Sex Differences in Exposure to Sexual Violence in Greece and the Balkans

BECAN project was an EU/FP7-funded epidemiological survey on CAN prevalence and incidence in 9 Balkan countries. It including a field survey in 11-, 13- and 16-year old schoolchildren by using a modified version of the ICAST-P... [ view full abstract ]

BECAN project was an EU/FP7-funded epidemiological survey on CAN prevalence and incidence in 9 Balkan countries. It including a field survey in 11-, 13- and 16-year old schoolchildren by using a modified version of the ICAST-P questionnaire. Design sample for the field survey was 63,250 children from which 42,272 eventually responded (RR: 66.83%). Modified version of the ICAST tools were developed via consensus panel methodology as well as pilot testing in focus groups involving 1,861 children (RR:71.52%).

Incidence/prevalence of children’s exposure to sexual violence were found ranging among countries: prevalence from 6% to 19.5% for overall sexual violence exposure and 2% to 12.5% for exposure to contact sexual violence; incidence from 4.65% to 15% for overall and 1.4% to 10% for exposure to contact sexual violence. Sex distribution found, seemed to differ substantially from the standard perception. More specifically, boys’ self-reported exposure to sexual violence was found to exceed girls’ respective rates in 5 countries; only in 1 country girls’ rates were found to be higher than boys; while in the others differences were rather insignificant. Looking into more details in the results from Greece, it seems that there at least two patterns of children’s exposure to sexual violence: one in younger children in which boys’ exposure rates are considerably higher compared to girls’; and one in adolescent children with relatively higher girls’ exposure rates.

Such findings are aligned with material from qualitative and clinical research on child sexual victimization. A number of reasons might explain such findings: underestimation of boys’ exposure to sexual violence in virtue of measuring practices; relative protective environments for girls; limited awareness about boys’ victimization; psychological factors such as dissociative mechanisms that might cause increased boys’ forgetfulness about such traumatic effects. Such findings bear respective consequences for applied practices in research and child protection policies.