Between difficulty and relief
![Ado alcool]( "Ado alcool.")
So why do some of them manage to pull through better than others? What reasons, factors, aid or obstacles occurred during their lives that were absent for others? Fabienne Glowacz and the psychologist Rachel Buzitu looked for the answers to these questions by asking 23 adolescent girls aged 12 to 18 who had suffered sexual abuse during their childhood, 15 of whom are delinquents and eight who aren’t (1). “It was very difficult to identify them and then meet them”, the researcher from Liège tells us. “We worked in particular with people from several centres (hospital services, specialised services, public youth protection institution). Once a relationship of trust is established, telling their story can be experienced as a relief.”
The meetings were conducted in the form of interviews where the interviewees were free to speak. They were completed with tests that measured several psychological, family and environmental aspects: aggressiveness, self-esteem, attachment to the family and post-traumatic stress, the reactions when they revealed what was happening, perceived support, etc.
Once this data had been collected, it was time to make comparisons. First of all, with a group of 108 adolescent girls who hadn’t suffered sexual abuse. “We wanted to assess in what ways the girls who had suffered sexual abuse were different to the girls who hadn’t been the victim of sexual abuse", explains Fabienne Glowacz. “We essentially observed three differences.” First of all, regarding aggressiveness, the tests measured four parameters: physical and verbal aggressiveness, anger and hostility. The scores among the girls who were the victims of sexual abuse were overall higher. As regards substance abuse, the abused adolescent girls consumed more cannabis and alcohol than the others, which is probably linked to their criminal trajectory.
Romantic appeal
Finally, the victims of abuse have a negative image of themselves in all aspects. Overall self-esteem, scholastic competence, social acceptance, close friendship, physical appearance, behavioral conduct, etc. Except for one parameter: romantic appeal. “They feel more attractive in relation to the opposite sex. They think they only have any value through sexuality, as though they have built their identity on this aspect... which risks leading them to a sexualisation of their relationships with others, thus making them more vulnerable in relation to other sexual victimisations. Therefore, we have highlighted the importance of working on this sexualised representation of the self during the psychotherapy given to these girls”.
This was followed by the same comparison exercise, but this time between abused adolescent girls involved in criminal behaviour and those who hadn’t had any brushes with the law. The first category suffered from “a higher level of post-traumatic stress than those who were doing well”, the psychologist summarises. “They will display a whole series of symptoms such as anxiety and, above all, they will attempt to cut themselves off from the trauma they have experienced by using what are known as avoidance symptoms, in order to dismiss anything that may reactivate the trauma. In this sense, delinquency can be seen as a way of cutting oneself off from the suffering and trauma associated with sexual abuse...”
The study shows that while young female delinquents aren’t more physically or verbally aggressive, they do suffer from greater anger and hostility, which leads them to consider the world and others as extremely threatening. Concerning attachment to the family, the researchers put forward the hypothesis that the quality of the relations formed since early childhood might be better among the resilient young women. In fact, this isn’t the case. No difference was observed, although all 23 adolescent girls came from a relatively violent or negligent family environment.
