Babies among rape victims

Babies as young as one have presented for treatment at a Galway service for victims of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, a third of all adults in Galway who presented for treatment for sexual assault in 2016 reported concerns about date-rape drugs having been used to facilitate the assault.

There were 73 attendances of children at the Child and Adolescent Sexual Assault Treatment Service (CASATS) at Ballybrit last year. The unit offers forensic medical examinations for children who were victims or suspected of being victims of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse.  Three of the patients were just one-year-olds; five were aged two; 15 were three-years-old; and seven were four years of age. The remaining ranged in ages between five and 17.

The figures were contained in the Saolta hospital group’s annual report of the Galway Sexual Assault Treatment Unit (SATU) for 2016.

In 16 out of the 73 cases, details of the assailants are unknoWN.

In these cases, according to the report, there may not have been a definitive allegation of child sexual abuse but an examination was deemed appropriate due to other factors such as “inappropriate sexualised behaviour”.

Five of the cases involved child assailants; and all bar one of the child assailants were male.

In 39 cases (55%), an adult assailant was suspected of instigating sexual abuse. Some 35 of these cases involved men, and 14 of these (40%) were the child’s biological father.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune