Ellis, K. (2020) Blame and culpability in children's narratives of child sexual abuse. Child Abuse Review, 28 (6). pp. 405-417. ISSN 0952-9136
Abstract
Though child sexual abuse (CSA) is a global problem, victims are treated differently across the world. In the UK, there is a dominant assumption that victims are passive, which risks further marginalising those who do not identify themselves in line with prominent understanding of ‘vulnerability’. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork and in‐depth interviews, this paper shares the perspectives of girls who were placed in secure accommodation for their own protection, owing to professional concerns of CSA. Despite their experiences being reported almost identically in their files, this sensitive research shows that girls understood and narrated their journeys in strikingly different ways. Each shared complex relationships with their abuser and admitted to absconding with them on multiple occasions. Despite disparate narratives, the girls unanimously rejected being labelled as ‘vulnerable’ and instead felt that they were responsible for the abuse that they had endured. I argue that limited understanding of CSA problematises girls who claim sexual agency, meaning that they are consequently forced to shoulder responsibility for their own exploitation. By sharing the voices of those who are usually unheard, this paper concludes by calling for a radical reframing of the way that victims are treated, both by professionals working with them and by policies written about them.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | vulnerability; girls; sexual exploitation; blame |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Economic and Social Research Council ES/F021860/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Mar 2020 15:16 |
Last Modified: | 09 Mar 2020 15:16 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/car.2590 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:156932 |