It's Not Only Adults Who Perpetrate Child Sexual Abuse

Source: Erubiel Flores/Pixabay

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been deemed a national health crisis as it impacts one in four girls and one in 20 boys by the time they reach adulthood. Given the long-lasting consequences of CSA, it is important to prevent it before it occurs. To prevent CSA from occurring it is important to understand both who perpetrates it and how it is perpetrated. Historically, prevention efforts have misdirected and focused on the stranger-danger myth of CSA—in which it was believed that CSA was typically perpetrated by a strange man in a white van. However, only 7 percent of CSA is perpetrated by a stranger, with most abuse being perpetrated by those known to the child such as family, friends, and others in their community.

While it is typically believed that those who perpetrate CSA are adults, a new study from our lab found that 37 percent of adult survivors of CSA reported that the person who perpetrated the abuse was another youth. This is in line with a growing body of research showing that about 40 percent of CSA is perpetrated by minors including siblings. When looking at the characteristics of youth who engaged in sexual harm we found the following:

• Most of the youth who perpetrated the sexual harm were adolescents and on average four years older than the children.
• In 18 percent of the cases, the perpetrator was a female youth—which defies many stereotypes of those who engage in sexual harm.
• Almost all of the youth were well known to the child (96 percent) and included friends (20.8 percent), biological or step-siblings (19.6 percent), extended family members (14.8 percent), romantic partners (13.6 percent), and acquaintances (13.2 percent).
• Few children reported the sexual harm to authorities (6 percent).
• One-third reported the sexual harm to someone else such as a friend (32 percent), meaning that most never reported the sexual harm to anyone.

When examining how the sexual abuse was perpetrated, we found the following:

• Ninety-seven percent of the cases involved sexual grooming behaviors.
• On average, 11.3 (out of 42) sexual grooming behaviors were reported. This is fewer than with adult-perpetrated CSA, for which we have found 14.25 sexual grooming behaviors on average.
• Youth who engaged in sexual harm had more unsupervised access to other minors, likely due to myths about who perpetrates CSA.

These findings have implications for the detection and prevention of CSA:

1. Youth-serving organizations must include information about youth as potential perpetrators of CSA in training materials, including that both male and female youth may engage in sexually harmful behaviors.
2. Policies and guidelines about interactions between youth in positions of power, such as camp counselors, should mirror those of adults (i.e., should not be alone with children where they cannot be observed by others).
3. Since 20 percent of youth sexual harmful behavior was perpetrated by a friend, guidelines and trainings should also address guidance for addressing behavior between youth.
4. Teach youth appropriate boundaries, what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior in relationships (friend and romantic relationships), and who and how to tell if another youth violates boundaries.
5. There was significant overlap between the sexual grooming behaviors reported by youth who engaged in sexual harm and adults who perpetrated CSA. As such, this infographic can be used to identify which sexual grooming behaviors when observed in youth may be considered most concerning, and if high-risk sexual grooming behaviors are observed in youth, then further investigation and precautions should be immediately put into place.