About 9 percent of the population, or almost one in ten Belgians, is a victim of incest, the collectives “Patouche” and “Ensemble contre l’inceste” warned on Friday. According to the organizations, there are more than a million victims and incest is a “national emergency”.
Source: BELGA
The survey was conducted in April among 2,000 Belgians, with a margin of error of 2.19 percentage points. But people in psychiatric institutions, the homeless, victims who committed suicide and people with traumatic amnesia or denial were not in the sample, the collectives say. That is why the organizations speak of a minimum figure.
7 percent of Belgians say they have been a victim before the age of 18. That rises to 9 percent — 12 percent of women and 6 percent of men — when cousins are included. Incest is defined as sexual acts against minors by a relative of the first, second or third degree.
Perpetrators and victims
Two-thirds of the victims are women, three-quarters of the perpetrators are men. In a third of victims under the age of 55, the incest began between the ages of four and six. A quarter of victims under the age of 55 were abused by multiple family members. The most frequently mentioned perpetrator is the cousin (24 percent, 29 percent for female victims), followed by the uncle (23 percent), the father (18 percent) and the brother (13 percent). In seven out of ten cases the perpetrator is an adult.
Incest affects all social classes at approximately the same rate. It is more common in Brussels (14 percent) than in Flanders (7 percent) and Wallonia (6 percent). Most victims experienced sexual abuse (86 percent), one or more rapes (45 percent), exhibitionism (45 percent), sexual harassment (33 percent) or sexual violence against others (17 percent).