Peer-reviewed article
Gender Differences in the Disclosure of Sexual Abuse in Chilean Adolescents
Cristóbal Guerra, Valeria Arredondo, Carolina Saavedra, Cristian Gustavo Pinto-Cortez, Alejandro Benguria et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined why adolescents in Chile do not report sexual abuse, with a focus on gender differences. Researchers reviewed records from 210 abused adolescents and interviewed 10 young adults who had experienced abuse. Boys were significantly less likely to disclose abuse than girls. Both genders faced barriers including guilt, shame, and lack of family support, but boys faced additional cultural obstacles related to masculinity stereotypes and perceptions that sexual abuse is a female problem.
Key points
- Boys actively disclose sexual abuse less frequently than girls in the Chilean population
- Both boys and girls experience guilt, shame, and lack of family support as barriers to disclosure
- Cultural factors and gender stereotypes create particular obstacles for male victims, including concerns about questioning masculinity
- Sexual abuse is often feminised in cultural perception, making disclosure harder for male victims
- Practitioners working with adolescents need to be attentive to gender-specific factors affecting disclosure
Limitations
The study included a small qualitative sample (10 interviews) and relied on data from specialist care centres, which may not represent all abuse cases in Chile or the full diversity of the adolescent population. The research cannot explain causation or generalise beyond the Chilean cultural context.
Abstract
Child sexual abuse is a frequent phenomenon in Chile, but it is not often disclosed by its victims. The lack of disclosure is more common in the male population, presumably owing to cultural factors. The objective of this study was to deepen understanding of child sexual abuse disclosure in the Chilean population, focusing particularly on the role of gender. The study combined data extraction from the internal database of child sexual abuse specialist care centres with a small number of in‐depth interviews. In the initial quantitative phase, data on 210 adolescents between ten and 18 years of age were reviewed, and in the qualitative phase, ten young people between 18 and 20 years participated; all the participants had suffered sexual abuse. The results of the quantitative phase show that boys actively disclose less frequently than girls. The results of the qualitative analysis revealed some obstacles to disclosure both in boys and in girls (guilt and shame, or the lack of family support), but they suggested that the disclosure process would be particularly difficult for boys owing to cultural factors (e.g. questioning the masculinity of male victims and the feminisation of sexual abuse). The discussion addresses the implications of these results for promoting disclosure in adolescents of both genders. ‘Child sexual abuse is a frequent phenomenon in Chile, but it is not often disclosed by its victims’ Key Practitioner Messages In Chile, disclosure of sexual abuse is difficult for male and female adolescents owing to guilt and shame, or the lack of family support. In macho cultures, male adolescents would have greater difficulty with disclosure given the associated stigmatisation and gender stereotypes. All practitioners who work with children and adolescents in Chile should be attentive to the gender factors that hinder the disclosure of sexual abuse in male and female adolescents.