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NOVA and Svein Mossige have coordinated the study. Six countries in the Baltic Sea Area have participated: Estonia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden and North-West Russia. 20 000 adolescents have responded to the same survey. The youths are in their late teens, the majority about 18 years old. Due to the young age of the respondents, memories of sexual offences or sexual abuse are less likely to be distorted.

Prevalence of sexual abuse
What experiences do young people have when it comes to sexual offences and abuse? Is exchange of sex for payment uncommon among young people? Do adolescents agree with attitudes that promote sexual offences? What are the prevalence rates of sexual offences and sexual abuse? What experiences, problems, and attitudes do sexual offenders report? These are the main questions on which the survey is based.

The report contains separate chapters on each country. The comparative analysis includes all the countries except Russia and uses a sample of all the 18-year-olds in the five countries (11 528 adolescents all together).

Findings

In Norway and Sweden 10 per cent of the boys had acted sexually abusive towards others, while in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland more than twice as many (24, 26 and 22 per cent respectively) of the boys conceded to having dragged, persuaded, pressed or forced someone into sexual activities at least once
18-year-olds selling sex is a low-frequent phenomenon for most countries, with the exception of Poland and Lithuania. The experience of selling sex was significantly more common for boys in all countries but Estonia
Very few respondents indicated a hypothetical possibility that they would have sex with a 10 to 12-year-old child. Respondents from Lithuania (boys: 5.2 and girls: 4.3 per cent) and Sweden (boys: 3.3 and girls: 3.0 per cent) scored the highest
When asked about penetrating sexual acts, such as unwanted sexual intercourse, the report rate of such acts were particular high among boys in countries like Poland (25 per cent) and Lithuania (19 per cent)
There is a clear relationship between having been abused and abusing others; the risk of abusing others increases significantly with the numer of different abuse experiences
Boys (93 per cent) had significantly more often than girls (72 per cent) read pornographic magazines, watched a pornographic film or accessed pornography on the Internet. Among the boys there was a rather big group that watched pornography habitually, more or less on a daily basis (7 per cent)

Peers are perpetrators
The figures of prevalence of sexual abuse is higher than usually seen in international studies but the figures include sexual abuse perpetrated by peers, people of the same age. If applying the often used age difference of 5 years or more between the victim and the perpetrator, these figures will decrease by roughly 50 per cent, i.e. within the range of other international reviews.

Nordic vs Baltic
When comparing the Nordic countries with the Baltic countries, the analysis shows that sexually violent experiences among boys (only Lithuania), sexually abusive behaviour, and selling sex were more prevalent in the Baltic countries. On the other hand, non-penetrating sexual offenses among girls (Sweden) and watching pornography were more prevalent in the Nordic countries. Poland, and especially Polish boys, reported higher prevalence figures on sexual abuse experience and selling sex compared to all the other countries. The report offers no good explanation for this. It is however known from other studies that some countries do differ from others.

For more information about the study, contact Svein Mossige or Solveig Abrahamsen, phone: +47 22 54 12 00
Download the report for free, or order it from NOVA:

NOVA Report 18/07
The Baltic Sea Regional Study on Adolescent´s Sexuality
Svein Mossige, Mare Ainsaar & Carl Göran Svedin (eds.)

Sexual abuse among adolescents