Who can be an Abuser

  About CSA    Who can be an Abuser    Effects of CSA    Myths and Facts

CONTRARY to what people may think, a person who abuses a child is usually not someone with a  psychiatric disorder. They are usually indistinguishable from anyone else. They may have emotional problems which increase their potential to abuse.  In fact, a person who abuses is a normal person who is often known to the victim.      

• Abuser profile

• Incest abusers

•  Method to choose Victim

•  Rationale used by Abuser

•  Sexual Offenders Education Program

ABUSER PROFILE

Most people imagine that the offender must be a shadowy and frightening stranger. In fact, these abusers can be anyone, ranging from family members to acquaintances and someone the victim trusts explicitly. Rarely are abusers complete strangers.

Child sexual abusers do not have any specific common characteristics.

• Both men and women can be abusers.

• They do not come from any specific class, but in fact can be from any occupation, and may share the same leisure interests that other people have.

• It is not necessary that a child abuser be illiterate or poor.

• It is also not necessary that the abuser has to be psychologically disturbed.

• It is likely that the abuser is married and has children of his/her own. His/her spouse, however, is unlikely to know of the other's cruel offence.

• Abusers often tend to continue child abusive behavior.

• The abuser may also have been abused in his/her childhood.

• The abuser with emotional problems follows chronically displaced sexual arousal patterns in which he/she is attracted to children or to violence.

• A lack of respect for societal norms, will lead him/her to do anything for sexual satisfaction.

Abusers may also have been those who have been raised by:

• One parent,

• One natural parent and one step – parent

• Relatives, and

• Foster or adoptive parents.

INCEST ABUSERS

Parents Anonymous, Inc., the self help organization for abusing parents, has identified a number of characteristics of parents who may be at "high risk" to abuse. These indicators, especially when coupled with clues from a child's comments, behavior and/or appearance, can be very useful.

Some of these indicators are:***

• Parents who do not seem sensitive to their child's basic needs for food, shelter or clothing;

• Parents who seem indifferent to, deny, are unaware of or seem annoyed by injury, illness or developmental delays in their children;

• Parents who seem preoccupied with the fear that their children will grow up to be delinquents unless they are severely punished in childhood;

• Parents who tell you how "nervous" their child makes them;

• Parents who scapegoat one child as being different or bad;

• Parents whose anger about their child's behavior seems to be out of proportion to the situation;

• Parents who are socially isolated and have little time away from their children;

• Parents whose expectations of their children or of themselves as parents are unrealistic;

• Parents who express fear that they may harm their child;

• Parents who are uncomfortable relating to their child in your presence;

• Parents whose self-esteem seems very low.

There are some other family indicators that, if coupled with children's indicators, could signal sexual abuse or exploitation.

Among those indicators are:

• Previous occurrence of child sexual abuse in the family;

• Other violence in the home;

• Excessive interest in daughter's activities with boys and other peer relationships;

• Rigid role structure in family (paternal dominance/abused, passive mother);

• Marked role reversal between parent and child;

• Unusual amount of or inappropriate physical contacts between family members;

• Complaints about a seductive child.

METHOD TO CHOOSE TARGET:

When an abuser plans on targeting a victim, he keeps in mind the following things;

• Choosing a victim that appeals to him/her, and

• Picking someone he/she can safely victimize.

• The abuser usually spends time observing the victim and then tricks the victim into performing a sexual act in such a  manner that the victim, appears to be willing.

• The abuser aims to innovate an apparently "willing victim" through encouragement, coercion, surveillance, constraint and bribery (sweets etc.).

• Child sexual abuse can also often involve the use or threat of physical force

• Abusers approach children who are neglected or those who have run away from home.

• Abusers also tend to approach those children who are uninformed about the physical changes that are occurring in them. 

RATIONALE USED BY ABUSER: 

The abuser usually defends himself in the following ways:

• Child abusers tend not to admit their acts. They either deny them all together, or admit the minimum possible.

• Blame the victims or other outside variables for the act.

• Abusers are usually more guilty about disclosure, rather than their behavior. Thus, the cycle that follows is of a person who commits an assault, feels guilty and then assaults all over again when control fails.

• The abuse is more likely to be planned rather than being an immediate urge.  Rapists usually speak of having fantasized the act in their mind before actually committing the act.

• Abusers usually say that they go through the stage of boredom depression, anxiety, and rage.

• SEXUAL OFFENDERS EDUCATION PROGRAM

  Philosophy: Sexual offending is a crime. It is a choice made by one person to exploit another sexually. Sexual offenses take many forms including rape, incest and sexual harassment. For the offender the experience may be sexual, but for the victim it is one of the violence. No one is immune to such victimization. Children, women, and men including both family members and strangers have been victimized by offenders.

  Consent: Sexual offenses occur whenever sexual contact is initiated by one person without the permission of the other person. Sexual abuse is nonconsensual sexual contact. Consent has five elements.

  Privilege: Sexual Contact is never a right; it is always a privilege that two people grant each other to have contact. While it can be granted by any competent adult to another adult, it can also be revoked at anytime by either party. No reason necessary. Children can never grant consent to adults seeking sexual contact.

  Permission: Fully informed consent to have sexual contact requires one person to seek permission from another. While the answer "yes" is necessary, it may not be sufficient. For example, someone who is threatened or coerced to say "yes" has not given meaningful consent. Contact under those coercive conditions is a sexual  offense. Permission to have sexual contact is granted only (1) from someone who is capable of granting it. (2) when there is no coercion, and (3) when there are adequate disclosures (enabling the other party to make a fully informed decision).

  Justification: There is no justification for committing a sexual offense. Asking an offender "why" he/she committed the offense may be nothing more than an invitation to the offender to try to justify harming another person. With sufficient justification, the offender may convince both himself/herself and others that the crime was "not bad after all", when the reality of the situation is that the crime is bad.

  Intent: Some offenders explain that their crime was less harmful because "I didn't mean to do it." While some offenders may be less intent than other offenders to cause harm, the impact on the victim may be no less severe. For example, if a pedestrian is struck by a careless (as opposed to a willful) motorist, is the pedestrian any less dead or injured? Of course not!

  Responsibility: Offenders are 100 percent responsible for their actions. No victim shares responsibility for the offender's actions. Each of us ears sole responsibility for ensuring that our contact with others is consensual and non harmful. Our communities share responsibility for ensuring that each of us adheres to this standard. Until no one is willing to commit sexual crimes, the entire community will be responsible for safety from potential offenders. This "community" consists of the criminal justice system, sex offenders counselors, health care agencies, educational institutions, therapists, clergy, friends and family.