Increased risk of teen sex violence by peers

Teenagers are increasingly at risk of sexual violence from people their own age and it is migrating online, a conference on cyberbullying heard at the weekend.

Dr Ethel Quayle, a lecturer with the University of Edinburgh, said studies are now indicating an increase in the levels of peer-related violence with a sexual focus.

“We have some suggestion that even though overall levels of sexual violence are declining, in fact, we have an increase in sexual violence committed by young people against young people.

“What we are seeing is potentially an increase in peer-related violence and maybe a migration from offline violence to violence that is committed in the online environment,” she said.

Dr Quayle was speaking at the Dealing with Cyberbullying: A Practical Approach conference at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT).

She said while older adults continue to pose a threat to young people online, that is not the whole picture.

“This notion that the problem only relates to online grooming with older adults does not seem to be true. It is part and parcel of it and a coercive part of it but the research that we have is that a lot of this user-generated content by young people is created in the context of other young people not adults. There is grooming by other young people as well where the intention is to engage the other young person in a relationship,” she said.

One UK study showed 40% of young people did not believe that there was anything wrong with posting topless photos online or receiving naked images.

“These images can have a life long after whatever the intent was in the first instance.

“Young people and photographic practices is something that we need to be paying much more attention to,” she said.

Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor, who co-hosted the conference with IADT, called on the mobile phone companies and social networking sites to provide clearer and more accessible user guidelines.

“It is quite a cop-out for these companies to state that they have procedures in place for inappropriate use. I can assure you that these guidelines are difficult to find and are quite obscure,” she said.

Parents should be monitoring their child’s online activities in the same way as they would supervise what they are up to on the street, she told the conference.

“I find it amazing that parents are often uncomfortable checking their children’s activity online and on social network sites when everyone else in the school, town, village or club may know exactly what is going on their child’s Facebook page,” she said.

However, Dr Quayle warned any incursion into the privacy of young people online could be counterproductive.

“I don’t think we can impose this, particularly on older teenagers. In some countries there would be a strong feeling that young people have the right to explore their sexuality and relationships online. We don’t all share that cultural set of beliefs and values but I think we will struggle if we seek to impose something on young people. It is something that we should negotiate and talk to them about,” she said.