Peer to Peer Abuse

Sean Harford, National Director for Education, and Yvette Stanley, National Director for Social Care, discuss peer-on-peer abuse:

Peer-on-peer abuse includes, but is not limited to:

• Physical and sexual abuse
• Sexual harassment and violence: sexual comments, jokes, online sexual harassment
• Emotional harm
• On and offline bullying
• Teenage relationship abuse
• Taking pictures under person’s clothing without them knowing, with the intention of viewing their genitals or buttocks to obtain sexual gratification or cause humiliation.

It can even include grooming children for sexual and criminal exploitation.

It’s hard to say just how widespread a problem it is. But we know that there’s extensive evidence of peer-on-peer abuse in the context of both sexual and criminal exploitation. 

Peer to Peer in Child Sexual Abuse: 

Sexually harmful behavior between children involving an aggressor and non-aggressor child.

Nearly 1 of 3 reports of Child Sexual Abuse is a peer.

Higher Risk:

• Anywhere a child remains unseen.
• Where children are less closely supervised.
• Anywhere cloths are changed or removed - Bathrooms.

Some findings from abuse reports:

• Girls are regularly sent explicit images from boys and feel under considerable pressure to send indecent pictures of themselves.
• Some young people thought it was acceptable to request a nude picture from somebody if they don't share it further.
• 90% of girls and nearly 50% of boys, said being sent explicit pictures or videos of things they did not want to see happens a lot to them or their peers.
• 92% of girls and 74% of boys, said sexist name-calling happens a lot or sometimes to them or their peers.

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