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Girls much more likely to suffer abuse, violence and trauma

Girls much more likely to suffer abuse, violence and trauma, study finds

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Generic picture to illustrate child protection week.   
Photograph by John Donegan 30 August 2005 for The Age. SPECIAL []

Child abuse; girl hunched; sitting on floor alone.Sixty per cent of young women included in the study said they had self-harmed, compared to 31 per cent of the young men. Photo: John Donegan

A startling snapshot of Victorian young people struggling with drug and alcohol problems has shown girls are suffering much higher rates of abuse, neglect, violence and self-harm than boys.

The first-of-its-kind youth census of those in substance abuse treatment reveals the devastating social problems fuelling drug habits. It found that girls are much more likely to have experienced trauma and are drinking heavily and taking drugs to block out painful emotions.

The study of more than 1000 young people aged from eight to 25 found 61 per cent of the young women surveyed had self-harmed compared with 31 per cent of the young men.

Conducted by the Youth Support and Advocacy Service (YSAS), the census showed almost 80 per cent of the girls surveyed had been victims of abuse, neglect or violence, compared with 55 per cent of the boys, while 75 per cent of the young women and 59 per cent of the boys had a history of mental health problems. Rates of suicide attempts were also higher among girls (38 per cent) than boys (20 per cent).

”The girls have these backgrounds of abuse – that’s not to say that every person who gets abused as a child will go on to develop a drug problem – but the mediating variable seems to be there’s no safe or secure place for them to recover from it,” said Kathryn Daley, YSAS research and practice development consultant, who helped conduct the census.

”Often they end up homeless, which exacerbates everything, so the drugs stop them feeling this emotional turmoil. For a huge number of young women, before they got into substance abuse they were self-injuring, typically cutting themselves. Often they would say ‘it’s the only thing that makes me feel alive’. They’d emotionally shut off because they couldn’t manage everything inside of them and didn’t have people to talk to or coping mechanisms or support, so they had this sense of dissociation which was intolerable.”

The average age of those in the survey was 18, with the primary drug of concern cannabis (37 per cent), followed by methamphetamine (26 per cent), alcohol (22 per cent) and heroin (4.5 per cent).

Parental abandonment, sexual abuse and having dependent relationships with much older men, who often supplied the drugs, were also common themes for young women in the census.

”If they’re being sexually abused it’s usually someone they know – a stepfather, a school priest, a trusted adult male – and if it’s a stepfather, frequently we hear that the mother asks the young woman to leave the house because the young woman is seen as a threat,” Ms Daley said. ”So the girl begins to see her body as the source of this problem because it attracted his unwanted sexual advances, which made her mother hate her, and that potentially explains why the young women are much more likely to harm their bodies than the men. And the self-harm usually leads to drug use.”

The research showed that while boys still have high rates of trauma, they are more likely to use drugs and alcohol to fit in with male peers and to deal with grief.

”They’ve got this trauma they haven’t dealt with and they’re not allowed to be emotional because they’ve got to be tough and assertive to be a man. One young man, his girlfriend had committed suicide when he was 16 and he was very distressed by this, but I was the first person he was ever able to cry in front of because when he told his friends they said ‘she was obviously a selfish bitch, just get over her’. So he kept it inside.

”They’re in these environments where they’ve got to be a tough man, so often they’d find themselves acting up at school and then hanging out with the wrong crowd. They really want to be part of a crowd because often they’ve come from broken families and so they take drugs to fit in.”

The study found young women’s drug problems were often worse – 28 per cent had injected drugs compared with 19 per cent of young men – often because boys are more likely to receive treatment earlier as they have more contact with the criminal justice system.

Paul Bird, chief executive of YSAS, said the results should be used by drug and alcohol sector workers and the state government to develop services that better meet the needs of young women.

Recommendations include female-friendly spaces within detox and rehab centres and more investment in trauma therapy.

For help or information call Suicide Helpline Victoria on 1300 651 251 or Lifeline on 131 114.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/girls-much-more-likely-to-suffer-abuse-violence-and-trauma-study-finds-20131116-2xnrb.html#ixzz2yMq5K59e

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