Childhood Sexual Abuse in a Sample of South African University Males: Prevalence and Risk Factors

Abstract

Using a retrospective questionnaire approach, the current study explored the prevalence of child sexual abuse in a sample of 284 South African university men. The definition of child sexual abuse used in the study included all unwanted contact or non-contact sexual experience involving a child of 17 years or younger. Eighty-two respondents (28,9%) reported a total of 91 experiences of contact (36,3%) and non-contact (63,7%) sexual abuse which met this definition. However, different definitions of abuse yielded markedly different prevalence rates. After controlling for definitional and methodological sources of variation, the prevalence rate obtained for the South African sample did not differ significantly from those reported in studies of American college men. Factors which were found to increase the risk of victimization included respondent's race (i.e. being black), being raised by parents who were punitive or emotionally rejecting, and separation from the natural father for a major portion of childhood.