The psyche of a female sex offender
There was a wealth of research on male offenders but very limited information on females.
NELSPRUIT – Women are usually the last to be suspected of committing sexual abuse, let alone if the victim is her own child.
Yet Lowvelder recently reported on two mothers who were being charged with various sexual offences towards children. In both instances, the victims were their own daughters and their husbands had also been charged. The case against the Barberton couple charged with child pornography is set to continue in the Sexual Offences Court today.
The newspaper consequently spoke to a lecturer in forensic social work at the North West University’s Potchefstroom campus to find out why women partake in such crimes.
A forensic social worker assessed suspected sexually abused children and compiled reports for court hearings. The lecturer, Ms Sufran Smith, was a warrant officer in the SAPS before she joined the university and has assessed several such cases in the course of her career.
She said there was a wealth of research on male offenders but very limited information on females. “It is a sensitive topic to research, with lots of ethical considerations. Male and female sexual offenders differ in dynamics and I think that cases of females are under-reported. You see, it is a lot easier for a female to abuse a child and get away with it.”
She explained that it was easily attributed to something like taking care of a child’s personal hygiene. “For instance, ‘I insert my finger in my child’s anus or vagina to clean it’.
“The child perceives it as normal and doesn’t report it.” Smith added there was no profile for sexual offenders, male or female.
“From my experience, female offenders usually participate with a man who is their partner at the time. This is something that I have learned over the years and is not based on scientific research. In all cases I have assessed where a female offender was involved, it was in cooperation with her male partner.
“Just think of advocate Barbie’s case. I do not think that, under normal circumstances these women would abuse children on their own, but they always do it with their partners.” Smith said that sometimes women played a very active role in the abuse of children. “I had a case once where the woman had sex with a 10-year-old boy and her boyfriend recorded it. I also have had cases of mothers who knew that their partners abused the children yet they had allowed it.”
According to Smith, there might be various reasons for this kind of behaviour.
First of all, the woman might suffer from a sexual dysfunction and yet derive sexual gratification from the situation.
Secondly, it could be a case of the mother being afraid she would lose the boyfriend and who was willing to do anything to keep him interested and in the relationship. “It can also be that the mother is so dependent on the boyfriend that she does not have, according to her, any other choice.”
Smith supplied the following statistics with regard to sexual abuse of children:
• In 2010 and 2011, 54 225 crimes against children were reported in South Africa, of which 28 128 were sexual abuse. About 30 per cent of the victims were younger than 10 (Unicef, 2012:1). According to a study by Bowman (2010:443), 54,3 per cent of the 414 children he used for the study, were being sexually abused. This statistic was only an estimate however, as South Africa is known for under-reporting of sexual offences (Unicef, 2012:1).
• According to Johannson-Love and Fremouw (2006:13), female sexual offenders were isolated and lonely, with a variety of emotional problems and had most probably themselves been sexually abused as children.
• The typical female offender is in her 20s and 30s and from a disfunctional family in which she experienced various forms of abuse (Johansson-Love & Fremouw, 2006:13). Although female offenders abuse children of both genders, they tend to abuse more female chidren (Johansson-Love & Fremouw, 2006:13).
