Research shows rape is not uncommon
Getting a handle on the subject of sexual abuse in Belize is not easy, as it is only in the last decade or so that it has become the focus of public debate. One survey, however, conducted in 1997 by a group of students and their teacher from the University College of Belize, sheds some important light on the issue. The report, titled Child Sexual Abuse in Belize City Females, focussed on a sample of two hundred women. The principal investigator was Jean Perriott, a doctoral candidate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Louisville and former lecturer at UCB. Perriott says of those women who reported that they were sexually abused fully half of the perpetrators were family members…often a stepfather.
Jean Perriott, Doctoral Candidate, Counselling Psychology
?The women we interviewed were between the ages of thirty-five to forty-five years old. Sixteen point two percent of them reported that they were sexually abused as children. So as you can see it?s something that has been happening for a long time.?
?One of the questions that we asked the women was the onset of sexual abused, when did it begin and we divided them into five years age groups and six to ten years. Thirty-three percent of them reported that the onset of abuse began at that time and sixty-seven percent of the women reported that it was repeated more than five times.?
?In our studies we found that child sexual abuse was hardly correlated with physical abuse. We asked questions concerning physical abuse and positive interaction within the family etc. On a continuum we found that the more positive interaction, the more communication, the less likely child sexual abuse was reported. And as this deteriorated and went into physical abuse, we found that it was more likely that child sexual abuse occurred. Our results are not saying that physical abuse causes child sexual abuse just that there is a correlate that it?s more likely.?
?It?s across ethnicity. It?s across economical level. What we did find though is that there was a higher risk if you come from a single parent family.?
Fifty percent of those women who were molested never reported it to anyone. Perriott says the survey also revealed that women who had been sexually abused were more likely to later become involved in multiple common-law relationships or had been divorced or separated. The report also revealed that four percent of the victims had been molested by women. Perriott say she has been encouraged by the measures taken over the last few years to address the problem, but admits there is still a lot more that needs to be done.
