3 in 4 B.C. boys on street sexually exploited by women
The Vancouver Sun, Gerry Bellett, Canwest News Service, Tuesday, May 27, 2008
VANCOUVER - Canada's largest study into the sexual exploitation of
street kids and runaways has shattered some myths about who the abusers
might be - with the most surprising finding being that many are women
seeking sex with young males.
"Some youth in each gender were exploited by women with more than
three out of four (79 per cent) sexually exploited males reporting
exchanging sex for money or goods with a female," said Elizabeth Saewyc,
associate professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia and
principal investigator for the study conducted by Vancouver's McCreary
Centre Society.
"I must admit it wasn't something we were expecting."
The results were drawn from interviews with 1,845 youth - some as
young as 12 - in surveys taken across the province between 2000 and
2006.
The stereotypical model of the child being abused - a teenage female
being sexually abused by a male - was wrong, said Saewyc.
Sexual exploitation is defined as youth under 19 trading sexual
activities for money, drugs, gifts, food, services, shelter,
transportation or anything similar.
This can include work in brothels, escort services, pornography and
Internet sex but it also includes what's described as "survival sex,"
where a child provides sex in exchange for a place to sleep, a meal or a
ride.
It found one in every three of children living on the street have
been sexually abused although many didn't seem aware that they had been
exploited, said Saewyc.
"It's a shocking number. The law is clear: any adult who has sex with
children for any form of consideration is exploiting them and it's
illegal," she said.
The study found 94 per cent of females reported they had been
sexually exploited by men.
But the study found that young males were being preyed upon by sexual
predators of both sexes, yet the social systems in place to deter and
prevent sexual predation were only designed to help females and the
criminal justice system wasn't concerned with what was happening to
young males.
"Women seeking young men and boys offer transportation or other
things and some go to nightclubs and bars where they can pick up
under-age youth. And a certain percentage have been picked up by
couples," she said.
Saewyc said it was indicative of the prevailing myths about sexual
abuse that the rehabilitation program for persons arrested by police for
attempting to buy sexual favours on the street was called "John School".
"I think it's time we had a Jane School. There should be an equal
opportunity school for women predators," she said.
"Part of the challenge is that young males are not seen as being
exploited because they are not coming to the attention of the police and
the police aren't out there picking up the perpetrators. The system is
set up to handle the sexual exploitation of young women, not young men,"
she said.
Community research associate Jayson Anderson said most of the
programs to deal with sexual exploitation were designed by women for
women. "There's really nothing out there for males. So we need programs
for young boys," he said.
The study showed that the following youth were most likely to suffer
from sexual predation:
Women who kill their children are given sympathy and sentenced to "treatment" while men who do the same thing
are charged with murder and sentenced to life.
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that women are many times more likely to murder their offspring than men.
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."
Read More ..
A surprising 86% of survivors of sexual
abuse were not believed when they said the abuser was a woman.
Many myths were exposed, such as the one that women only sexually abused
when coerced by men - they in fact played the lead part. Also the myth that
women are incapable of cruelty - what was shown was beyond belief.
Women commit 25% of all child sexual abuse
250,000 children in UK have been sexually abused by women
Women in our society have been portrayed as victims, but somewhere within
their victimisation they have learned that to abuse children gave them a
sense of power, control, agency, and therefore they use the abuse of children
to gain those things.
Jacqui Saradjiam: (clinical psychologist)
I think people find it so difficult to see that women sexually abuse children
because the whole view of women is of nurturers, carers, protectors - people
who do anything to look after children - and they see the women as victims
rather than enemies or perpetrators of any abuse.
Michelle Elliott: (Director - children's charity Kidscape)
I think the issue strikes at the core of what we perceive ourselves as women
to be. I think that it's easier to think that it's men - men the enemy,
somehow - but it can't be women - it's one thing women can't do. Women can
be equal, we can be free, we can be in charge of companies, but we can't
sexually abuse children - That's a load of rubbish.
A married primary schoolteacher was jailed for 15 months yesterday after admitting having sex with an underage
teenage boy.
Hannah Grice, 32, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of indecent assault on the boy, who was aged
14 and 15 at the time of the offences.
Sentencing her at Stafford crown court, Judge John Shand told Grice, from Cannock, Staffordshire, she had abused
her position of trust.
"Cases such as this are, of course, made worse by the fact that you were a member of the teaching profession," he
told her. "You should have been very sensitive indeed to child welfare issues." Grice was also ordered to register
as a sex offender for 10 years. Read More ..
"... 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."
Ontario's male victims of child sexual assault are being ignored
by a provincial government that focuses all its attention on women, a newly
launched lobby group that wants equitable funding argued Monday.
The group the Ontario Association of Male Survivor Services says that
one man in five was sexually abused as a child and that ignoring the problem
makes it harder for these men to recover.
"We've got to stop thinking that sexual violence is just a women's
issue," said Rick Goodwin, executive director of the not-profit organization
that will operate the lobby group, in a telephone interview from Ottawa. "In
this day and age, that's absurd.".
Correctional Services Canada Service correctionnel du Canada
Délinquantes sexuelles sous la
responsabilité du Service correctionnel du Canada, études de cas
LITERATURE REVIEW ON FEMALE SEX OFFENDERS
Although there is an increasing literature on male sex offenders,
there is a noticeable dearth of information concerning female sex
offenders. Most of the work in the area has come from three of the
largest prison programs for female sex offenders in Missouri, Minnesota,
and Kentucky.
