Child sexual abuse is the use of a child for sexual gratification by an older or more powerful person. This involves touching as well nontouching behaviors, and includes, but is not limited to, penetration of a child’s vagina, mouth, or anus by penis, other body parts, or inanimate objects; simulated intercourse; genital touching; touching of other body parts such as breasts, nipples, and buttocks; exhibitionism (exposing sexual body parts, sometimes called “flashing”); voyeurism (sexualizing other people who are in states of undress or engaged in sexual activities without their knowledge, sometimes called “peeping”); deep, sexualized kissing; exposure to age-inappropriate sexual activity or material; and use of a child in pornography or prostitution.
The World Health Organization defines child sexual abuse as involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to, or is not developmentally prepared for and cannot consent to, or that violates the laws or social taboos of society. Child sexual abuse is evidenced by an activity between a child and an adult or another child who by age or development is in a relationship of responsibility, trust, or power, the activity being intended to gratify or satisfy the needs of the other person. This may include but is not limited to the inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity; the exploitative use of a child in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices; and the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials.
While there are variations in how countries, researchers, and academic disciplines define child sexual abuse, the core definition involves the abuse of power, power differentials, the inability of children to give informed consent, and sexual gratification or stimulation of perpetrators. The term children generally refers to those under the age of 18.
Perpetrators
Most sexual abuse is committed by people children know, such as family members, friends of the family, neighbors, and trusted professionals including clergy, teachers, and childcare workers. People who think they can tell that someone is a sexual abuser by looking at him or her are often shocked when they learn that someone they know, respect, care about, and may love has abused children sexually.
Perpetrators can be adults, teenagers, or children, and they can be women and men, boys and girls. Although males are more likely to abuse children sexually than females, it is important not to be blinded by assumptions about who abuses children sexually.
Types Of Abuse
There are several different types of child sexual abuse. Incest is sexual abuse that members of families commit. Family members may be mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins. Child molestation is sex abuse committed by people the children know or by strangers. Strangers can be individuals who abuse children in public places such as parks, apartment houses, or neighborhoods or they can pay adults to use children sexually as child prostitutes.
Individuals who use child pornography or who make, buy, and/or sell child pornography also participate in the sexual abuse of children. Finally, people called sex traffickers, who buy and sell children for the purpose of using them as prostitutes, also participate in the sexual abuse of children.
A widely held belief that sex with a child virgin will cure sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, has contributed to the numbers of children sexually abused worldwide.
Prevalence And Incidence
There is wide variation in figures for incidence and prevalence of child sexual abuse. These variations are due to inconsistencies in how child sexual abuse is defined and measured, how questions are asked, and the reliability of data collection techniques. It is clear that child sexual abuse is a major social problem that is international in scope and affects the quality of life of girls and boys, their families, and communities.
Studies at the national, state, and local levels conducted in the United States over the past 25 years have indicated a child abuse prevalence level of between 2% and 62% for girls, and 1% and 16% for boys. With regard to incidence rates, the Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-3) provides the most extensive results and reports incidence rates of 6.8 per 1,000 for females and 2.3 per 1,000 for males. These figures, however, only account for incidents that are reported to police and child protection services. Most incidents of child sexual abuse are not reported. In fact, one of the major reasons for underreporting is that abused children often do not disclose to anyone the abuse they have experienced. Another national survey on victimization of children and youth reports an incidence rate of 82 per 1,000 children having experienced a sexual victimization in a given year.
Internationally, findings from different studies report a prevalence rate of 20% for females and 5% to 10% for males. The World Health Organization reports that 8% of male and 25% of female children up to the age of 18 years’ experience sexual abuse of some kind. Though most of the available empirical data on child sexual abuse prevalence and incidence originates from the developed countries, information from developing nations is now gradually increasing and reports similar trends.
Studies from different countries across continents have reported prevalence rates of 16.7% for females and 10.5% for males in China, 12% for females and 4.5% for males in Australia, 16% for females and 7% for males in Denmark, 12.8% for females and 4.3% for males in Canada, 26% for females and 20% for males in Nicaragua, and 53.2% for females and 60% for males in South Africa.
