Girls under-18 account for one in five attendances at sexual assault treatment centres, study finds 

Research found a year-on-year rise in the number of young women under the age of 18 attending sexual assault units due to a sexual assault or a concern they may have experienced a sexual crime

Female adolescents account for one in five attendances at the country’s sexual assault treatment centres, according to a major new study.

Just over a 1,000 young women attended the country's six units, which make up the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit network (Satu) from the start of 2017 to the end of 2022. 

The research found a year-on-year rise in the number of young women under the age of 18 attending the units due to a sexual assault or a concern they may have experienced a sexual crime. Female adolescents attending the units rose from 147 in 2017 to 196 in 2022.

One of the main authors, Dr Daniel Kane, a specialist registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology, said it was the largest review internationally in relation to female adolescent sexual assault, and their attendances at a sexual assault treatment unit network.

“These findings demonstrate that female adolescents are a vulnerable cohort of people in relation to sexual violence — 18% of attendances were female adolescents in the study period," he said

“It demonstrates that attendances are increasing and adolescent attendances make up a significant proportion of total Satu attendances.” 

The mean age was 16 but just under 9% of the adolescents — 88 of the girls across the six-year period — were under the age of 14."

A further 408 of the girls were aged between 14 and 16, while 518 were between 16 years and 18 years.

The research, published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, compared all adolescent attendances (1,014) to the country’s sexual assault units across the six-year period to all the adult female attendances (3,951).

The landmark study found female adolescents are much more likely to be assaulted by a family member or friend when compared to adult females — 9% of adolescents described their attacker as a family member compared to 3% of adult women.

Meanwhile, 20% of young women reported their assailant was a friend, compared to 13% of adult women.

In just over 7% of cases, the girls reported there was more than one assailant — this accounted for 72 cases across the six-year period.

In 20% of cases, adolescents said their attacker was a stranger, and the perpetrator was unknown in a further 4% of cases.

The research found female adolescents are far more likely to disclose that the incident occurred outdoors than their adult female counterparts, with just over 40% of incidents taking place in a field or park or other outdoor location, compared to 15% of their adult counterparts.

Over 11% of adolescents girls expressed concern it was a drug-facilitated sexual assault, along with 19% of adult women.

“Every patient who attends is asked whether they think drug-facilitated sexual assault occurred. They can answer, yes, no or unsure,” said Dr Kane.

“This number has increased over the study period, with the overall number for adolescents being 11%. It was 13.1% in 2017 — and 18.2% in 2022 for female adolescent attendances."

He said toxicology screening was offered as part of forensic examination in the sexual assault units.

“This may help investigate whether an incident was facilitated by alcohol or other drugs.

“Equally though, it is important to remember that almost a half of all adolescents attending Satu services had not ingested any alcohol around the time of the incident, and the vast majority had not taken any drugs.”