ABSTRACT
The fact that women can and do sexually abuse children is deeply threatening to social stereotypes of motherhood and femininity. While the criminal statistics consistently reveal that women commit 1 per cent of sexual offences (Home Office 1993, 1998, 2003, 2006), there is evidence from other measures including self-report by victims of sexual abuse that this figure is not representative of the true rate of female abuse. In a recent retrospective study, based on self-report in the USA, Dube et al. (2005) found that men
reported female perpetration of CSA nearly 40 per cent of the time, and women reported female perpetration of CSA 6 per cent of the time. Ford (2006) cites ChildLine figures from the year 2004-2005 that indicate that 3 per cent of girls calling reported abuse by a female, and 2 per cent by their mothers, while for boys 25 per cent reported abuse by a female, and 16 per cent abuse by their mothers. Clearly the official statistics relating to criminal convictions tell a different story. Female sexual abuse appears to be a vastly underreported crime (Saradjian 1996; Ford 2006).
