Child victims of sexual violence are more likely than adult victims to experience additional abuse, including psychological and emotional abuse, and to have it perpetrated on them for a longer time.
These are among the findings in the 2015 annual report from the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland, published on Monday.
It finds that 1,384 people attended the 11 Rape Crisis Centres last year, which is a 3 per cent drop on the 2014 figures. More than 1,300 people availed of counselling and supports, and 180 people were accompanied to services such as the courts, the gardaí, sexual assault treatment units and other medical services.
The slight drop in the number of people attending the centres, says the report, is most likely due to decreased resources rather than any decreased demand, as waiting lists remain active for all centres.
The majority (88 per cent) of people using the service were female and 12 per cent male, with almost one-fifth (19 per cent) children under the age of 18.
Adult sexual violence
The majority of the survivors (62 per cent) were subjected solely to child sexual violence, with one-third solely to adult sexual violence and one-in-10 subjected to sexual assault in both childhood and adulthood.
“Sexual violence is rarely perpetrated in isolation,” says the report, with younger victims the ones most likely to have experienced additional abuse to the sexual violence.
“Survivors of child sexual abuse most commonly disclosed that they had been subjected to emotional and psychological abuse in addition to the sexual violence, 60 per cent of under-13s and 66 per cent of 13- to 17-year-olds.”
The younger the person at the time of the abuse, “the more likely it is that the abuse was . . . over a number of years (86 per cent of under-13s compared with 32 per cent of 13- to 17-year-olds)”. In contrast survivors of adult abuse most commonly said it happened over a number of hours (69 per cent).
Young children (under-13) most commonly disclosed that they had been abused within the abuser’s or their own homes (44 per cent and 36 per cent), while 13- to 17-year-olds most commonly disclosed abuse that took place in the survivor’s home (14 per cent), abuser’s home (34 per cent), outside locations (33 per cent) and other locations (19 per cent).
Female survivors were more likely subjected to rape (54 per cent) than sexual assault (42 per cent), while male survivors were more commonly sexually assaulted (55 per cent of males were sexually assaulted and 41 per cent raped).
