Family and Institutions

The relative invisibility of child brides in India under colonial rule is just one example of the broader invisibility of sexual violence against children. Due to the private nature of the abuse, child sexual assault was often unreported.

Though some jurisdictions introduced specific laws against ‘incest' in the late 1800s and early 1900s, historical studies have suggested these were not always utilised, and that familial sexual assault was treated no more seriously than other forms of sexual violence against children.^[261] This was because it was difficult to imagine a child would be hurt by a family member. The family was and is supposed to be an orderly ‘safe' space.^[262] There were significant complications with uncovering, policing and prosecuting familial sexual violence. In the nineteenth century, sexual violence in families was generally displaced upon the poor, hiding abuse in other households. Across all time periods, children could be accused of making up assaults, or victims were accused of immorality or seduction. Domestic violence complicated some cases, making them difficult or impossible to report. As Yorick Smaal has noted, intrafamilial crimes were not always reported to police: ‘love, fear, dependency, or malice could all motivate spousal (in)action'.^[263] Further, work on familial sexual violence in the 1950s shows there was a reluctance to report crimes against children when the perpetrator was the breadwinner for the family.

The main reason for the secrecy surrounding sexual assault was, however, probably a complex culture of silence around family violence. Linda Gordon has suggested that there is a general reluctance to even acknowledge that incest exists: this reluctance crosses police, jurors, mothers, teachers and probably even perpetrators.^[265] The widespread taboo of incest makes the resistance to acknowledge intrafamilial sexual assault a transnational phe­nomenon. As Frederick reports in his study of South Asia, this continues to the present: ‘the child's security and rights at times may be secondary to family honour, for public disgrace can have immense negative impacts on all family members'.^[266]

While familial sexual violence has been and continues to remain largely hidden, there have been an increasing number of studies into the sexual abuse of children within institutions, including schools, homes and orphanages, reli­gious organisations and programmes such as the scouting movement. Recent national inquiries have revealed that violence against children, including sexual violence, was relatively common in the institutional context for much of the twentieth century, and that these abuses were regularly if not routinely handled ‘in-house', rather than being referred to the criminal justice system. As such, perpetrators were rarely prosecuted, and victims were silenced.

Karen Terry's team from John Jay College undertook a comprehensive report into historical institutional child sexual abuse amongst the Catholic clergy in the USA from 1950 to 2010, commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Findings suggest that priests cannot be simply understood as ‘paedophiles': only 5 percent had a specific sexual interest in children.

In Ireland, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (established 2000) investigated all forms of child abuse including sexual assault, also with an emphasis on institutional abuse. The Commission concluded that in Ireland ‘Sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions' in particular. As with the Catholic Clergy in the USA, once abuse was uncovered, action was taken to protect the offender, and the ‘damage to the children affected and the [potential] danger to others were disregarded'.^[270]

The studies into child sexual assaults within institutions highlight that some children are more at risk of CSA than others. As Frederick has sug­gested in his study in Asia, those most vulnerable include:

children with physical and mental disabilities, children from ethnic mino­rities and marginalized populations, children living and working on the street, children in conflict with the law, child refugees, children separated from their families, children in places of conflict and natural disasters, sexual minorities, children living in slums and the children of sex workers. Children who belong to several of these groups are even more vulnerable.^[271]

Here, we see the complex intertwining of various forms of vulnerability to sexual violence, complicated by race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, poverty and other forms of fundamental disadvantage.

Indigenous children were and are at greater risk. In Australia, the Bringing Them Home Report (1997) detailed harrowing physical, emotional and sexual abuse of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who had been removed from families and communities in an ugly attempt to assimilate them into white Australia. As the National Inquiry noted, ‘Children in every placement were vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation': they were sexually assaulted in domestic homes where they were sent as foster children or servants; in work places and in institutions.^[272] Indigenous children in Australia continue to be at risk of sexual violence at higher rates than non- Indigenous children.^[273]

In Canada, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal People (1996) made similar findings. Though the focus was not sexual violence, the Report indicated that children removed from Indigenous families suffered physical abuse, emotional neglect and sexual assault in foster care and institutions.^[274] Further, Indigenous communities suffered various traumas including high rates of domestic violence and sexual assault.^[275] Continuing problems of violence against Indigenous children are currently being recorded in a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.^[276] While not all nations have developed similar Commissions, it is likely that further inquiries in postcolonial nations will reveal similar problems for Indigenous children under colonial rule, and in racist regimes during and after the decolonisation process. Suffering from the traumas of land loss and removal from families and extended kin networks, alongside pseudo­scientific ideas of racial decline, Indigenous children were amongst the most susceptible to sexual assault, and despite legislation around CSA, the state failed to protect them, and in some cases facilitated their abuse.