Academic literature on the topic 'Child sexual abuse – Zimbabwe'

"In Zimbabwe the sexual abuse and exploitation of the girl child remains high. Recently the state has acknowledged the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation of the girl child and has indicated the willingness to step up campaigns against it. This campaign, however, targets school children in primary and secondary schools. There has also been an increase of sexual abuse of children in schools by the teachers and other staff members. The family as an institution has facilitated child abuse and exploitation in Zimbabwe through cultural practices and customs as a survival tactic. Some commentators have directly linked the revival of these cultural practices to the economic crisis that has resulted in food shortages around the country. These traditional practices include the marriages of the child to older men in exchange for food or money known as kuzvarira, kuripa ngozi, or pledging a girl into marriage and virginity testing. Some of the practices are, however, not directly linked to the prevailing economic crisis, but are just practiced as a tradition like chiramu. These practices have become more common amongst the Shona, the largest tribe constituting at least 76% of the population, and predominantly patriarchal. Theorists of patriarchy have directed their attention to the subordinate status of women and found their explanation in the male need to dominate the female. Although Zimbabwe as a state has shown a commitment to protecting children against sexual abuse by enactment of laws criminalising involvement of the girl child in prostitution, incest and rape of girls, little has been done to ensure that forced and early marriages of the girl child are curtailed. Virginity testing is not criminalised and is also currently being practised in rural parts of the country on a wide scale. ... Chapter one introduces the problem of child sexual abuse and exploitation of the girl child as a universal problem and gives a structure of the study. Chapter two discusses the concept of a child, sexual abuse and exploitation as a human rights problem. It analyses the protection of children under international human rights law. Chapter three gives a broad overview of the relationship between culture and children's rights. The role of the family will also be discussed as articulated in the human rights instruments. Chapter four highlights and discusses the cultural practices that result in sexual abuse and exploitation of the girl child in Zimbabwe. The legal framework protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation and the shortcomings will be highlighted. The impact of such sexual abuse and exploitation on the overall development of the child will also be discussed. Chapter five makes recommendations by looking at the developments from other countries on the rights of the girl child and cultural practises that result in sexual abuse." -- Introduction.<br>Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2006.<br>Prepared under the supervision of Dr. B. Twinomugisha, Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda<br>http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html<br>Centre for Human Rights<br>LLM

<p>The main purpose of the present thesis was to develop a measurement instrument aimed to reveal attitudes towards child sexual abuse, and to measure attitudes and associating personal, social and cultural factors among three different samples of Norwegian adults. Additional aims were to explore the relation between participants’ knowledge-seeking on the one hand, their experiences, attitudes and actual knowledge about abuse on the other hand.</p><p>Three studies are presented based on the same data material collected in Norway in spring 2004. Three samples were included in the survey: A sample of randomly selected adults between 18-67 years (n = 296). A sample of active Christians between 22-65 years (n = 125) and finally a sample of imprisoned child sexual offenders between 21-74 years (n = 36).</p><p>Study I was primarily concerned about the development and validation of a new measurement instrument, entitled Attitudes towards child sexual abuse (ACA). The scale consisted of four different attitudinal dimensions. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the four-factor structure. The four dimensions were entitled 1) Acceptance and responsibility, 2) Fatalism, 3) Damages caused by abuse, and 4) Legal issues. The result showed that there were significant attitude differences across the samples. The differences were in the expected direction e.g. offenders reported more abuse-accepting attitudes than the random adults and active Christians, and men had more abuse-accepting attitudes than women. This confirms the discriminative properties of ACA. Furthermore, the factors hypothesized to be associated with attitudes towards abuse behaved as expected, e.g. high empathy was related to more averse attitudes. Conclusively, the scale was found to be valid and reliable.