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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    Why is sexual abuse often underreported?

    Related Topic
    Physical, Emotional & Sexual Abuse
    I have heard stories that only a small percentage of sexual abuse incidents are reported by women. Why is this? don't they want help?
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  • Ivan Bakich

    Clinical Psychologist, Counsellor, Hypnotherapist, Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Sex Therapist

    I work in the area of Clinical Psychology including Testing, Intellectual Assessments and Basic Neuropsychological Assessments. I am also a Psychotherapist, Marital/Couples and Family Therapist, … View Profile

    Because it is often committed by relatives, either close family, or friends of the family and the victim often feels ashamed or doesn't want to put the perpetrator in trouble.

    Because victims are often primed (conditioned) by the abuser into secrecy: no one is to find out about the secret.

    To protect the family name, reputation, and stnding in the community and among friends - if the perpetrator is a family member. For example: a 19 year-old female who comes from a different cultural background was abused by her brother and if her family knew about her abuse, it was likely that she would be pronanouced “mad” and admitted to a psychiatric ward; her brother would remain “protected” and abuse denied. Sons are idealised in families from this particular ethnic background!

    Fear of retaliation by the abuser.

    Threats to the victim that her family will be harmed.

    And, who is to believe a little girl that she has been molested, she can't tell her mum because she blames her self and sees and believes that she is a “bad” girl! She therefore takes on the perpetrator's abuse and turns it into her guilt and self blame…therefore she internalises this fear and carries it to adulthood.

    A recent case of a lady I saw who had multiple rapes over time by men she knew, she refused my support in pressing charges because it happened some time ago and out of FEAR of retaliation!

    Very often, WOMEN BLAME THEMSELVES although it is not their  fault at all! They “don't ask for it” as often stated by the perpetrators and those supporting the perpetrators, even some the perpetrators' fathers blame women and state that “they asked for it”! Absolutely not true!!!!

    I hope this gives you some idea as to why women do not report sexual abuse.

    Ivan S. Bakich
    Clinical Psychologist
    Marital/Couples & Family Therapist & Psychotherapist

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