Peer-to-peer abuse: Victim's parents call for changes to guidelines

The situation with schools around this is a microcosm of society and how it views females, males, sex offences.

Because its children, in a place they should be safe, and they have to go by law unless officially opted out, it gets some news columns.

But nothing is done? Afaik racist homophobic stuff is recordable, sex(m/f) is a more frequent driver of abuse. Sexist abuse, sexual assault etc. As with the hate crime laws though, sex is excluded. Why?

Children are being raped in school ffs. This should be a national scandal with everyone pulling out the stops to stop it.

The teachers here, as in other cases I've seen in media and on here, had witnessed the abuse and dismissed it / told the girl off.

This as I say is a microcosm of how sexual offences by men against women are viewed generally. Ie not that bad, he got carried away, look he's said sorry etc etc

Errol sexual abuse of boys is already taken more seriously, when it comes to light.

Yes there is certainly under reporting from male victims of sexual abuse, do we really know if its more than under reporting from female victims?

The assumption from certain quarters is that female victims invariably report and male ones don't. That assumption means that the victim sex is more evenly distrubuted.

That's based on a lot of assumptions though.

The little girl in the article didn't report. Her parents only found out ( don't read further if not read article as don't want to be upset)

When they asked why she couldn't sit down.

Anyone reading that story and quibbling over it, I don't understand. It made me nearly cry. 6 is tiny. She was subject to 6 weeks of sexual abuse, multiple times a day. The school did nothing. They had even walked in and called her 'silly'.

Children must have already been victimised in order to be victims?

Not only that, children must have been victimised to be perpetrators.

Clearly this is bullshit. It may be of relevance amongst younger children but many sexual assaults in schools occur at secondary level and the perpetrators are pubescent boys.

I suspect the rise in sexual assaults has far more to do with ready access to pornography than poor ickle victimised teenage boys.

I see the person who is unaware of uk laws and yet posting as if they are fully informed has not apologised but accused uk of being stuck in the 1950s.

Given that they are posting from a country where child marriage is legal in some states, this does seem a bit rich.

The case identified in the OP were all in the one class and aged 6. Yes I suspect the 6 year old who instigated the abuse was most likely abused themselves. I’m out I have been completely misrepresented here. Not a topic I can just debate it is too personal.

Ni 10

England Wales 10
Scotland 12

Italian yes England it's 10 fair point.

'This type of abuse usually reflects that both children have experienced abuse themselves. The child being abused by the classmate obviously but the other child has experienced some inappropriate exposure to sexual behaviour to even attempt this type of behaviour.'

The hell?

Children must have already been victimised in order to be victims?

This thread is appalling.

I see the person who is unaware of uk laws and yet posting as if they are fully informed has not apologised but accused uk of being stuck in the 1950s.

Right ho.

I believe the age of criminal responsibility is 10 in England. Is it the same in the rest of the UK?

raping a 30 year old woman ...

The story in the bbc article made me well up.

How anyone can read that and be compelled to post such a load of shit is beyond me.

What's the agenda I mean that's seriously shocking

For anyone reading yes 14 yo boys raping a6yo girl are criminally liable, the suggestion that well they're all kids it's a juvenile matter just no.

I believe the age of criminal responsibilty in uk is way too low. But. Less of the bullshit please.

In the example given it was two boys assaulting a girl. Peer on peer makes it sound like an even thing, peer (to me) implies someone of equal 'ability', 'experience', 'standing' etc. So firstly no two pupils of the same age ganging up and attacking one is not 'peer'!

But also, even if it were on pupil attacking another, then is this really a peer situation? One pupil knows about sexual assault enough to inflict it on another. One knows how to get another pupil alone, assault them, perhaps frighten them into not reporting.

Would we really describe a 30 year old man raping a ep year old woman as a peer assault?

It's a sexual assault of a child or children perpetrated by a child or children. It's not catchy but more accurate.

Not rtft but started

Person who is saying that, essentially, it's fine to obscure that is mainly male on female assaults as this 'erases' male on female and same sex assaults is out of line. If eg 90%of assaults are male on female that is important info and does not 'erase' anyone fgs.

Rape in uk is defined as penetration with a penis so before police moved to self id in crime stats, it was a crime that only a man could commit. Assault by penetration carries the same seriousness in law.

Age of criminal accountability in uk is 10 so this statement
'For 14 yr old on 6yr old, the higher age would be accounted for in the 14yr olds sentence in terms of awareness of right and wrong. But the crime is still a juvenile crime'
Is utter and total bollocks

That's as far as I got for one poster to post so many total inaccuracies in such a short time needs addressing.

Assuming other people will have a well. But, wow.

I thought that was what you meant Errol what I meant is that boys who are abused are stigmatised as a group (generally) and individually. They really are. It might be way outside your experiences because you are an empathetic person but as I said from a long time on CSA boards it is totally different to what you think. Families turn against abuse victims when they report abuse. Society talks a good talk but does not respond in kind to child abuse. I know from personal experience and from a lot of reading in this topic since it happened to me.

Yeah I agree. Peer on peer really means nothing. It’s sexual assault and should be called. Sexual assault
They should stop using words to hide the fact that it# sexual assaults going on in schools

Name it

Insisting that we must be able to name women and girls as predominant victims of sexual assaults should never mean ignoring what happens to boys and men. There should not be a hierarchy of awfulness.
The reason I (and so many women) feel suspicious of this language shift is because of the overt and successful attempts to eradicate women's identity / experiences at every level. Perhaps if all the predators and misogynists were less successful in appropriating our identities, culture, sport and safe sex segregated spaces, changes to language would not be appear to be so suspicious.

Absolutely not Errol boys suffering abuse are stigmatised within an inch of their lives.

Not sure what you mean - I meant awareness in general terms, certainly not individuals.

I would suggest boys experience a hell of a lot less sexual violence in co ed schools.

This would also be my suspicion.

And maybe, pragmatically if cynically, if there was more awareness that boys were suffering too it would be taken more seriously

Absolutely not Errol boys suffering abuse are stigmatised within an inch of their lives.

The point about single or mix sexed schools is a very valid one. I would suggest boys experience a hell of a lot less sexual violence in co ed schools. Bullies prey in the weakest. Sexual violence is a power based dominance behaviour so it will affect the most vulnerable first no question.

Particularly in connection with the tendency on the part of schools to move heaven and earth so as not to give permanent exclusions to the (mostly male) perpetrators, leaving the victims the choice of having to be in a class with their attacker or move school following a massive amount of effort on the part of their parents

Coupled to this I have heard of "restorative justice" being used - i.e. get the boy to say "terribly sorry, won't do it again" (with his fingers crossed behind his back) which is meant to make it all magically okay.

We can add universities to that. One of the recommendations of the investigation of the Warwick group chat scandal was that the university look into using restorative justice for "resolving" future cases. The author of the report acknowledged this was controversial but went on to recommend it anyway, and I'm sure the university will eagerly embrace this opportunity to brush future sexual harassment and abuse incidents under the carpet.