Experts: Boys must report sexual abuse by women

ON August 30, a 53-year-old housekeeper was put on $75,000 bail after she was charged with performing a sex act on a 13-year-old boy.

In 2014, the St Michael’s Home for Boys in Diego Martin was closed after revelations of sexual abuse, with one caregiver supposedly becoming pregnant by a child after taking him to her home.

Incidents of women being sexual predators against boys are greatly under-reported. In seeking to understand why, Sunday Newsday spoke with professionals who all shared a similar view that society accepts that boys abused by women are a rite of passage and not what it really is, sexual abuse.

One of the professionals spoken to was Marcus Kissoon, research assistant for Break The Silence, a non-governmental organisation stemming from the University of the West Indies Institute of Gender Development Studies, focusing on protecting children against sexual abuse and the risk of HIV.

Kissoon said the silence of boys abused particularly by older women is rooted in societal homophobia.

“Firstly, homophobia governs the silence of boys that have been abused, whether it is by women or by men.

"On one end, if a boy is abused by a man, he has to deal with the repercussions of his sexuality being in question. On a similar note, the same homophobia, if a boy is abused by a woman, also prevents him from telling his story."

This, he explained, is because "The same notion of masculinity...tells young boys that having sex with an older woman is an accomplishment, an accolade.”

So if the victim didn't enjoy it or feel proud of it, he's made to feel there's something wrong with him.

But in fact, lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies Dr Gabrielle Hosein told Sunday Newsday, a boy does not understand the implications of sex and sexuality, and is not capable of making an informed choice, as a minor in a relationship with an adult.

“In our society, the sexual abuse of boys by older women and girls may be overlooked, because ideals of manhood teach (that boys are) ready to be sexually active and for sexual activity from a very early age.”

On the Children’s Authority's website, its annual reports from 2016-2019 show there were 4,505 cases of sexual abuse reported for that period.

For the first three years there was an annual increase in the number of boys who reported having been abused.

In 2016 there were 1,364 cases of sexual abuse overall, with 126 of the victims being boys.

The following year the total reports of sexual abuse decreased to 1,134, but there was an increase in the number of boys who reported they were sexually abused to 208.

In 2018, 222 boys reported that they were sexually abused out of 1,028 cases.

In 2019, the last reported year, 58 boys out of 979 reported cases were sexually abused.

Former chairman of the Children’s Authority and clinical traumatologist Hanif Benjamin said the time has come to disavow the notion that boys cannot be sexually abused by women.

“There is a myth that a boy cannot be raped by a woman. There is a belief that if you are in control of being aroused and if you are aroused, how is it that they raped you?

"You have to go back to what rape is. At the end of the day, once there is a power dynamic, and the person is under the age of 18, there is no question it is rape.”

Section 19 (3) of the Children Act defines sexual penetration as involving the "placing of any body part or of an object onto the penis or bodily orifice of a child." The penalty on conviction is life in prison.

Benjamin said society needs to understand that rape is rape, regardless of gender, and there is a need to normalise reporting it. People of all genders, he said, must know that what was done to them or is being done is wrong, and they need protection.

Hosein said: “Facts are, the sexual abuse of boys by both women and men exists.

"Principally, the issue is the eroticisation of power in adults and a child. It remains harmful for boys because boys are not capable of exercising consent in relation to adults and processing the implication of early sexual initiation.”

Editor Beth Daley contributor to The Conversation, an independent, non-profit publisher of commentary and analysis on various topics across the globe, wrote that
women who sexually abuse children fall into one of three categories.

The first is the “teacher/lover” group, which comprises women in their 30s who abuse prepubescent boys because they seek a relationship with a partner who is less threatening than one their own age. They tend not to see the “relationship” as something wrong.

Another group is the “predisposed molester,” who herself was abused and developed a personality disorder.

The final category is the “mother molester.” Women tend to fall into this group because they are at least four times more likely than fathers to abuse their biological child, as well as other children in their care.

Benjamin said he had never seen any study that identifies why a woman or man will abuse children. The issue, he said, is that the abuse is happening.

While the figures are higher for girls than boys, Hosein said, “All children are at risk of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.

“Many boys are typically initiated by older girls and women.

"But there is no data on early sexual initiation. Part of the reason we don’t understand enough about boys’ early sexual initiation is because it is not sufficiently problematised, because boys are considered to be sexually active from an early age.”

Kissoon said societal expectation plays a big role in how boys understand their bodies and their rights. Even when a boy is abused by a woman,
since homophobic attitudes hold that men and boys are supposed to like sex with women, the expectation is if he has sex with a woman, he must enjoy it. This, he said, takes away from how boys consent to sex. He added that social pressure tells boys that sex with women is something automatically to be "celebrated."

On society’s response to boys being sexually abused, Benjamin believes education is the key to remove the stigma around reporting such crimes.

“If we really want to break from that, we need to normalise gender, not from a 'masculine' and 'feminine' perspective, but telling people that they are free to feel and engage with whomever they want. Once we begin to do that, then we will see a change in society.

"Another major thing we need to do is educate people and simplify the laws. We need to educate people, because a lot of times this is happening and people don’t know what to do.”

Benjamin said the way society treats boys who are abused is different from how it treats girls, since it is almost a rite of passage for a younger boy to have sex with an older girl in some instances. The pressure not to report therefore becomes very prominent.

“Reporting means you are taking away the 'coolness' and puts pressure on the boys not to report, as reporting is seen as something wrong. That shame or guilt that all abuse victims go through is heightened for boys who report that their abuser is a woman.”

On the effects that sexual abuse can have on boys, particularly when committed by a woman, Hosein said: “They're at risk of having challenges with intimacy. They're at risk of defining their manhood in terms of their sexuality.

"But these are not problems, these are standard aspects of manhood, which is why they aren't sufficiently problematised.

"But the important point is that adults should not be having sexual relations with minors because it is ultimately a relationship of unequal power.

She added: “We have to keep in mind that the harm to boys include their sense of self, their sense of sexuality, and that the issue is not sufficiently dealt with, because norms of manhood mean that early sexual initiation is considered a rite of passage."