Nongovernment and voluntary sector organizations have begun to report on prevalence of child sexual abuse in their respective social, cultural, and geographic contexts. Although these reports may not always be based on randomly selected participants and may not pass the test of academic scrutiny in terms of research methodologies used, they provide valuable information that is indicative of the magnitude of sexual abuse of children within their contexts. Such studies have reported a prevalence of 39% for females and 48% for males in India. Girls are reported to have a higher rate of victimization than boys. As noted earlier, these figures may underestimate the incidence and prevalence because of social taboos associated with child sexual abuse.
Effects
The traumatic impact of sexual abuse on a child is an important and well-documented area of concern. The effects can be long term, short term, or both, and can impact the child physically and/or psychologically. However, the impact of sexual abuse is not uniform, and varies widely from child to child. The available evidence through different studies conducted across the world suggests that negative effects during childhood can continue into adulthood. Some of the more common effects of child sexual abuse found in victims are posttraumatic stress disorder; mood, anxiety, and substance disorders; low self-esteem; depression; and unhappiness.
Some children develop sexual behavior issues, including sexual preoccupation and sexual behaviors beyond what is commonly thought of as age and developmentally appropriate. Child sexual abuse has also been found to be associated with sexual identity confusion, sexual dysfunction, and sexual risk-taking behavior in later life. In terms of parenting, evidence suggests an association between child sexual abuse and teenage pregnancy and parents’ anxiety that their intimate behaviors with their children may be inappropriate (or perceived by others as inappropriate). Child sexual abuse is also associated with failure to develop and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships and with suicidal behavior.
Resilience Of Children
Child sexual abuse hurts children. There is little question about this. On the other hand, being sexually abused affects some children more deeply than others. Available research and theory suggest that the impact of child sexual abuse on children’s development and functioning varies according to two major factors. The first is the other risks and adversities children have experienced. The second is the capacities that child survivors have and that others in their lives have to help them cope with, adapt to, and overcome the effects of harsh life events, such as child sexual abuse. Children who have resources that help them overcome the effects of child sexual abuse and other adversities are said to be resilient. For children to be resilient, however, knowledgeable and empathic adults must be available to them over the long term.
Children who have many resources in their lives that help them cope with the effects of child sexual abuse will recover quite well, although there are likely to be some effects, which can vary from child to child. Children with few resources in their lives are at much greater risk to have negative outcomes resulting from being sexually abused.
Children who have many resources but also many adversities are likely to be able to cope with, adapt to, and overcome the effects of child sexual abuse, but they may require long-term interventions such as individual, group, and family therapy. Children with few resources and many other adversities are likely to have the most difficulty coming to terms with being sexually abused.
It is important to keep in mind that the impact of child sexual abuse also varies according to the severity of the abuse and the relationship of perpetrators and children. Children who have a one-time incident of sexual abuse by a stranger are likely to be less affected than children whose close family members sexually abuse them over a period of time. Of course, how children experience the abuse—what abuse means to them—is the major factor on how severe the outcomes are.
Understanding the effects of child sexual abuse requires flexible thinking on the part of parents, professionals, and survivors. We must take into consideration the resources available to children to help them cope, the other adversities they have experienced, and the severity of the abuse as they experience it.
Blaming The Victims
Social customs and ideologies often blame child victims for their own sexual abuse. Questions such as “Why didn’t you tell?” “What did you do to provoke the abuse?” “How could you let it go on for so long?” are automatic for many people when a child discloses sexual abuse. Such responses direct attention away from perpetrators who are the persons responsible.
The shame and stigma associated with being sexually abused silences survivors and allows perpetrators to continue their sexually abusive behaviors. In some cultures, child victims are forced to marry perpetrators, killed, or expelled from their families and forced to live on the streets. The shame attached to being sexually victimized becomes a matter of family honor.
Only in the last 30 years has there been a large-scale outcry about child sexual abuse in some countries. This has resulted in more awareness and understanding of child sexual abuse. As a result, there now are more resources than ever before for survivors and their families and more policies and programs intended to prevent child sexual abuse. Much more, however, needs to be done.
