Girls five times more likely to be sexually assaulted than boys

A higher magnitude of rape/sexual assault for girls persisted from the ages of 1 to 13 years.

A higher magnitude of rape/sexual assault for girls persisted from the ages of 1 to 13 years.

Published Jul 7, 2022

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Cape Town - Girls were five times more likely to have experienced rape and sexual assault than boys, according to a recent study on the non-fatal injuries among boys and girls presented to the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital.

Researchers from the Burden of Disease Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council, UCT, the University of Greenwich and others aimed to describe the non-fatal injuries sustained among children aged 0-13 years, to identify any significant sex differences by age group and injury severity.

They utilised the trauma unit database at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital from 1997 to 2016 for the analysis. Their findings were recently published in the South African Medical Research Journal.

Between 1997 and 2016, there were 132 387 injury cases recorded.

“Falls were the leading cause of injury, followed by other injuries, transport, burns and assault. The highest caseloads were observed among 1-3-year-olds (46 604 cases), followed by the 4-6-year-old group (34 190 cases). There were significant differences in injury characteristics by sex.”

Boys, the study found, were at significantly higher risk for transport-related injuries, burns, falls and other injuries in the 1-3 age and 4-6-year age groups.

“However, the assault risk for girls was higher than for boys in the younger age groups – 1-3 and 4-6 years. This was followed by rape/sexual assault, where girls had significantly more injuries than boys. This higher magnitude of rape/sexual assault for girls persisted from the ages of 1 to 13 years.

“Boys had significantly more blunt-force injuries than girls.”

Most of the blunt assaults and rape/sexual assaults occurred inside and around their home for both boys and girls.

The authors said: “This analysis reiterates the importance of conducting sex analysis on data, as it can uncover important biases and inequities that could have an impact on the policies and practices implemented in resource-poor settings to prevent childhood injuries and to alleviate the burden on clinical staff.

“It has highlighted the need to develop interventions targeted at the prevention of burns, interpersonal violence and transport injuries among boys and sexual assaults among girls. It has highlighted priority age groups for these interventions.”

“The importance of understanding the factors driving the differences for sexual assault among children is an area that warrants further in-depth investigation.”

Cape Times