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December 19, 2004

Children lack verbal skills necessary to reveal sexual abuse, study says

TORONTO (CP) - It can be the most heart-wrenching case a courtroom ever hears.

The only witness to the crime is usually the victim. Foggy details, by the time they reach the courts years later, can become more lurid and sometimes "almost pornographic," a social work professor says.

And now, new research says sexually abused children often lack the verbal skills needed to reveal such attacks, making an already difficult case to conduct in the legal system even more complex.

"They tell about their victimization in ways we don't, as adults, expect them to, through their behaviour, through their emotions and actions, but rarely through a well-reasoned, articulate, verbal disclosure," said Ramona Alaggia, a social work professor at the University of Toronto.

Alaggia conducted a three-year study into the ways children and teenagers divulge incidents of abuse, interviewing 36 male and female victims.

The study found that in many cases, children and adolescents offered clues of abuse through their behaviour - younger victims would have tantrums or cling to a parent when a babysitter visits, for example, while older victims would have angry outbursts or withdraw from the family.

Such acts may also simply be signs of normal childhood development, making genuine revelations of abuse more difficult to attain, Alaggia said.

She added that many instances of child abuse occur at such a young age that the victims have not yet learned the cognitive tools necessary to recollect events - for example, the ability to tell time, a crucial detail when recounting attacks on the witness stand.

Given that, she says Canada's legal system needs to reconsider what questions can be asked of children or teens who allege abuse.

"I have seen defence lawyers almost get pornographic with asking the kinds of details of what happened in a sexual act that would embarrass most of us, let alone a budding adolescent," Alaggia said.

"They have to have the words, the descriptions - 'What were you wearing? Were you wearing a thong?' Well, what does that have to do with anything? But those kinds of things come up."

The study also says that many of the respondents' first attempts to reveal abuse were made inadvertently to people untrained to handle such admissions, like a school peer or teacher.

It also found that many victims wait until adulthood to tell of abuse because by then they have established independence, freedom from the perpetrator and potential support to cope with the emotional fallout of coming forward about the crimes.

Previous research has shown that up to 80 per cent of child sexual abuse victims don't tell of the attacks before adulthood, and roughly half of all abuse of children happens within the family.

The study was published in the November issue of Child Abuse and Neglect.

Posted by Nealus at December 19, 2004 11:51 PM

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