Part 3 GLOBAL ISSUES: HARASSMENT AND ABUSE RESEARCH

3.4 Sexual abuse of athletes in organised competitive sport in Australia
Trisha Leahy
Background
Studies from around the world 1 - 3 , have consistently documented the
occurrence of sexual abuse in sport. This chapter presents a brief summary of
a study assessing the occurrence and long-term traumatic impact of childhood
sexual abuse of athletes in the competitive sport system in Australia.
Research design
The study was based on a number of surveys, distributed to both elite
and club level athletes, males and females. An age-based matched control
group was also included. A sub-sample from the larger group comprising 90
(45 men and 45 women) athletes, was purposefully selected to balance the
distributions of male and female participants and reported childhood sexual
abuse across the sample. Using a cross-sectional, retrospective investigation,
standardised, self-report questionnaires and a semi-structured interview,
Sexual abuse was defined as any sexual activity between an adult and
a child (under 18 years old) regardless of whether there is deception or
whether the child understands the sexual nature of the activity. This includes
sexual contact that is accomplished by force or the threat of force, regardless
of the age of the victim or perpetrator. Sexual abuse may include noncontact
(e.g. exhibitionism, involving a child in sexually explicit conversation, engaging
a child in pornographic photography), contact (sexual touching, masturbation),
and penetrative (oral, vaginal, anal penetration) acts.
Key findings
Survey results from 370 elite (national representatives) and club
(regional representatives), male and female athletes, revealed that 31% of
female athletes and 21% of male athletes reported having experienced sexual
abuse before the age of 18. 4 Environment specific sexual abuse rates were
particularly high with 41% of the sexually abused female athletes and 29% of
the sexually abused male athletes indicating that the abuse was perpetrated
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