</p><p>Study II further investigated attitudes towards abuse and explored cultural, social and personal factors associated with these attitudes. The results showed that different factors were predictors of attitudes in the three samples. Empathy and normlessness were the best predictors of attitudes among the random sample of adults and the active Christians. The most significant predictors of attitudes among the prisoners were their view of women and femininity. This may imply that different intervention strategies should be chosen depending on the target group.</p><p>Study III aimed to explore attitudes towards and knowledge-seeking about child sexual abuse among the samples. It was hypothesized that those who seek more knowledge had more accurate knowledge about abuse, and that the difference in knowledge-seeking and attitudes were related to the respondents’ own experience with abuse. It was furthermore expected that both knowledge-seeking and attitudes were predictors of abusive behaviour. The results suggested that attitudes and knowledge-seeking differed across samples and gender. The active Christians had most aversive attitudes towards child sexual abuse and sought more knowledge about abuse than the comparing samples. The respondents who reported high knowledge-seeking seemed to have more knowledge of abuse as well. However, a more comprehensive measurement of both knowledge-seeking and actual knowledge is recommended in future studies. Knowledge-seeking was related to both direct and indirect experience, e.g. victims of abuse had higher knowledge-seeking compared to non-victims and those who knew a victim had higher knowledge-seeking than those who did not know a victim. Abusive behaviour was predicted by attitudes, gender and sample. Knowledge-seeking did not predict abusive behaviour.</p><p>Taken together, the three studies showed that the hypothesized attitudinal differences between the three samples, were confirmed. Furthermore, the expected relation between attitudes on the one hand and social, cultural, and personality factors and knowledge-seeking on the other hand, was supported. The result as a whole may serve as a guide to interventions aimed to prevent abuse.</p>

The National Society of Protection and Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) estimate that 1 in 20 children are a victim of sexual abuse (Bentley, O’Hagan, Raff, & Bhatti, 2016). Furthermore, recent figures indicate that there has been a rise in child sexual abuse cases across the UK. Research into perpetrators of child sexual abuse have focused primarily on male offenders. Researchers have explored the cognitive distortions of male offenders and developed theories of sexual offending based on the risk factors associated with this population. More recently, studies have explored the core beliefs and schemas of child offenders to understand the factors that underpin their cognitive distortions. This empirical paper explores the Early Maladaptive Schemas and Implicit Theories of mentally disordered child sex offenders. Historically, societal perspectives of women indicated that females were highly unlikely to perpetrate sexual offences against children. More recent findings suggest that females account for approximately 5% of all sexual offenders across the UK, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand. However, this statistic varies depending on the data gathering methods employed: self-report studies indicate higher prevalence rates of female perpetrated sexual abuse compared to case report studies. This systematic review explores societal perspectives of female child sex offenders compared to male perpetrators.

Childhood sexual abuse among males has been associated with many negative psychological outcomes. Studies have attempted to identify which sexual abuse characteristics (e.g., duration, age of onset) are associated with mental health difficulties. While informative, this research has been mostly limited to variable-centered analyses, which do not capture the heterogeneity in males’ abuse experiences and psychological presentations. This two-part dissertation advances our understanding of how best to measure childhood sexual abuse and how to account for the diversity of sexual abuse experiences and outcomes among men using a person-centered approach. Given that there are few validated measures of childhood sexual abuse, the first study examined the psychometric properties of a commonly-used measure in the sexual abuse literature, the Sexual Victimization Survey (SVS; Finkelhor, 1979). Once the validity and reliability of the SVS were established, the SVS was used to generate profiles on the basis of abuse characteristics (Study 2). Data for both studies were drawn from a sample of 302 males (85% Caucasian) aged 18 to 65 years seeking support for childhood sexual abuse. Participants completed a modified version of the SVS as well as the sexual abuse subscale of the Childhood Experiences of Violence Questionnaire-Short Form (CEVQ-SF; Tanaka et al., 2012). Twenty-one males completed the SVS again one week later for test-retest purposes. The SVS showed high inter-rater reliability on sexual abuse status and sexual abuse characteristics. Most males (85%) who endorsed sexual abuse on the SVS did so on the CEVQ-SF, resulting in fair concurrent validity. The SVS showed perfect one-week test-retest reliability on abuse status, as well as