Omfanget av seksuelle krenkelser og overgrep i en norsk ungdomsbefolkning

Abstract

The prevalence of sexual offences and abuse within a Norwegian youth population.

The aim of this cross-sectional school-based study is to present and discuss the prevalence of sexual abuse within a Norwegian population of young people at the age of 18. Contrary to some earlier Norwegian studies the response rate is fairly high and sexually abuse is more clearly defined. The results are compared with an earlier Norwegian study. A clear gendered pattern can be seen in the data: about a quarter of the young correspondents have experienced sexual offenses, among them 77 percent are girls while 90 per cent of the offenders are males. The same pattern appears in other Nordic studies. Most of the reported sexual offenses towards girls take place when they are in their early teens and the offender is usually a boy some years older, in his teens or early twenties. A sexually offended girl reports more often the use of force or physical violence during the event than an offended boy does. The family is an arena with relatively fewer reported cases of sexually abuse or offences in this study than those of earlier research. We cannot say if this implies a decrease of sexual abuse within the family in Norway but international studies indicate such a tendency in some western countries. To be able to see how the picture of sexual abuse develops in society across time, for instance in a youth population, well prepared prevalence studies should be done within regular time-intervals