Ukulele

At a time when women are raising their voices against sexual abuse in social and professional environments, there is one especially pernicious kind of sexual abuse that is still far too underreported: sexual abuse among siblings.
Researchers estimate that the rate of sibling incest may be five times higher that abuse by family-related adults (Finkelhor, 1980). In 2002, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that at least 2.3% of children had been victimized by a sibling, while other studies found figures of up to 15%.
The reason for these terrifying numbers is not hard to understand: the U.S. Department of Justice reports that more than one-third of sex offenses against children are committed by other minors, and about half of those assaults involve a sibling. Easy access to siblings makes it more likely that an underage offender will choose someone within the household. This is especially true for blended or stepfamilies, where the absence of blood ties between stepsiblings can be favored by potential offenders who would otherwise be deterred by the idea consanguine incest.
These statistics are troubling as this is a subject that deserves our time and attention so that survivors can receive the support they need. The lack of exposure of this type of abuse is partly down to the very complex nature of the relationship itself. Sibling sexual abuse has been dismissed as “child’s play” in many cases or even as a normal aspect of sexual development. Older brothers or sisters may take advantage of the sexual naïveté of younger siblings to initially trick them into incestuous behaviors.
Typically, there is a progression of the behaviors, evolving over time to increasingly explicit, invasive, and perhaps even coercive sexual activities. A victim’s participation in the activities to that point, the closeness in age with the offender, and the lack of a generational boundary between them too often lead to the victim’s confusion about responsibility. Clever offenders can use this sense of complicity to amplify feelings of mutuality and exacerbate feelings of guilt and shame for the victim, inhibiting the likelihood of disclosure and thus maintaining the secret, and many people even fail to identify themselves as victims of sibling incest.
As a result, many victims carry the secret into adulthood, remaining confused about issues of mutuality and consequently feeling ridden with guilt, shame, and low self-esteem. The secret can be so buried that adult survivors fail to connect the incestuous behaviors of their childhood with current life problems such as depression, anxiety, poor job performance, and interpersonal difficulties.
Once victims do become aware of the abusive nature of the behavior, it remains extremely difficult for them to reveal it, not only because in many cases the victim and abuser have carried on developing regular social relations, but for fear of how it will impact the family as a whole, and in particular the parents who must then face their own failures. A 2003 study in Ireland showed that out of all the women who indicated that they had been sexually abused by an older brother, none of them reported it to anyone. Not one.
Sibling sexual abuse is therefore an insidiously destructive social problem characterized by secrecy, shame, and concealment, and it deserves to be carried into the limelight along with all other forms of sexual abuse. By incorporating heightened awareness of sibling incest with proactive approaches to intervention, victims can be empowered to recognize the true nature of their past, resist their abusers, disclose their secrets and seek the help they may need.