Child Sexual Abuse - The Victims

Virtually all studies indicate that girls are far more likely than boys to suffer sexual abuse. Under the Harm and Endangerment Standards of NIS-3 (See Chapter 4), girls were sexually abused about three times more often than boys (Andrea J. Sedlak and Diane D. Broadhurst, Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect [NIS-3], U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Washington, DC, 1996).

Adolescents Experience Abuse by Dating Partners

In the most comprehensive study of dating abuse among adolescents, researchers found that one of five adolescent females ages fourteen to eighteen had been a victim of physical or sexual abuse, or both, by dating partners (Jay G. Silverman, Anita Raj, Lorelei A. Mucci, and Jeanne E. Hathaway, "Dating Violence against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality," Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 286, no. 5, August 1, 2001).

The researchers analyzed the responses of Massachusetts public high school students grades nine to twelve to the 1997 and 1999 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national assessment survey conducted by states. Massachusetts was the first state to include a question about sexual and physical abuse from dating partners. Female respondents to the two surveys consisted of more than 4,100 students. The survey found that about one of five female high school students (20.2% in 1997 and 18% in 1999) in Massachusetts had been sexually and/or physically abused by a date. Silverman et al. suggested that the same proportions may be applied to the students' counterparts in the rest of the states.

Is Sexual Abuse of Boys Underreported?

Dr. William C. Holmes of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine claims that sexual abuse of boys is not only common but also underreported and undertreated. In "Sexual Abuse of Boys: Definition, Prevalence, Correlates, Sequelae, and Management" (Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 280, no. 21, December 2, 1998), Dr. Holmes reviewed 149 studies of male sexual abuse. These studies, conducted between 1985 and 1997, included face-to-face interviews, telephone surveys, medical chart reviews, and computerized and paper questionnaires. The respondents included adolescents (ninth-through twelfth-graders, runaways, non-sex-offending delinquents, and detainees), college students, psychiatric patients, Native Americans, sex offenders (including serial rapists), substance-abusing patients, and homeless men. Dr. Holmes found that, overall, one of five boys had beensexually abused.

Dr. Holmes found that boys younger than thirteen years of age, nonwhite, of low socioeconomic status, and not living with their fathers were at a higher risk for sexual abuse. Boys whose parents had abused alcohol, had criminal records, and were divorced, separated, or remarried were more likely to experience sexual abuse. Sexually abused boys were fifteen times more likely than boys who had never been sexually abused to live in families in which some members had also been sexually abused.

Start and Duration of Abuse

Kathleen Kendall-Tackett and Roberta Marshall, in "Sexual Victimization of Children: Incest and Child Sexual Abuse" (Issues in Intimate Violence, Raquel Kennedy Bergen, ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1998), reported that studies have found that the age of victims at the start of the abuse could be anywhere between seven and thirteen, although there had been cases of sexual abuse among children six years of age or younger. The sexual abuse may be a one-time occurrence or it may last for several years. The authors found durations of abuse ranging from two and a half to eight years.

In Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics (U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC, 2000), Howard N. Snyder found that 34.1% of all victims of sexual assault reported to law enforcement from 1991 to 1996 were under age twelve, with 14% (one of seven victims) under six years of age. (See Table 6.3.) (Some researchers distinguish between child sexual abuse as perpetrated by parents or caregivers and sexual assault as committed by other individuals. In this report, the term "sexual assault" included child sexual abuse.)

START AND DURATION OF ABUSE AMONG MALE VICTIMS. In his research on male child victims, Dr. Holmes found that sexual abuse generally began before puberty. About 17% to 53% of the respondents reported repeated abuse, with some victimization continuing over periods of less than six months and some victimization enduring for eighteen to forty-eight months.