How to Misrepresent Statistics, Lesson 1 (London, England, United Kingdom)

I don't like anybody who sexually abuses children. Period.

But read this carefully, and you'll see a lot of whipped up hysteria over women child abusers that's way out of proportion to the problem. Anyone who knows anything about child abuse knows that there is a minority of women who sexually abuse children. This is not news; it's been in the research literature for decades. All of the "shock" that women are capable of crime is just getting old. Of course, individual women are capable of all sorts of crime. I don't know why we feign all this mock Victorian horror, and continually profess the same naive outrage and emotional overreaction everytime a single female criminal emerges in a newspaper story.

But let's try to stay grounded in reality and maintain some perspective, shall we? Women still continue to represent a TINY MINORITY of child sexual abusers, despite all the alarm about "growing numbers." (Just as women have always represented a minority of violent criminal offenders--and this is the case across history and across culture.) Look at the facts that are neatly obscured or buried here:

--At least 75% of the calls to this help-line still involve an assault by a male, even with male victims being encouraged to call
--That especially for female victims, the abuser is still at least 10 times more likely to be a male than a female
--And that despite all the hysteria, the most common family member involved in child sexual abuse is the biological father and anyone who knows anything about the literature knows this is the case.

Note also that help-line calls as a measure of child sexual abuse will be biased towards teenagers, where consent issues--for both male and female teens--can be a little fuzzy sometimes. A 19-year-old having consensual sex with a 16-year-old is still a different scenario than a 40-year-old penetrating a 4-year-old. The first scenario captures far more women "perpetrators" (the older girlfriend, etc.) than the second, since your average 4-year-old molested by his or her father or uncle is not likely to call a help-line.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hSdLX7GtqiNF6dD58QzZSOJBywOw
Rise in reported cases of women committing child sex abuse
(AFP) – 6 hours ago

LONDON — The number of children reporting sexual abuse by women to Childline has more than doubled over the past five years, the charity said on Monday.

Childline said there has been a 132 percent rise in complaints of female sexual abuse, compared with a 27 percent increase in reports of sexual abuse by men.

In the past year, 2,142 children told the charity that they have been sexually assaulted by a woman, while 6,000 said their abuser was a man.

Childline said sexual abuse by women now accounts for nearly 25 percent of all calls to its helpline service where the offender's gender can be identified.

The statistics follow the recent case of nursery worker Vanessa George who was a member of a paedophile ring.

George is awaiting sentencing after pleaded guilty last month to seven sexual assaults and six counts of making and distributing indecent pictures of children.

Childline president Esther Rantzen said the report "has shattered common myths about sexual abuse".

"It does not only happen to girls, as many people believe. It happens to boys too," she said.

The research showed that boys were more likely to say they had been abused by a woman (1,722 cases) than by a man (1,651).

In contrast, girls were over 10 times likelier to report being abused by a male (4,972) than by a female (420).

The report found that most children who disclosed sexual abuse to ChildLine were aged between 12-15, and most said they knew their attacker.

"Mothers can sometimes sexually abuse their sons. And the report found that when girls are sexually abused, by far the most common perpetrator is not a stepfather, as many believe, but the biological father," said Rantzen.

Previous research by the NSPCC suggested women may be responsible for about one in 20 sex offences committed against children.

Forensic psychologist Theresa Gannon said the findings were "worrying, but perhaps not surprising" considering the recent high-profile case involving George.