good to excellent agreement on sexual abuse characteristics between the initial and one week time points. Given the strong psychometric properties of the modified SVS, it was then used to generate childhood sexual abuse profiles in Study 2. Once participants with significant missing data were deleted, 215 men remained and were included in the generation of profiles. Latent profile analyses revealed three distinct profiles which varied in the severity of abuse experiences. The Severe profile (n = 56, 26%) depicted sexual abuse which began in mid-childhood and consisted of a one or two time fondling by an unfamiliar extrafamilial perpetrator. Men in the More Severe profile (n = 71, 33%) also experienced abuse in mid-childhood by an extrafamilial perpetrator, but experienced more severe sexual acts that spanned several months to several years. Men in this profile were emotionally closer to their perpetrators prior to abuse onset than males in the Severe profile. The Most Severe profile (n = 88, 41%) depicted abuse which began in early childhood and consisted of very severe sexual acts by trusted individuals both within and outside of the family. Men in the Most Severe were significantly more likely to concurrently have experienced child emotional and physical abuse as well as a greater number of non-victimization adversities, compared with men in the other two profiles. Profiles varied with respect to psychological outcomes. Males in the More Severe and Most Severe profiles reported significantly more internalizing problems than men in the Severe profile, and men in the Most Severe profile reported significantly more trauma symptoms than men in the Severe profile. Certain contextual variables were also associated with greater psychological difficulties, namely greater present-day use of avoidant coping predicted more internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as greater trauma symptoms. Worse childhood family functioning was associated with more internalizing and externalizing problems, and disclosure of the abuse (compared to non-disclosure) was associated with more externalizing problems and trauma symptoms. These results have several research and clinical implications, including tailoring assessment and treatment to meet the individual needs of male survivors.

Introduction Child sexual abuse is a common problem. Psychological and behavioural problems in children and adults who have experienced child sexual abuse have been associated with the abuse. Little research has been conducted which has been long-term, prospective, involved substantiated sexual abuse, included a control group, took into account mediating factors, utilised multiple data sources, relied on standardised measures and had a high follow-up rate. Aim The aims of this study were to compare a cohort of sexually abused young people with a group of nonabused peers and to establish predictors of psychological and behavioural outcome. Method This study was a follow-up which was long-term, prospective, involved a sample of children with substantiated sexual abuse, included a control group, took into account mediating factors, utilised multiple data sources, relied on standardised measures and had a high follow-up rate. Eighty-four sexually abused young people were followed up five years after presenting to Children�s Hospitals� Child Protection Units for sexual abuse and were compared to a group of 84 nonabused young people of similar age and sex. The two groups were compared on the basis of demographic variables, family functioning, mother�s mental health and life events; the outcome measures of depression, self-esteem, anxiety, behaviour, criminal activity, alcohol and other drug use, eating problems, running away, suicide attempts, self-injury, hopefulness, despair and attributional style; and potential mediating factors such as further notifications to the Department of Community Services, receipt of psychological treatment, legal action against offenders and victims compensation. Potential predictors of outcome were (1) demographic variables, (2) sexual abuse characteristcs, (3) intake data and (4) five year follow-up variables. Main findings Follow-up rates were 81percent (n equals 68) for cases and 89percent (n equals 75) for controls. Five years after presenting for the sexual abuse, the sexually abused young people were performing more poorly than their nonabused peers on various measures of psychological state and behaviour. Although the abused children had experienced more negative life events (p<.001), were from lower socio-economic groups (p<.0001), had more changes in parent figures (p<.001) and had mothers who were more psychologically distressed (p equals .03), multiple regression analysis showed that after allowing for these and other demographic and family factors, there were still significant differences between the groups after the 5 years. The abused children displayed more disturbed behavior (p equals .002), had lower self-esteem (p<.001), were more depressed or unhappy (p<.001) and were more anxious (p equals .03) than controls. Sexually abused children had significantly higher levels of bingeing (p equals .02), self-injury (p equals.009) and suicide attempts (p