Child sex abuse study finding 'astounding'

MORE THAN two-thirds of survivors of childhood sexual abuse, who sought help from the Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) last year, had been abused by more than one perpetrator, new figures show.

The finding was described as “shocking and astounding” by Fiona Neary, RCNI director. Speaking at the publication of the network’s annual statistics yesterday, she said it was the first time they had gathered such detailed data.

The 13 rape crisis centres provided 16,549 hours of counselling and support last year to 1,588 people. They also provided 795 hours of accompaniment for survivors going to gardaí, medical examinations and courts.

Some 60.7 (963) per cent of those helped last year had been abused as children, while 30.4 per cent (482) had suffered abuse as adults only, while 141 had been abused as child and adult.

The majority of clients (85 per cent) were female and 15 per cent were male. The majority (96 per cent) of perpetrators were male.

Some 89 per cent of perpetrators were known to the survivors and 69 per cent of survivors of sexual abuse as children were subjected to it by more than one perpetrator. “This is a figure that we found shocking and astounding,” said Ms Neary. “We have checked it and rechecked it, and it is valid. We wanted to find out what was behind that figure and looked at some examples.”

Among them was “Anne”, who was abused by an uncle between the ages of eight and 10. He then returned to where she was living and began abusing her again, this time with a friend. Another example was “Eileen”, who was abused by her father between the ages of nine and 13, and by her brother when she was 12. She does not know if the two men knew the other was abusing her, or whether the father was also abusing her brother. “So there are very individual stories behind the statistics,” said Ms Neary.

For children, 50 per cent were abused by family members, almost all perpetrators were well known to the child and only 3 per cent were abused by strangers.

“The duration of abuse for children and for adults is vastly different. For the majority (71 per cent) of survivors of childhood abuse, the duration was over a period of years, while for the majority of survivors of adult abuse (66.5 per cent) it was usually over a period of hours.”