DISCUSSION
5.2 PRE-DISCLOSURE
5.2.2 To tell or not to tell?
5.2.2.6 Cognitive/Developmental limitations
Due to cognitive/developmental limitations, many children in the present study did not disclose their sexual victimisation because they did not appreciate that the rape was wrong (i.e., that they were actually being sexually victimised) or that their sexual victimisation should be reported to an adult. This finding was corroborated in Staller and Nelson-Gardell's (2005) study and in the London Family Court Clinic (1995) study. Staller and Nelson-Gardell (2005) found that young children often lack a complete understanding of social taboos and sexual touch, leaving them less
likely to identify their experiences as victimisation which warrants purposeful disclosure. The findings of the London Family Court Clinic (1995) study were that 30% of the children had not initially recognised the abusive behaviours as wrong, 4% said that they could not recall a first abusive incident because they had been too young when the abuse started, and 6% had not been sure either way (they had been, on average, 8.4 years old at the time). As would be expected, only four percent of those who had not recognised the abuse as wrong had disclosed immediately (London Family Court Clinic, 1995). A child's cognitive/developmental limitations therefore remain a crucial barrier to disclosure.
5.2.2.7 Perceptions of responsibility
This sub-theme relates to the internal (intrapersonal) conflicted positioning of self-blame and guilt children in the present study prescribed to themselves alongside their knowledge that they are victims. According to Paine and Hansen (2002), regardless of the type of sexual assault experienced by a child, most children feel responsible for their own victimisation. In addition, child rape victims' feelings of responsibility may be compounded by the intense feelings of shame and stigma associated with rape. Lewis (1997) and Palmer et al. (1999) found that the age of the child is significantly associated with perceptions of responsibility for the rape. According to Palmer et al. (1999:97) developmental factors, such as a young child's natural egocentrism, may lead children to assume responsibility for events in which they are involved, regardless of the role they may have played - "I partly blamed myself. I was too friendly with everyone." Terr (1991, cited in Lewis, 1997) asserts that latency-aged children often belatedly construct a reason for the occurrence of the rape, or a way that the rape could have been averted. Pynoos et al.
(1987, cited in Lewis, 1997) refer to this process as 'cognitive reappraisal.' Children who have found reasons to explain why they were raped often attribute blame to their behaviour or their character, and feel intensely guilty (Terr, 1991, cited in Lewis, 1997).
"He told me it was my fault. Because I thought that, 'Why would he do it to me if I hadn 't done something wrong?' I thought maybe I'm doing something to encourage him to do this " (London Family Court Clinic, 1995:132).
Most children in the present study felt responsible or believed that they were at least partially responsible for their own rape, or for preventing the rape. Keary and Fitzpatrick (1994) found
that older children were more likely to feel that they bore some responsibility for the rape incident(s). Older children were also more likely to feel (realistically or not), that they could have escaped, or ended the assault (Keary & Fitzpatrick, 1994). Some of the children in the present study also felt that they should have been able to predict the perpetrator's 'bad'
intentions. Khan (2005) notes that children's own perceptions of responsibility for their sexual victimisation is a crucial factor in decision-making relating to whether they should disclose or maintain their silence. In the present study, children's fears of being blamed for their own victimisation may not be unfounded. Lewis (1997) found in her review of research studies that sexually abused children are frequently held responsible for their own victimisation. Notions of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' victims operate with children as well as with adults and such factors as the social class, age and gender of the child may influence the kind of treatment they receive (Hunter, Goodwin & Wilson, 1992). Moreover, the way in which reactions of others may differ according to the child's behaviour (for example, passive or active) may be important in whether they are judged harshly or sympathetically by others, as is the case for adult rape (Ullman, 2003). Broussard and Wagner (1988) investigated the effects of victim resistance on the amount of responsibility attributed to child victims of extrafamilial sexual abuse. Their findings indicated that attributions of responsibility are significantly related to victim resistance, with children who are encouraging being seen as most responsible, passive children less
responsible, and resisting children as least responsible (Hunter et al., 1992).
Summit (1983) asserts that, like adult victims of rape, the child is expected to forcibly resist, to cry for help and to attempt to escape. In contrast to this expectation, the normal reaction of the child is not to use force to deal with overwhelming threat, but to submit quietly, seldom with protest or outcry, and to keep the abuse secret (Summit, 1983). Furthermore, attributions of blame operate at all levels. The 'just-world hypothesis' proposes that in a just world the good are rewarded and the bad punished (Hunter et al., 1992). Children's feelings of guilt are then reinforced by others who share the belief that in a just world bad things do not happen to the undeserving and thus these children must at some level be at fault.
Thus the literature indicates that sexually abused children are often regarded as collaborators in their own abuse (deYoung, 1994; Finkelhor, 1979; Lewis, 1997; Regehr, 1991). The
implications of this can be far-reaching and serve to silence children from disclosing or reporting the disclosure formally (i.e., to an authoritative body). The present study highlighted that blame, shame and responsibility therefore factor into children's decision-making process about whether to tell or not to tell, with perceptions of responsibility sometimes leading to self-doubt as well as to a delay in telling.