‘I Didn’t Have the Words’ – Understanding the Barriers to Reporting Sexual Assault for Children and Teenagers

There are many, many barriers to reporting sexual assault and abuse that children, teenagers, and adults experience.

But who creates these barriers?

Society.

As a society, we train ourselves and our children to not talk about abuse. This is for a variety of reasons. But by sub-consciously subscribing to ideas of not teaching children correct anatomical words, and by not giving them the language they need to report abuse, we’re unwittingly contributing to the problem that we’re trying to solve.

Language is an interesting point, and when I talk about language, I don’t mean language in terms of native languages or first-languages spoken in the home or wider society.

It’s estimated that there are over 600 languages spoken across the UK, so being able to disclose an experience so that you are understood is one thing.

For the purpose of this post, I’m talking instead about sexual language and anatomical language.

How Language Impacts Children Reporting Sexual Assault

First off, remember, when we talk about children, we are talking about anyone before their eighteenth birthday.

This is a considerable age span, especially when we take into account gender differences, rates of maturity, socio-economic backgrounds, and everything else that makes an individual child, them.

When it comes to a child reporting acts of sexual violence, we need to consider the language that children are using and how this acts as a barrier.

For example, when children report acts of sexual violence, they don’t tend (if ever) to outwardly say, ‘I’ve been sexually violated,’ or something in equal measure that would immediately make an adult sit up and listen.

You could argue that as adults, we’d be less likely to listen to a child who did disclose by saying this because it wouldn’t be what we would expect a child to say.

Instead, we’d wonder what they’d been watching on TV to learn such language.

Children will likely be far more subtle than that.

This could be because the child does not have the language to explain what has happened to them, is ashamed, feels loyalty to their abuser…the list goes on. 

In Britain particularly, we don’t like young children to use words such as ‘penis’ or ‘vagina.’

They’re seen as dirty and vulgar words that should be reserved for sex education lessons when the child is much older.

Instead, we replace these anatomical words with nonsensical words such as ‘flower’ and ‘foo-foo.’

Why Language Is a Barrier to Reporting Sexual Assault

The issue with not giving children the learning opportunity to name basic anatomy is that if a young child is sexually assaulted or abused, then they don’t have the language to explain what’s going on.

This makes it harder for the person the child is disclosing too to understand what the child is talking about and for the child to get across the severity of what they are experiencing.

I’ve sat in safeguarding courses where I’ve heard about disclosures of abuse that have gone unnoticed because a child referred to their vagina as a ‘letterbox’ or a ‘flower.’ How is anybody supposed to know what a child is talking about if they’re taught to use such vague descriptors for basic anatomy?

The very fact that we don’t teach children correct anatomical words from a young age is shameful.

As adults, we cannot say that children have countless barriers to disclosing abuse and then give them another one by not teaching them correct anatomical language.

You wouldn’t call an arm a ‘stick,’ so why call a vagina a ‘flower?’

It’s for this reason that my children have both been raised to know what their vagina is called in the same way that they know what their eyes, ears, toes, or knees are called. I hope that they never need to use this language to disclose abuse or an act of sexual violence, but I also don’t want them to have a weird sense of shame about naming their own body parts.

Basic anatomy is something we all have, no matter how we identify.

And it is nothing to be ashamed of.

It’s Harder to Speak Than to Listen

The above example of children not having the language they need to report incidents of sexual assault or abuse is just one factor that keeps a child silent about what they have experienced.

And this lack of correct language to explain what has happened only creates a barrier to abuse potentially being stopped. Another barrier to reporting sexual assault is that the person who is being disclosed to doesn’t resonate with the version of the perpetrator that they know.

This comes back to the point that we’ve made in other posts about how perpetrators of sexual violence aren’t obvious and often ‘market’ themselves as a caring and upstanding member of the community.

Many disclosures are either not recognised, not understood, dismissed, downplayed, or ignored. This isn’t to say that the person receiving the disclosure doesn’t believe what the victim is telling them, but perhaps the magnitude of what they’re being told doesn’t resonate with the version of the perpetrator that they know.

Perhaps they don’t like to think that something so horrific could be happening ‘on their watch.’

How to Support a Child Facing Barriers to Reporting Sexual Assault

Disclosing is hard.

Victims don’t like to be too graphic with what they tell others, and so perhaps the choice of language used by the person reporting doesn’t always get across the severity of their experience to the person to whom they were disclosing.

None of these reasons for why disclosing is hard should be taken as excuses as to why disclosures do not get investigated, however.

They should serve as factors that need to be further explored so that there are fewer barriers for a victim who is trying to disclose experiences of sexual violence.

Unfortunately, these barriers to reporting not only mean that people miss the opportunity to intervene, but they also feed into a victim’s feelings of shame, embarrassment, and that the sexual violence and grooming were somehow their fault.

I feel that sometimes people can find it uncomfortable to talk to anybody about a disclosure, be it a child or an adult who has disclosed it. However, the research shows that despite any discomfort that the person being disclosed to may feel, victims disclosing evidence: 

1. Want to be asked direct questions; 

2. Want to have their disclosure investigated sensitively yet thoroughly; 

3. Want to be kept informed about what is happening; and 

4. They want someone to notice that something was wrong in the first place.  

Essentially, victims, and especially children, want to know that they matter and to know that someone is looking out for them.

Which is fair enough. 

When it comes to asking direct questions, though, it’s important to remember that even though research may tell us that victims want to be asked direct questions, if someone is disclosing abuse to you, you aren’t interviewing them. This isn’t your moment to take advantage of all of those hours of watching CSI or Line of Duty.

Instead, what’s important is that the child who is reporting sexual assault or abuse to you feels seen and listened to.

Respect what they’re saying, and believe them. The research tells us that people are very, very unlikely to make false reports of sexual assault.

Summary

If you work with children or young people, how do you talk about bodies and boundaries? Comment below or share this post.