Violence sexuelle en milieu scolaire : étude de 30 dossiers d’expertises psychiatriques

Introduction

Sexual violence in schools among children and adolescents is a public health problem. Its frequency and its short- and long-term consequences are often underestimated due to the non-specific socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the victims.

Aim

To describe the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of child victims of sexual violence in schools.

Materials and methods

We conducted a retrospective, descriptive and analytic study of 30 psychiatric expert reports carried out for children and adolescents who had been exposed to sexual violence in the school environment. Patients were presented to the department of child psychiatry of the CHU Hédi Chaker of Sfax, following requisitions from the national police services. The psychiatric expert reports were collected over a period of six months from January 2019 to June 2019.

Results

The average age of our patients was 11.7 ± 3 years, 57% of whom were male. The perpetrator of the sexual violence was a male in 86.7% of cases, a minor at the time of the events in 53.3% of cases and a teacher or a member of the school staff in 30% of cases. Sexual abuses consisted of sexual touching in 56.6% of cases, exhibitionism in 30% of cases and anal penetration in 26.7% of cases. Sexual abuse was repeated in 53% of cases, mainly for exposure to pornography. The victim's expert examination concluded to mainly anxiety symptoms (in 76.7% of cases) and sleep disorders (in 46.7% of cases). A post-traumatic stress disorder was retained in 16.7% of cases.

Conclusion

The results of our study suggest that sexual violence in the school environment can concern different socio-demographic classes. Sexual violence between minors seems quite frequent and the clinical manifestations presented by the victims are non-specific. This encourages the conduct of awareness-raising campaigns among workers with children to prevent this phenomenon.