In many developing countries, the movement against child sexual abuse is still in its beginning stages, and even the existence of child sexual abuse remains unacknowledged by the general public and professionals alike.
Child sexual abuse is a major social problem of worldwide proportions, and most survivors suffer in silence out of fear of being stigmatized and blamed for their own abuse.
Holding Perpetrators Solely Responsible
Perpetrators have sole responsibility for child sexual abuse. Typically, they are older, are stronger, and can overcome the children’s resistance or take advantage of children’s socialization to obey older children. Many children say, “He was big. I was little. I had to do what he said.”
Perpetrators have many excuses and justifications, such as “My wife won’t give me sex. I have to get it from somewhere” or “She loved me, and I loved her. This is love and not child sexual abuse.” Sometimes they have no excuses at all. What they care about is their own self-centered satisfaction: “Sex with children makes me feel good.” Some distance themselves from what they are doing and depersonalize the children: “I thought of the children as ‘things,’ as ‘objects.’ Certainly, they weren’t children.”
Almost all perpetrators are trusted and even loved members of families and communities. They are fathers, mothers, stepfathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, babysitters, social workers, physicians, teachers, youth workers, or others who come in contact with children. They look like everyman. It is not possible to look at someone and say that person is a child sexual abuser.
Resources For Children
Resources that help children cope with child sexual abuse fall into the general category of quality of attachments to others. Children who have secure attachments to others are more likely to trust that if they tell someone about being sexually abused, they will be believed, will be comforted, and will be helped to understand what happened to them. The adults who love them and care for them, however, must understand child sexual abuse and respond to children’s distress in constructive ways.
Children who believe they have no one to turn to may become confused about what happened and may think they somehow are at fault. It is up to adults to create a sense of safety for children so that they believe if they tell someone about being sexually abused they will be comforted and helped to cope with the effects.
Children’s recovery is greatly enhanced when perpetrators take responsibility for their behaviors, turn themselves in to law enforcement, enter treatment, make sincere apologies to child survivors and others they have harmed, and take to heart what survivors tell them about the impact of their sexually abusive behaviors.
They may have to live with the fact that those whom they have hurt want nothing more to do with them, but in some cases, with careful work with professionals, healthy reconciliation happens.
Children can and do recover from child sexual abuse. Sensitive, responsive caregivers are key to recovery, even when perpetrators do not take responsibility for their behaviors. While few risks and many resources increase the likelihood of recovery, child survivors benefit from competent professional intervention that includes work with their parents and other family members. Over time, the negative impact of the abuse can lessen, but recovery means that survivors have integrated the fact of being a survivor into their self-concepts and they are able to live full lives, pursuing their own dreams.
Bibliography:
- Bolen, R. M. (2001). Child sexual abuse: Its scope and our failure. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press.
- Briere, J. N., & Elliott, D. M. (1994). Immediate and longterm impacts of child sexual abuse. The Future of Children, 4, 54–69.
- Finkelhor, D. (1994). Current information on the scope and nature of child sexual abuse. The Future of Children 4(2), 31–53.
- Gilgun, J. F. (2005). Evidence-based practice, descriptive research, and the resilience-schema-gender-brain (RSGB) assessment. British Journal of Social Work, 35(6), 843–862.
- Gilgun, J. F. (2006). Children and adolescents with problematic sexual behaviors: Lessons from research on resilience. In R. Longo & D. Prescott (Eds.), Current perspectives on working with sexually aggressive youth and youth with sexual behavior problems (pp. 383–394). Holyoke, MA: Neari Press.
- Gilgun, J. F., Jones, D., & Rice, K. (2005). Emotional expressiveness as an indicator of progress in treatment. In M. C. Calder (Ed.), Emerging approaches to work with children and young people who sexually abuse (pp. 231–244). Dorset, UK: Russell House.
- Save the Children. (2006). Abuse among child domestic workers: A research study in West Bengal. Calcutta, India: Save the Children Fund.
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