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

I'm somewhat inclined to think that it may not be helpful to focus on the sex of the victims. I'm sure we're all agreed that it's just as bad for boys to be abused. And maybe, pragmatically if cynically, if there was more awareness that boys were suffering too it would be taken more seriously and there would be a more correct prioritisation of the needs of the victim versus the perpetrator.

"A significant minority" can still mean "overwhelmingly affects girls".
10-20% of victims would be, I'd say, significant.
80-90% of victims is still an overwhelming majority.

I would be interested to know whether the significant minority of boys subjected to sexual assaults at school are found proportionately across both single sex and mixed sex establishments.

@Lazydaisies "A significant minority" can still mean "overwhelmingly affects girls".
10-20% of victims would be, I'd say, significant.
80-90% of victims is still an overwhelming majority.

There's another thread up and running at the moment on "anti carceral feminism", which has some relevance to this, I think.

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.

I did not realise the U.K. was behind on this and stuck in the 50s.

We're not 'stuck in the 50s'. We rightly recognise that penises carry specific risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease that make the crime of penetration different when the weapon used is a penis. We rightly reserve the word 'rape' for this specific crime.

And while god knows the UK is far from perfect I give thanks daily that I am not in the US given their appalling record on women's rights.

Oh, FFS. This problem in UK schools overwhelmingly affects girls

I don’t know if that is true. While the perpetrators of abuse are mostly male a very significant minority of the victims are male too. I have been abused and the sheer number of male victims on CSA support forums who do not speak about what happened in the wider community it absolutely shocking. I would suggest that male on male victimisation is grossly underestimated.

Peer on peer implies a power structure where the victim is equal to the perpetrator.

There is very clearly ALWAYS a power imbalance in these cases.

So yes I do very much think this phrase needs to be binned because of the effect this language has, which suggests that the victim is able to refuse or has enough power to challenge what is going on.

The power imbalance is a key factor in WHY the abuse is occurring in the first place.

The phrase almost suggests that schools have no ability nor responsibility to be actively preventing these situations from occurring; never mind that abdication of responsibility AFTER it has happened.

If you can't see the power structure in abuse, you can't stop it and you are unwittingly blaming the victim.

The same goes for child on child. Especially when the perpetrator is above the age of criminal responsibility. It suggests they are equally innocent - and whilst a child perpetrator might be vulnerable or at risk in their own right, there has to be a reflection of where they ARE making an active decision to do something they know to be wrong and harmful - and are not innocent in any way near the same way.

The age difference issue is an important one. I believe social services used to use a rule of thumb of a two year age gap - less than this and it might possibly be experimentation (though more likely to have been one or other child being shown inappropriate material such as online porn by a trusted adult). More than two years and it definitely was the older child abusing the younger child.

If we're talking about children, then it's less likely that it's due to larger/stronger bodies or due to the influx of testosterone* at puberty (though of course teenagers aged 13-17 are still children).

Which leaves us with: exposure to inappropriate activity/imagery, whether sexual, violent or both; being taught that boys are supposed to be violent; being taught that boys are supposed to get what they want; a combination of those, and other things that other people will no doubt come along and think of.

*The only person who thinks there is a testosterone surge aged 5 is Steve Biddulph and he made it up to sell books as far as I can tell.

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. I don’t reject “peer on peer” abuse for pre pubescent children. Peer with small children refers to age/class group. A 10 year old is not a peer of a 6 year old.

This is different for post pubescent children because their own sexual urges and drives have developed and they are acting on their own urges not those instilled in them through abuse.

That's also true, Martha. All of the male friends and relatives I have who have disclosed having been raped/sexually assaulted (and it's a fair few, sadly) have been attacked by other men.

Which, again, is not to say that female sexual abusers don't exist, or that what they do isn't heinous. They do exist, and they are horrible. But they are much, much rarer than male sexual abusers.

You’ve made a dubious logical leap Angela’s. Victimisation rates for males being higher than reported (plausible) doesn’t mean that percentage of female perpetrators is higher than reported: many male victims will have been assaulted by male perpetrators.

As for definitions of crimes, the UK also has a crime of serious sexual assault which carries exactly the same sentencing guidelines as rape. So it's not that the UK is "stuck in the 1950s", just that we have different names for different offences - but they are considered to be of equal severity and have the same sentencing guidelines.

As for under-reporting, well, we know that sexual crimes by men against women are also massively under-reported, so I think your attempt at a statistical analysis may fall down at that very obvious first hurdle.

Can I ask why you're so invested in "but women do it too"?

AngelasAshes
And how many of those 'female' perpetrators in your evidence are actually men self identifying as women?

It remains a fact that between 98 and 99% of convicted sex offenders are male.

I don't know why that is, it could be nature, it could be nurture. It's worth research into why, I think. Is it pornography? Is it living in a patriarchal society? Are men inherently more violent? Or is it simply that, being bigger and stronger, it is easier for them to get what they want by force? These are important questions to ask.

But in the absence of solid explanations as to the reason for this nearly hundred-fold difference in offending patterns, it's still worth noting that this is the way the statistics pan out. And that is borne out in country after country, it's not a UK only phenomenon.

Of course sexual abuse perpetrated by women is terrible, and causes just as much suffering for the victims as that perpetrated by men. But it is much, much rarer. If we want to make a big dent in offending statistics, we can usefully start with male behaviour.

@AngelasAshes
And yet, 98% of perpetrators are male.
If you have any stats to show that this is different for children, do please share.

“All this inclusive language obscures two facts:

1. 98-99% of all sexual offences are committed by males.

1. 91% of the victims are female.”

Although meta studies in numerous countries have shown that the victimisation surveys show a rate six times higher for males than the above “official rates”. So, rates of 11% of perpetrators are female.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093854816658923?journalCode=cjbb

Sorry about rape thing, I’m an expat and in the US it was updated to penetration and approx 4,000 women have been convicted of rape. I did not realise the U.K. was behind on this and stuck in the 50s.

Females can be sex offenders and predators.
There was a thread about a young boy who had pushed over a girl by shoving her away who was forcibly kissing him even after he said no. The boy was considered to be troublesome and told off for pushing the girl. The girl was comforted and told the boy was wrong for pushing her.
Nothing was said about the fact that the girl actually was sexually assaulting the boy and he was defending himself.
We have blinders on when it comes to girls.

Ugh, sorry, didn't realise that c&p included embedded links

Here's a definition of 'peer'

a personon^ who is the same agege^ or has the same socialal^ positionon^ or the same abilitieses^ as other peoplele^ in a groupup*^

'Minor on minor' might be more accurate?

'Peer to peer' is decidedly problematic as it implies an equality of power. This is not the case when the children are of different sex and/or age.

AngelasAshes

No, it is specific to penises in English law.

Penetration with other objects is 'assault by penetration'.

Women have only ever been charged with rape in cases of joint enterprise.

I know Wiki isn't a great source but they are correct on this point

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapeinnEnglishlaw

Not in English law, which is what the majority on this board will be referring to (and in particular this topic as it's country specific)

Women have been convicted as accessories to rape.