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It is essential to understand the dynamics of sexual encounters between adults and children. When we hear about sexual abuse, most people assume it is sudden and unplanned. Parents, minors, institutions and society in general need to be aware of how the stage is set for sexual abuse of minors. It is believed that adult - child sexual encounters  do not happen out of the blue and suddenly but follow a certain common pattern where the perpetrators groom the victims. Different professionals have outlined the sequence in which sexual activity usually occurs either within or outside the family.

Sgroi (1982) suggested a five-stage sequence, which may char­acterize child sexual abuse:

1. Engagement: The offender engages the child around nonsexual issues and becomes a friend or a person who provides material rewards and satisfies the child's need for closeness and socialization. This relationship allows the offender to acquire access to the child and to develop trust and emotional connection.

2. Sexual Interaction: In this stage, the offender engages the child in age-inappropriate sexual activity. This sexual contact may progress from exhibitionism, to erotic kissing and fondling, to actual intercourse.

3. Secrecy: This element ensures access to the child and maintains sexual activity. Secrecy may be maintained through threat or bribery. The threat may at times be very subtle.

4. Disclosure: May be accidental or purpose­ful. At this time, the inappropriate equilibrium of the family is shaken, and universally all the family members may try to rebalance the shakiness of the family equilibrium.

5. Suppression: Once disclosure happens, the caregivers may not want to deal with the reality of this taboo and resort to denial and minimization. Most likely, due to the dynamic of guilt feel­ings and fear of family disruption, the entire family may enter into a suppression phase. Every family member may perceive pressure and impose pressure on the child to retract his or her account of the abuse especially in the case of incest.

Allender 2008 identified the following four stage of sexual abuse in recent years:

1. Development of intimacy: The child is singled out as the little adult leading to distortion and confusion of roles, by gradually gaining the child's trust and confidence through the use of the ordinary behaviors.

2. Physical contact that appears appropriate: the offender system­atically tests the child's boundaries to determine whether he or she is likely to report a vio­lation with inappropriate touch, talk, humor, giving little or no privacy to the child, by producing a relational hunger “a sense of being needed but demeaned, making it difficult for the child to trust his/ her perception or feelings”. The child, who is left empty, committed to pleasing, boundary-less, burdened, and bound to a family or a parent whose desire becomes the bread of hope for the hungry child.

3. Sexual abuse proper: Once the child has been lured into the offender's subtle web and then sexual abuse has begun. Sexual abuse occurs in varied context as there are different levels and definition of sexual activity and contact.

4. Maintenance of the abuse and secrecy: through threats and privileges, the offender can often easily perpetuate the cycle by keeping the child emotionally confused regarding the nature of the relationship by shifting roles and preying on the child's own sense of shame, loyalty, and a desire to please.

Reference:   Allender, D. (2008). The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress 91-110.

Sgroi, S.M. (1982). Handbook of Clinical Intervention in Child Sexual Abuse. Toronto: Lexington Books  p.12- 26.

 

Sr. Rejoice Hoedoafia

CCP Research Assistant