equals .03). Significant predictors of psychological and behavioural outcome were significantly related to family and parent functioning variables. Abuse status was not a significant predictor when offered to each of the predictive models. Significant predictors of outcome included the following intake variables: family functioning, mother�s mental health, whether parents were employed or not, behaviour scores, prior notifications for neglect, history of parental discord and whether there were caregiver changes or not prior to intake. The classification of the index sexual abuse event as indecent assault and whether there were notifications for sexual abuse prior to the index event also significantly predicted outcome. Five year follow-up variables which were significant predictors of outcome were the young person�s age, number of negative life events, attributional style, self-esteem, depression, number of parent changes, anxiety, despair, whether there were notifications for abuse/neglect after intake and having a parent with a history of drug/alcohol problems. Conclusions Difficulties associated with child sexual abuse continue for some years after the abuse event. Child sexual abuse needs to be considered as a possible antecedent of behaviour and psychological difficulties in young people. Treatment and monitoring should continue for some years after the abuse. Treatment may need to be directed more towards young people�s psychological states rather than focusing specifically on the sexual abuse. Family and parent functioning may need to be addressed early in order to prevent some of the behavioural and psychological difficulties associated with the long-term outcome of child sexual abuse.

Academic interest in the field of child sexual abuse remained consistently high during the latter part of the twentieth century. The research undertaken at this time demonstrated the relationship between child sexual abuse and gender; that is to say that men are the primary perpetrators of the sexual victimisation of children. Given this preponderance, it is of central importance to keep the significance of gender focal. Paradoxically, it is for this very reason that gender remains significant in cases where women sexually abuse children - because they represent the minority of cases. It is this disparity which provides a basis for this work. The purpose of this work is to examine and demonstrate that gender is significant in: the way in which an abuse experience is defined and made sense of; the process by which an individual becomes a survivor; and how abuse experiences are responded to by others. The foci of defmition, interpretation, subjectivity and ambiguity led to the utilisation of symbolic interactionism as an appropriate theoretical perspective in which to ground the study and to guide the research analysis. Designed as an exploratory study, the work combines qualitative and quantitative research methods aimed at survivors of abuse and relevant professionals (the latter drawn from both the 'therapy industry' and the criminal justice arena). In-depth interviews were carried out with survivors and analysed to examine survivors' subjective realities and interpretations of their experiences of abuse. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used to explore the significance of gender in the responses of professionals to abuse experiences. The issues that arise from this work have profound implications for the way in which the significance of gender in child sexual abuse can be thought about and understood.

CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO<br>O abuso sexual praticado contra crianças é um crime hediondo que nos remete a uma história de dominação e poder do mais forte contra o mais fraco, e do adulto contra a criança, sejam eles familiares ou estranhos. Atualmente essa questão vem mobilizando autoridades governamentais, profissionais de saúde, de educação e a sociedade, através da mídia, da criação de leis, de campanhas educativas e da academia. Muitos embates têm sido travados visando encontrar as melhores alternativas para o enfrentamento do problema. Com base na noção de que a representação social contém um caráter prático e operacional, voltado para a ação, o presente estudo teve dois objetivos centrais: primeiro, identificar as representações sociais dos responsáveis por crianças vítimas de abuso sexual acerca dos agressores, dos profissionais e dos serviços de atenção à criança vítima de abuso sexual; e segundo, entender como essas representações influenciam a resolutividade dos casos atendidos.Conclui-se que a adesão ao tratamento, primeira condição para a resolutividade, é fortemente influenciada pelas representações sociais dos responsáveis, em particular aquelas relativas à função desempenhada pelas autoridades e à figura do autor do abuso sexual. O estudo mostra ainda que os responsáveis fazem circular essas representações, mas se ressentem do fato de nem sempre elas serem ouvidas, o que demonstra a necessidade de estabelecer uma escuta diferenciada que valorize e compreenda suas representações sociais como fatores determinantes no sucesso do acompanhamento e adesão ao tratamento. Apoiar, sustentar e valorizar a fala dos responsáveis, dar voz a estas representações e frustrações, é pois fundamental para construir ações efetivas na trajetória de enfrentamento da questão de modo a contribuir na resolutividade dos casos de abuso sexual.