OVERALL NEGLECT OF FEMALE SEXUAL OFFENCES
For a variety of societal reasons, female sexual abuse is likely to
remain unnoticed. Some researchers have found that the incidence of
sexual contact with boys by women is much Read More ..evalent than is
contended in the clinical literature (Condy, Templer Brown & Veaco,
1987). Despite society's increasing concern about sexual assault, there
may be several reasons for the under-reporting of female sexual abuse of
both child and adult victims. Traditionally, society has held
preconceptions of women as non-violent nurturers. Women in general, and
mothers Read More ..ecifically, have Read More ..eedom than men to touch children
(Marvasti, 1986). Therefore, a man may be Read More ..sily perceived as
abusive when touching a child than when a woman touches a child in a
similar manner (Plummer, 1981). Further, sexual offences perpetrated by
women are often incestuous in nature and children may be reluctant to
report sexual contact with a parent on whom they are dependent (Groth,
1979). Health care workers are often unable to detect mother-child
incest as mothers often accompany their children to the doctor's office.
This may serve as a barrier to detecting sexual abuse of the child
(Elliott & Peterson, 1993). The medical profession is only reluctantly
becoming sensitive to the fact that females can, in fact, be
perpetrators of sexual abuse (Wilkins, 1990; Krug, 1989).
EXAMEN DE LA DOCUMENTATION SUR LES DÉLINQUANTES SEXUELLES
La documentation sur les délinquants sexuels s'accroît alors que
l'information sur les délinquantes sexuelles est clairement déficiente.
La plupart des travaux en ce domaine proviennent de trois des programmes
les plus importants établis pour les délinquantes sexuelles au Missouri,
au Minnesota et au Kentucky.
DÉSINTÉRESSEMENT GÉNÉRAL À L'ÉGARD DES INFRACTIONS SEXUELLES
COMMISES PAR DES FEMMES
Pour diverses raisons sociales, les mauvais traitements sexuels
infligés par les femmes demeurent généralement cachés. Certains
chercheurs ont découvert que l'incidence des contacts sexuels entre des
femmes et des garçons est beaucoup plus élevée que ne l'estime la
documentation clinique (Condy, Templer Brown et Veaco, 1987). En dépit
du fait que la société se préoccupe de plus en plus de l'agression
sexuelle, plusieurs raisons pourraient faire que l'on parle moins des
cas de mauvais traitements sexuels infligés par des femmes à des enfants
ou à des adultes. La société a toujours perçu les femmes comme des
nourricières non violentes. Les femmes en général, et surtout les mères,
ont plus de latitude pour toucher les enfants que les hommes (Marvasti,
1986). Par conséquent, un homme qui touche un enfant de la même manière
que le fait une femme peut être plus facilement perçu comme un agresseur
(Plummer, 1981). En outre, les infractions sexuelles commises par des
femmes sont souvent de nature incestueuse et les enfants peuvent hésiter
à dénoncer un contact sexuel avec un parent dont ils dépendent (Groth,
1979). Les travailleurs du domaine de la santé sont souvent incapables
de déceler les cas d'inceste entre l'enfant et la mère car cette
dernière accompagne souvent l'enfant au bureau du médecin. Cela peut
empêcher de dépister les mauvais traitements sexuels infligés à l'enfant
(Elliott et Peterson, 1993). La profession médicale prend à contrecoeur
conscience du fait que les femmes peuvent en fait infliger de mauvais
traitements sexuels. (Wilkins, 1990; Krug, 1989).
Read More ..
CORNWALL, Ont. - Male victims of childhood sexual abuse need
specialized support services and a provincial ombudsman dedicated to
their plight, the Cornwall inquiry heard Friday as the $40-million probe
drew to a close after three years of testimony.
The inquiry, established to examine institutional responses to
allegations of sexual abuse in eastern Ontario, spent the majority of
its final week hearing submissions dealing with allegations that a
pedophile clan operated with impunity in the city for decades.
Lawyers at the inquiry cast the clan stories as fabrications spread
by a misguided police officer and embraced by a panic-stricken
community.
On Friday, the submissions focused on healing and reconciliation for
the community and victims.
Following a complaint in 1992 that a former altar boy had been
sexually abused by a priest and a probation officer, many others came
forward to allege they had also been abused by prominent people decades
ago.
Many of those complainants were men, and a lawyer for the counselling
group The Men's Project said even though there were a lot of community
services in the city at the time, none could adequately handle men's
counselling.
"In fact, they had to bring in my client from Ottawa because they
were the only ones with expertise to deal with this," David Bennett told
the inquiry.
"Even though there were existing social services they just weren't
able to deal with it and (that's) why there needs to be a specialized
area."
Both The Men's Project and the Victims Group urged the commissioner
to recommend that the Ontario government create victim treatment service
centres for male survivors of sexual abuse province wide.
Both groups also called for the province to create a sex abuse
ombudsman.
"There has been a theme from survivors of not being believed, getting
the run-around, being kept in the dark, which for some had the effect of
re-victimization," the Men's Project said in its written submissions.
"An ombudsman could rectify this."
In addition, the government needs to remedy how treatment for sexual
abuse victims is funded, the Men's Project said.
Read More ..
