Characteristics and Tactics of Perpetrators of Sexual Coercion Among South Africa Youth: Attempting and Succeeding

Nearly one out of every five South African youth report experiencing coerced sex by age 16, yet existing literature provides little insight into the context of these experiences. The purpose of this study is to better understand the context of coercive sexual experiences and potential targets for interventions by examining perpetrator tactics and characteristics reported by youth who have experienced coerced sex or coercive attempts.

In spring 2012 self-reported data were collected from 10,103 eighth grade youth in Cape Town. Twenty percent of both boys and girls reported that someone tried to make them have sex against their wishes, but that sex did not occur (‘coercive attempts’). An additional 5.7% of boys and 1.9% of girls reported that they were made to have sex against their wishes (‘coerced sex’). The current paper focuses on youth who reported either coerced sex or coercive attempts (n = 2,349).

We hypothesized that youth who experienced coerced sex would report more perpetrator tactics, would be more likely to report an adult perpetrator, and would report tactics involving physical force, threats, and blackmail. Because of the exploratory nature of this study, additional hypotheses are not proposed.

Compared to coercive attempts, boys and girls who had experienced coerced sex report a greater number of coercive tactics (i.e., all nine perpetrator tactics identified on the questionnaire).  Boys most commonly reported a female perpetrator (71.8%) for both coerced sex and coercive attempts, with no significant difference between groups. For boys, coerced sex experiences were more likely to involve a perpetrator who attended their school, was an adult, was someone whom they knew almost their whole life, and that the coercion occurred by more than one person.

Girls most often reported a male perpetrator; however, girls were more likely to report female perpetrators of coerced sex than of coercive attempts. Coerced sex was also more likely to involve multiple perpetrators, an adult perpetrator, and a perpetrator they had seen around, but didn’t know. Girls experiencing coerced sex were less likely to report that they knew the perpetrator very well.

Results suggest substantial differences in perpetrator tactics and characteristics when youth reporting coerced sex compared reporting coercive attempts. The diversity of tactics used by perpetrators, particularly when coerced sex occurred is important to note and should be considered for future research and prevention initiatives.