Introduction

Child sexual abuse (CSA) often has lifelong implications for victims/survivors, resulting in serious psychological and physical problems (Crisma et al. 2004; Office of the Children’s Commissioner 2014; McElvaney 2016; Nelson 2016; MacIntosh and Ménard 2021; Manay et al. 2022). Many victims/survivors do not disclose, either as children or as adults, due to feelings of shame, guilt, fear and confusion (Martin et al. 2014; Dubowitz 2017; Kelly and Karsna 2018). Consequently, disclosures and reporting of CSA in Britain is discussed as being far lower than official statistics suggest (Children’s Commissioner for England 2015; McNeish and Scott 2018). Reporting of CSA has been documented as being particularly low from Britain’s South Asian communities, with official and academic research centring around cultural barriers, predominantly shame and honour, which are likely to be hindering disclosures and reporting (Cowburn et al. 2015; Gilligan and Akhtar 2006; Gohir 2013; House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Report 2013; Martin et al. 2014; Office of the Children’s Commissioner 2014, 2015; Fox 2016; Gill and Harrison 2019; IICSA 2020). Although existing research indicates the need to improve knowledge about the experiences of CSA amongst South Asian victims/survivors, the preliminary literature review undertaken by this study discovered that attempts to address this have been notably minimal.

This chapter shares initial findings from a study, the primary aim of which was to research in greater depth, the lived experiences of British female South Asian CSA victims/survivors and barriers to disclosing and reporting. The research sample comprised 15 women who were willing and brave enough to share their stories. Pseudonyms and other non-identifying features for the women have been employed in this chapter. The study recruited female victims/survivors due to the majority of CSA cases being perpetrated by males against females (Office of the Children’s Commissioner 2014; Dubowitz 2017; Gauthier-Duchesne et al. 2021). The South Asian category in the study refers to Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani communities and this was deemed to be the most suitable form of homogenising the data sample for a number of reasons. Firstly, official government statistics record incidences of CSA for the three communities as a single group under the category of South Asian (Department of Education 2016, 2021) (also including Chinese and any other communities of South Asian background). Secondly, the three communities form the largest South Asian grouping in the UK with just under three million people recorded in 2020 (ONS 2020). Thirdly, the three communities have a common history due to being a part of pre-colonial India, sharing similar religious, social and cultural norms.

There has been a noticeable absence of minoritised ethnic women from Western CSA research, both as researchers and as research participants, yet experiences of CSA as shared by victims/survivors remain critical to developing practice and policy (Office of the Children’s Commissioner 2014; Fox 2016), indicating that the absence of voices from any particular ethnic community requires due consideration. Attempts to address this have been made by several scholars, including Bernard (2001) and Davies (2019), exploring CSA amongst Black girls, and Gilligan and Akhtar (2006), Begum (2018) and Gill and Harrison (2019), exploring CSA in South Asian communities. Such research has highlighted the need for an intersectional approach to CSA research where in addition to gender (be it abuse against females or males), race, ethnicity and culture are also duly explored. Intersectionality was therefore chosen as the most appropriate theoretical framework for this study, a particular point of interest being whether the ethnicity of a South Asian woman, in addition to her gender, was increasing her vulnerability to CSA and impacting her experience of abuse. As intersectional approaches have begun to be used to examine ethnic and gender disproportionalities more generally in child safeguarding practice (Webb et al. 2020), this chapter further highlights the benefit of adopting this theoretical framework in seeking to understand experiences of abuse amongst minoritised ethnic communities.

A second aim of the study was to respond to a body of research which illustrates that although the UK child protection system is built upon a long-established culture of child welfare and consists of rigorous legal and policy frameworks (Children’s Act 1989, 2004; Equality Act 2010; HM Government 2018; BASW 2021), practice and services for children and families from minoritised ethnic communities have also been described as inadequate and ineffective (Qureshi et al. 2000; Barn 2007; Chand 2008; Bernard and Harris 2016, 2019; Kirton 2018; Laird and Tedam 2019). A pivotal study highlighting the issue of CSA within British South Asian communities was the Gilligan and Akhtar (2006) study which suggested that CSA is under-reported in South Asian communities. The study recommended the need for professionals and support services to more carefully consider the culture of South Asian communities when responding to CSA, highlighting that framing the abuse solely within a Western paradigm was limiting and hindering accessible and effective outreach work. More recent research continues to argue the need for culturally sensitive approaches to CSA (Gill and Harrison 2019; IICSA 2020; Jassal 2020; Ali et al. 2021).

Legal and professional responsibilities in terms of CSA include identifying risks, helping children to disclose and report and providing effective support services (Children's Commissioner 2015). As shame and honour, or cultural barriers of any type, have been identified as an impediment to safeguarding children from South Asian communities (Gohir 2013; Office of the Children’s Commissioner 2015; Fox 2016), this study argues that a more rigorous investigation of such barriers is warranted. Without a good enough understanding of these barriers, professionals will remain insufficiently informed and ill-equipped to safeguard effected children. This chapter, therefore, also includes implications for child protection practice and policy.

