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Health Canada Publication
The Invisible Boy: Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens
"... the existence of a double standard in the care and treatment of male victims, and the invisibility and normalization of violence and abuse toward boys and young men in our society.
Despite the fact that over 300 books and articles on male victims have been published in the last 25 to 30 years, boys and teen males remain on the periphery of the discourse on child abuse.
Few workshops about males can be found at most child abuse conferences and there are no specialized training programs for clinicians. Male-centred assessment is all but non-existent and treatment programs are rare. If we are talking about adult males, the problem is even greater. A sad example of this was witnessed recently in Toronto. After a broadcast of The Boys of St. Vincent, a film about the abuse of boys in a church-run orphanage, the Kids' Help Phone received over 1,000 calls from distraught adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is tragic in a way no words can capture that these men had no place to turn to other than a children's crisis line." More ..
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Female Sex Offenders
Female Sexual Predators
Hundreds of them.... female teachers who sexually assaulted 12 year old boys. Read about a lesbian tennis coach who sexually assaulted her 13 year old female student.
Read how a 40 year old female sexual predator blamed a 7 year old boy whom she claimed was " coming on to me" and whom she "hoped to marry someday." More..
Virtual Library of Newspaper Articles
THE PRESS
Study finds girls molest young boys
THE PRESS, NZ, By TIM HUME, July 1, 2004
Researchers into sexual abuse by girls say female sexual offending is chronically under-reported and specialised rehabilitation programmes are urgently needed.
Findings released yesterday from New Zealand's first study into adolescent female sexual offending reported a "culture of denial" about female sexual offending, which allowed adolescent female abusers to molest young, usually male, victims without repercussion.
If not rehabilitated, female abusers would most likely continue to offend and eventually pose a threat to their own children.
The survey of 400 health, mental health and related professionals identified eight young women in
Christchurch currently aged between 12 and 19 who had sexually abused. It identified other female
abusers older than 19, who were excluded from the results.
Lead researcher Nikki Evans, from the University of Canterbury's social work department, said there was "an enormous amount of minimisation" surrounding sexual abuse by females, which meant it was usually not reported by victims, families or health professionals.
"People find it really difficult to perceive young women engaging in sexually abusive behaviours; it goes against the idea of women as nurturers," she said.
Research showed many people, including mental health professionals, perceived female sexual offending as not abusive or harmful.
"If a young girl abuses a 12-year-old boy it's seen as an initiation and a positive thing, rather than something traumatic," Evans said.
Researcher Don Mortensen, manager of the STOP Trust, which runs rehabilitation programmes for adult, adolescent and child sexual abusers, said society had been slow to acknowledge that sexual abuse by females was equally as destructive as that perpetrated by men.
STOP commissioned the research as a feasibility study into establishing the country's first rehabilitation programme for adolescent female abusers.
In nearly all of the eight Christchurch cases, the girls' victims were well known to them. Most were siblings or foster siblings. Peers at school and other neighbourhood children they were babysitting were also abused.
"They're abusing within the context of a relationship. We know that sort of abuse is the most difficult context (for the victim)," Evans said.
Their victims were always younger, and typically male. Three abused children aged between one and five years old.
The number of victims for each girl ranged between one and five, although Evans said the true numbers may be higher due to under-reporting.
The girls' average age was now 16 but several had been pre-teens when they started abusing.
None were reported to the youth justice system or referred to specialist treatment programmes.
"That suggests their offending was not prioritised, which reflects the general view in the community," Evans said.
There was a pressing need to treat adolescent female offenders because females who had been sexually abused were more likely to become teenage mothers, she said.