For Specialists
What is sexual grooming?
Sexual grooming refers to the actions or behaviors of the perpetrator manifested with the conscious intention of establishing an emotional connection with the minor, or sometimes the minor’s family. The purpose of these behaviors is to induce the child’s trust in the perpetrator and to create a close relationship with the perpetrator, with the ultimate goal of sexually abusing the child. Grooming can take place in any type of context – physical or online – and the methods of manipulation are adapted by the abuser to the environment in which he or she establishes the relationship with the child. The process of grooming most often involves the gradual creation of a close relationship with the child, using various techniques, actions or objects: gifts, compliments, sharing secrets or intimate information.
As mentioned above, the bully uses a number of techniques in exercising the grooming process:
► Offering attention and gifts to the child: the bully may use this technique, on the one hand, to create the impression that the child is special, that he/she is valuable in the bully’s perception and that the relationship with the bully is special, and, on the other hand, to create the impression that the child is “indebted” and that he/she is offering something in return.
For example, the abuser may give the child various gifts, objects that he or she knows the child likes, and ask for hugs or kisses “in exchange”.
► Isolating the child: the abuser seeks to create a special kind of relationship with the child and to distance the child from support persons or caregivers; the aim is to ensure that he/she has unhindered access to the child on the one hand, and on the other hand, to ensure that the child will have no one to disclose the abuse to or trust to disclose.
For example, it may create a false impression in the child or adolescent that they are friends, that they share intimate parts of each other’s lives and that the abuser, unlike parents, other caregivers or friends, really understands and is genuinely there for them.
► “Secretizing” the relationship: through the behaviors, gestures and things said to the child, the abuser seeks to ensure that the child will not disclose the sexual abuse; either it may create a false impression of a special and secret relationship between the two of them, or it may create misperceptions in the child about what might happen if he/she finds out about the relationship between the two of them: either he/she will not be believed, or he/she will be blamed by the people around him/her, or he/she will be taken away from his/her family and taken to a children’s home, etc.
► The gradual violation and transgression of boundaries, concomitant with desensitization of the child to the abusive situation: in the case of the grooming process, more often than not, the child’s aggression does not take place through untimely physical coercion and forcing, but the intimate, sexual gestures are gradually manifested by the aggressor, with the aim of not scaring the child and thus not diminishing his chances of abusing him; by gradually manifesting affectionate gestures towards the child (initially only in the form of hugging, or holding the child’s hand), the aggressor ensures that he gradually desensitizes the child to gradually accepting sexual gestures and behaviors.
For example, at the beginning of the grooming process, the perpetrator may only hug the child, then ask the child’s consent to kiss him or her on the mouth or other parts of the body, and finally, eventually, the perpetrator may ask the child to perform various sexual acts.
► Exploiting the needs and vulnerabilities of the child: sex offenders are masters at recognizing children who are vulnerable in one way or another (emotionally, familial, socially) and at recognizing and exploiting the needs of the child. Statistically, the children who are most likely to be sexually abused lack strong social support around them, are often neglected or physically or emotionally abused by their caregivers, are socially isolated, intellectually, emotionally, or materially deprived.
For example, sex offenders may enter into relationships with children who have no father figure, children with whom the biological father has not maintained contact, or for various other reasons has not been there for the child throughout the child’s upbringing. The sex offenders exploit this identified emotional need and lack in the child and consciously try to create a false impression and perception in the child that they can be a father figure in the child’s life.
► Inducing guilt: in order to ensure that the minor will not disclose the sexual abuse, perpetrators often use manipulation and induce in the child the false perception that he or she alone decided to take part in the sexual acts with the suspect. The manipulation sometimes goes even further than this, when the perpetrators induce the child to believe that it was the child who seduced the perpetrator and not the other way around. In fact, this type of explanation and justification is often found in statements given by suspects to the investigating authorities. The induction of guilt is possible because the perpetrator exploits and takes advantage of the child’s lack of life experience, his limited capacities to fully and adequately understand the grooming and manipulation process of which he was the victim.
For example, inducing guilt may be done by the perpetrator in relation to an adolescent victim by confusing the adolescent victim as to whether she genuinely wanted and consented to engage in sexual acts, by telling her that she also wanted to engage in sexual acts or that she dressed in a way that would incite the perpetrator.
► Use of technology and online communication platforms: especially nowadays, a large proportion of sexual assaults occur when the perpetrator approaches the victim online. As parents often do not have access to applications used by children and teenagers, assaults can be more difficult to detect. In the online environment, the perpetrator can provide a different identity, convince the minor that they are a different age than they really are, and converse with the minor so often, on topics familiar to the minor, that they gradually gain the minor’s trust and convince them either to send sexually explicit photos or videos or to meet the perpetrator in real life.
Bibliography
- What is Sexual Grooming, adresa web https://www.webmd.com/sex/what-is-sexual-grooming;
- Grooming, adresa web https://www.childsafety.gov.au/about-child-sexual-abuse/grooming
- What is Sexual Grooming, adresă web https://www.ceopeducation.co.uk/parents/articles/What-is-sexual-grooming/
Article written by Patricia Aramă, clinical psychologist.