SEXUAL ACTS CHILD ON CHILD........CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

The theme for this week's blog arose from a query on Social Media calling for names suitable to use when referring to children involved in sexual "abuse , child on child. Names that are not labeling, stigmatising or harmful. This is not an attempt to answer that question. It is to talk child on child sexual activity from a child and youth care perspective.

The website blog called "Defending Innocence" quotes statistics from "Darkness into Light", Finkelfor, Stallok, Broman, Fields et al. They say more than half (55%) of 501 adults interviewed said that they had sexual experiences before the age of 15 years. One third of all penetrative sexual incidents in the USA are between children under the age of 18 with a peak at ages 12-14. They do admit to a caution...an orange light . They say that "hysterical warnings"by parents, caregivers,teachers and guardians against "no go" experiences can lead some children to misinterpreting "hands off", "no sexual objective in mind" experiences as intentional violation and so .....allegations. 

Only yesterday UNICEF put out on Facebook that over 50% of all reported cases of sexual abuse in South Africa involve children. The statistics for child on child incidents was not given.

Other sources confirm what I think child and youth care workers know. Over 50% of so called "offenders" have themselves been sexually violated. There is a very high incidence of "victims"becoming "offenders". The more vulnerable children being the intellectually challenged, those with low self esteem, the disconnected, the previously hurt and those willing to please.

Many messages for child and youth care workers in all of this..... The very nature of many children in our residential facilities fit the profile of both the vulnerable child and the initiator. There were certainly some children in the group residential care facilities I directed who exuded a kind of victim attraction. I called it "the perpetual victim syndrome"  It's like  "once a victim always a victim". The "cruisers", always on the lookout, are very quick to pick up the signals.

Then we have, as child and youth care workers, to to differentiate between normal sexual play and experimentation verses intentional violation....we called it "sexual hurt"

Our South African Criminal Law ( Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment ct. Amendment Act No.5 of 2015 sets out important distinctions..its intentions are, and I quote:

"So as to ensure that children of certain ages are not held criminally liable for engaging in consensual sexual acts with each other

to give presiding officers a discretion in order to decide in individual cases, whether the particulars of children should be included in the National Register for Sex Offenders or not. ( my italics).

no criminalisation of consensual sex between adolescents". 

What it does, bottom line, is to remove the possibility of Statutory Rape charges against children for consensual penetrative sex, if the age of the child is 12 or above providing that the age difference between one and the other is no more than two years.

KEY WORDS; penetration, criminalisation, consensual, age difference.

As child and youth care workers, what do we encounter apart from normal sex play experimentation and adolescent dating? I must say that it is tempting to describe actual, individual incidents, but that is ethically problematic in a blog. So, in general terms:
Sexual Games: There was a story on Facebook recently of a gang related game in which older children would play a game called "treintjie" (little train) Anal penetration of young boys was part of the game after watching porn.. (or not watching porn). This game is neither new, nor is it only related to Cape Flats gangs. I encountered this one when giving consultancy a few years back in a residential facility. It was even then called "treintjie".
Initiation: all manner of sexually unacceptable and inappropriate activity can occur as a compulsory . "We all went through this. It was done to me. Now its my turn". Especially young new admissions. Anything from beer bottles pushed into the anus to genitalia being fondled and aroused with a feather duster.
Mutual Masturbation: This one was a shock for me when I learnt that the boys had a sexual activity they called "circle jerks". They would sit or stand in a circle, cross arms and masturbate each other until ejaculation. In one form or another mutual masturbation happens between boys and girls. Girls also experiment with grinding.
Transactional sex: consensual, but with a possible tacit or open agreement that there will be ongoing benefit to one of the parties. Can include the wives in gangs.
Now a list with no comment: Deliberate seduction, inappropriate exposure to sexual activity, voyeurism, exhibitionism, rape allegations following consensual sex, and then again, actual rape with or without force or violence. 

As child and youth care workers in group residential care settings it is a given that we WILL encounter it. There is probably nothing that compares with sexual incidents to trigger, shock, morally outrage, reaction and sometimes even child rejection and disgust in child and youth care workers. Thing is.... if we know that we will encounter it, that it WILL happen, then we can plan professional management responses for it. Interventive planning is done at three levels. The preventative level, the moment of crisis and the post incident level.  Planning is done at an organisationally as a full multi-disciplinary team.....  and this of course will always also involve the young people and the children. We all have to know what to do and what to expect. Some of the broad principle issues and then some of the specific issues warrant talk   

Consideration has to be given to the two PRIMARY underlying issues in sexual violatory activity......   POWER And SECRECY. What this , I think means, is that as professional child and youth care workers, and as organisations we have to guard against using anything in our response which validates,or replicates the the use of power and endorses silence.

Then we have to engage with the issues of....and this is again but a list: the use of technology like video, movement detectors, microphones to central security systems. (privacy versus safety), varying levels of supervision ( has staffing implications), Mixed sex cottages (can mean the separation of siblings), confidentiality versus secrecy, the involvement of parents, the role of the trusted person ( the person chosen by the child as the one to whom to break the silence).

If, as a child and youth care worker, you are the trusted person, or the primary worker, or one or the other is your focus child.....and I hope you are using the "focus child" approach, THEN you are a key professional in all of this. Of course there are other professionals involved in an integrated professional team approach, but these children are still in the life-space and at every level the child and youth care worker is a KEY, CORE role player. 

OH WOW!!! By the by... I favour "initiator"and "survivor" as a way of naming children in acts of violation.