NCJ Number
190964
Journal
Child Abuse Review Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Dated: July-August 2001 Pages: 227-242
Date Published
2001
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This British study involved a major search of "mainstream" child protection records to examine agency response to cases of suspected "ritual" child abuse.
Abstract
The researchers considered a case as one of suspected ritual abuse whenever an agency worker referred to it as such, regardless of what this term meant to the worker; however, most, if not all, agency workers were apparently using the term with reference to the sexual abuse of a child in the course of a satanic act of worship. Cases of suspected ritual abuse were identified through searches of records of all referrals to police child protection units (CPU's) and social services child protection coordinators (CPC's) in eight local authority areas in England and Wales between January 1988 and December 1991. The study found that concerns about ritual abuse were rarely raised and constituted only a small proportion of child protection work. There were six cases of suspected children's victimization in ritual abuse and six cases in which adults alleged they had been the victims of ritual abuse when they were children. These cases constituted 0.1 percent of all child protection referrals to police and social services and 0.2 percent of all child sexual abuse referrals. Although agency workers in these cases believed that all the child victims had been subjected to serious sexual abuse, virtually all of them were circumspect as to whether the abuse had occurred in a ritual context. Initially, agency workers were open-minded regarding the experiences of adult survivors, but by the conclusion of their assessments, they tended to be more concerned about the mental health of the survivors than about the issue of ritual abuse. The agency workers apparently acted appropriately in the selection of the types of intervention they used and their application. Study findings suggest that more confidence should be placed in the ability of agency workers to respond to cases of alleged ritual abuse. 28 references