behaviour.

(refer to Jenkins 1990 for more information)

Tactics offenders use which shape the relationship and set up the child include:

• Building trust and a good reputation with the child's carers, (For example as seen in video - Stevie's uncle Allan fostered the view that he was generous, helpful and good with children).
• Planting and fostering a negative reputation of the child. This is particularly common in the abuse of older children. The offender may tell lies about the child which invite others to see her as untrustworthy or disturbed. The emotional impact of the abuse is likely to effect the child's behaviour. This makes it easier for the offender to promote a negative reputation and foster others' acceptance of it.
• Isolating the child from carers. The offender may confide in the child or tell lies about others which make the child feel bound to the offender and cut off from others (For example a father abusing his daughter may lie, saying her mother has sexual problems, is emotionally unresponsive and claim this is why he needs to turn to her)
• Manipulating the child's love for and protectiveness of other family members. The child is forced to carry the burden of keeping others safe and happy. (For example offenders within the family may promise not to abuse younger siblings if the child maintains secrecy and compliance. Offenders however often secretly abuse the siblings anyway).

Offenders use promises, special attention, threats and bribes to entrap the child. They take advantage of the child's powerlessness and lack of experience and present a distorted or false view of what is happening. Offenders often make the child feel complicit in the sexual behaviour so the child believes disclosure would be implicating themselves.

Some of the ways offenders 'trick' children into secrecy include convincing the child that:

• they are somehow responsible for the abuse
• no-one will believe them if they tell
• others will blame them for the abuse
• they will be punished and not the offender
• they will be to blame if the offender goes to gaol
• they will be to blame if the family breaks up
• they will be to blame if others in the family are upset
• they're bad in some way and this is why the abuse happened in the first place
• he will not love them or look after them any more if they tell
• they will not be "special" any more if they tell.

Disclosure of child sexual abuse

• Most children who have been sexually abused do not disclose at the time and many never do. Reporting/ notifying rates are far lower than incidence rates shown in research(1)
• Disclosures may be delayed weeks, months or years after the abuse began (1)
• In a study of cases of confirmed sexual abuse, only in 26% of cases the child disclosed on purpose (a significant number after participating in prevention education). The majority of cases were identified accidentally because the child was in contact with a known offender; or displayed sexualised behaviour and other indicators which were noticed by a concerned adult; or made a comment which aroused suspicion and alerted someone (Sorenson and Snow 1991).
• A significant number of children who have been sexually abused and disclose, later retract their disclosure (Sorenson and Snow 1991).
• Mothers usually believe their child's disclosure of sexual abuse (Sirles and Frank 1989).

Impact of child sexual abuse for the child

Fear, pain, severe emotional trauma, shattered self esteem and disturbance to patterns of development often arise from the offender's manipulative abuse. As a result, the child may feel anxiety, isolation, shame, self-blame, self-doubt, powerlessness. The child's life may be effected in many ways.

Possible short and long-term physical, psychological and emotional effects are many and vary for each individual child depending on many factors including:

• The age developmental stage at which abuse began/continued
• The duration and frequency of abuse
• The nature and predictability of the abuse (level of terror, violence)
• The closeness of the relationship with the offender (betrayal of trust)
• The presence or absence of other significant relationships with caring adults
• The reaction of others to the sexual abuse, particularly parents and siblings
• The type and responsiveness of the intervention.

The effects may not stop when or if the abuse stops. Issues related to the abuse may continue to surface for survivors throughout their lives.

The offender's manipulative abuse sends highly destructive messages to the child. From these the child may learn to:

• See herself /himself as worthless, hopeless, bad, dirty
• Feel guilty and responsible
• Equate affection/ attention with sexual exploitation
• Feel she / he has no right to set boundaries in relationships, no right to privacy or to control the use of her own body
• See her/ his own needs as unimportant and to service the needs of others to her own detriment
• Equate masculinity with aggression and dominance and femininity with passivity and submission
• Distrust his/ her own feelings and judgement
• See closeness and trust as dangerous and likely to end in betrayal.

It is important to avoid creating a stereotype of child sexual abuse victims with preconceived ideas of how they should appear or behave. While there are trends, each child has an individual response to the trauma and should not be disbelieved because they do not fit preconceptions.

Endnotes

1. Studies vary in their estimates having varying definitions, samples and methodology. A recent Australian national study (n=710) by J. Fleming "Prevalence of Childhood Sexual Abuse in a Community Sample of Australian Women" 1996 found:

• 35% of women reported experiencing sexual abuse or unwanted, distressing sexual experience before age 16 years
• 20% had experienced child sexual abuse by an adult (not including older children) involving at least genital contact. Figures including non-contact sexual acts such as masturbation in front of a child were even higher
• 71% of women were under 12 years when the abuse began
• 98% of offenders were male
• 41% of offenders were relatives of the child
• Only 8% of offenders were strangers. Those abused by a relative were significantly more likely to be abused regularly and more frequently
• 72% of those abused reported coercion was used 64% verbal threats and threats of violence. 7% actual violence
• Only 10% of cases were reported to police, doctor or helping agency
• In 52% of cases the women had disclosed to someone but 45% did not disclose till at least 10 years after the abuse began.

A summary of research studies by M. James Australian Institute of Criminology (paper no.57,1996) includes:

Mullen, Roman-Clarkson and Walton 1988 survey in NZ (n=314) found 10% of the women had been sexually assaulted prior to age 13

D. Russell 1984 random sample in California (n=930) found 28% of women had experienced improper sexual activity by age 14 and 38% by age 18

Finkelhor 1979 study of US college students (n=266) found 9% of males had been a victim of a sexual offence by age 13

Timnick (1985) random phone survey in US (n=1374) found estimated 16% of males had been sexually assaulted before age 18

A number of other studies provide similar findings. Finkelhor, Hotaling, Lewis and Smith 1990 in a random telephone survey (n=2626) found 24.5% of women and 19.1% of men had been sexually abused in childhood.

2. A study at Deakin University by McCade and Cummins 1992 found the risk to persons with an intellectual disability of being assaulted is significantly greater than for the general population for all forms of sexual assault studied. There was no evidence of greater offending levels by people with intellectual disability.

3. Abel, G and Rouleau, J 1990 The Nature of Sexual Assault in W. Marshall, D. Laws, H, Barbaree (Eds) Handbook of Sexual Assault: Issues, Theories and Treatment of the Offender, New York: Plenum.