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Understanding Perpetrator Tactics

For many people, reading about the planning and tactics used by perpetrators may help them to understand that it wasn't their fault, and to heal from the trauma of sexual violence.

Why do perpetrators do it?

• Sexual assault is used to intimidate the victim. It gives the man power over her.
• Some men think that women and children belong to them, so they have a right to abuse them.

Perpetrator tactics
The grooming process
Studies of offenders have found that deliberate tactics are often used to select victims and engage them in sexual abuse. This is described as the grooming or training process. Offenders have often claimed to identify vulnerable children- for example, those who are less able to tell about the abuse, or who are unhappy or needy.

How they start
Perpetrators recruit children by establishing a trusting relationship, for example spending time with them and listening to them. They may treat the child as 'special'; giving them presents and compliments. This treatment can isolate the child from siblings, friends or parents. The abuser may also establish a trusting relationship with the family and friends of a child, in order to have access to the child alone.

Abusers typically plan their sexual abuse of children with care. They may gradually de-sensitise the child and violate their boundaries. For example, they may spend a lot of time with the child when he or she is bathing, dressing, or going to bed. They may kiss and hug the child a lot. There may be 'accidental' sexual touching, or sexual touching as a game. There may be talk about sex and sexual jokes. If the abuse isn't stopped, the behaviour progresses to increasingly intimate acts.

Keeping the abuse secret
The child is taught - by threats, manipulation, blackmail, bribes and punishments - to keep the abuse a secret. The abuser assures the child that what is happening is 'right', and convinces them that if they tell about the abuse, something terrible will happen - for example, the family will fall apart. At the same time, the abuser gives the child the impression that they have consented, and that they are in a 'relationship' with the abuser, or even that they initiated the relationship. In this way, abusers shift the blame from themselves and onto the child. The child may then feel responsible for the abuse, and feel too ashamed or scared to tell anyone.

Survivors of childhood sexual assault or incest
If you were sexually abused in childhood you may have been deeply affected in many ways. Despite this, survivors have many strengths and resources to help them overcome these effects. Child sexual assault may affect different people in different ways, and to varying degrees. You may experience long-term effects such as nightmares, night terrors or flashbacks of disturbing images from childhood. For some people, alcohol and other drug dependency, eating disorders, mental health problems, phobias or obsessions may be related to earlier abuse. See our factsheet for "Survivors of Childhood Sexual Assault" for more information on the impacts of child sexual abuse, and how to get support in healing.

Remember

• Sexual assault is always the offender's fault, never the victim's.
• In Australia it is against the law for anyone to force another person to have sex, or to participate in any sexual act.
• Sexual assault is not uncommon. It is a crime experienced by women, children and men.