<br>Sexual abuse practised against children is a hideous crime which reminds us to a history of domination from the strongest to the weakest, from adults against children; being their relatives or unknown people. Nowadays, this question has been mobilizing governmental authorities, educational and health professionals and society as a whole through educational marketing campaigns, academic institutions, and also the criation of new legislation. Battles have been battled in order to find better alternatives to face this problem.Based on the idea that social representation contains a practical and operational character, which is focused on the action, this study had two principal objectives: Firstly, to identify the social representations from people who are in charge for children who are victms of sexual abuse, in relation to the their aggressors; representations from all the professionals involved and also from children protection programs. Secondly, to understand how these social representations influence the sexual abuse cases solutions.We conclude that the treatment adherence, which is the first condition towards the solution, is strongly influenced by parent social representations. Particularly, those ones related to the function represented by authorities and by the sexual abuse author figure. The study still shows that responsibles make to circulate these representations, although they feel resentful about the fact they are not always listened to. It demonstrates the necessity of establishing a differencial listening service, which understands and makes valuable their social representations as determining facts for the treatment adherence, its accompanying and success. Supporting and sustaining in order to become worthy these responsible clamours, as well as giving the right importance to their representations and frustrations. Therefore, these attitudes are fundamental to build effective actions during the jouney to face this question, in order to contribute to the sexual abuse cases solutions.

Purpose: The aim of this research was to investigate perceptions of child sexual abuse (CSA), particularly the perceptions held by CSA perpetrators and the public. Given the influence perceptions can have on a CSA victim’s wellbeing and disclosure behaviour, and a CSA perpetrator’s sexual recidivism risk, gaining insight into these perceptions was considered important. Method: To facilitate this investigation, a multifaceted approach was adopted. This commenced with chapter one, a systematic literature review, which aimed to identify which factors influence English and Welsh perceptions of CSA victims. The second chapter comprised an empirical research project which aimed to investigate the influence of a victim’s abuse history, victim-perpetrator relationship and a perpetrator’s gender on British perceptions of CSA. These three factors were selected due to their hypothesised influence on perceptions and lack of investigation. Following this, chapter three was completed which involved a critique of the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory-Revised (GBAI-R). This was to assess the inventory’s suitability for chapter four and to inform practitioners of its utility. Finally, chapter four entailed a case study which aimed to investigate whether a CSA perpetrator’s offence-specific minimisation could be reduced. This was facilitated by completing a six-session intervention on an individual basis. Results: This thesis revealed various findings. Specifically, chapter one revealed respondent gender influences public perceptions of CSA victims as males perceived CSA victims more negatively than females. Regarding chapter two, a victim’s abuse history, victim-perpetrator relationship and a perpetrator’s gender were not found to influence British perceptions of CSA. However, similar to chapter one, females were significantly more pro-victim compared to males. In chapter three, the critique identified some evidence of the GBAI-R being psychometrically sound and utilising an efficient administration methodology. Despite this, some concerns were raised regarding the representativeness of its normative data and the inventory’s susceptibility to extreme scores. Finally, chapter four revealed some evidence of the intervention reducing the perpetrator’s offence-specific minimisation although it was not possible to firmly conclude this. Conclusion: The findings highlight the need for further research into perceptions of CSA. This should include investigations into why males are less pro-victim compared to females and the impact this might have on CSA. Research should also continue to investigate the influence of a victim’s abuse history, victim-perpetrator relationship and a perpetrator’s gender on perceptions of CSA. As part of this research a more representative sample should be recruited to enable the generalisation of findings. A more comprehensive critique of the GBAI-R should also be facilitated as well as further investigations into minimisation.