Researching British South Asian Female Victims/Survivors of CSA

Approval for the research was granted by the Research Ethics Committee at the University of Kent. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling, via third sector organisations and the author’s social media channels which she had created for her research. While recruiting for a sample of victims/survivors of CSA was always expected to be a challenging aspect of the field work, it was found to be particularly slow-paced. Hesitancy of women volunteering for the research was coupled with difficulties resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic; the research method requiring face-to-face meetings with the women. Nevertheless, from August 2018 to September 2021, a sample size of 15 women participated in the research, with some conversations having to be transferred online due to continuing restrictions enforced by the pandemic. The ethnic breakdown of the 15 women was as follows: 2 Bangladeshi, 9 Indian and 4 Pakistani. The ages of participants ranged between 21 and 61, with the majority being in the 21–31 and 32–41 age bands.

The method of research was a guided conversation with each of the women, a method which reflects ‘an interest in other individuals’ stories because they are of worth’ (Seidman 2013, p. 9). This sense of worthiness lay at the heart of the study because of the significant absence of South Asian women’s experiences of CSA. This style of interviewing was also appropriate due to the sensitivity of the topic, creating an environment which allowed the participant to feel more at ease and facilitating a conversation rather than a sense of being interviewed. It provided the women the time, space and freedom to share their experiences. At this point, I wish to thank the 15 women who participated in this study for their courage, time and enthusiasm for the research. They have made an important contribution in highlighting the need to more effectively safeguard children at risk of CSA across South Asian communities living in Britain today.

The women’s accounts were analysed through the framework of narrative analysis, which focuses primarily on human experiences as told solely by those who have experienced them (Riessman 2008; Josselson and Hammack 2021). Its central premise is listening to individuals telling their own stories, with a focus on how they themselves are making sense of what they have experienced. How and why this sense-making is taking shape in the form it is, and in that particular period of their lives, is what is of value to narrative researchers (Hinchman and Hinchman 2001; Etherington 2000, 2011). Each guided conversation was recorded and transcribed by the author and due to the ethical framework guiding the research, no third party was involved in the transcribing nor in the analysis stage. Although this placed a considerable onus on the author as the sole researcher of what was considerably emotive content, it created an important intimacy between the author and the data, allowing her complete immersion in it from the outset. In addition, it contributed to a trusting rapport with the women which was a critical objective for the author and for the research itself, leading to the participants sharing their stories quite openly and unreservedly. Although defining researcher positionality as an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ can appear to simplify what is a complex and nuanced dyadic interaction between a researcher and who she is researching (Hayfield and Huxley 2015), it is helpful to use these concepts in terms of defining both the value added and the limitations of a research project. The author was an ‘outsider’ in that she is not a victim/survivor of CSA, although her credentials as a child protection academic is likely to have addressed this to some extent. Being a female of South Asian origin, she was an ‘insider’ in that she shared certain cultural experiences with the women, including being a descendant of first-generation immigrants from the Indian Sub-Continent. Cultural norms and values around family life, reputation and concerns around shame and honour, were not unfamiliar to the author and this appeared to be a key reason as to why many of the women responded to her research advert which had included the author’s gender and ethnicity.

Due to the nature of CSA being a highly sensitive topic of research, this ‘insider’ role brought considerable advantages to the process and is likely to be a fundamental reason for the women sharing their experiences in the depth that they did. Some of the women stated that a shared culture influenced their decision to participate. They felt that the author understood the challenges they faced simply because she had raised shame and honour as relevant factors in CSA cases, and they felt relieved that they did not have to explain these to her. They were comfortable with the author and keen to share whatever they felt would help develop child protection practice for South Asian victims/survivors:

Finally, somebody’s actually doing some research into it because it’s something that needs to be done.

(Laila, aged between 21 and 31, Bangladeshi)

Being a survivor, I want to come into this line of work and help other survivors. Come to the other side…I’ve been absolutely down in the dumps and now I want to come into this field and help other survivors…I want to kind of wake our community up. Open your eyes and realise this is going on.

(Zara, aged between 32 and 41, Pakistani)

Key Findings

Shame and Honour in the Context of Family and Community Life

A specific cultural barrier in the context of South Asian CSA disclosure and reporting is shame and honour or sharam and izzat as they are known amongst the communities. Although separate constructs with multiple meanings when applied to universal settings, in the context of this study, shame and honour refer primarily to cultural norms around social behaviour. Norms which must not be broken and if they are, can result in serious consequences for the individual (Gill 2013). This expectant behaviour includes avoiding incidences deemed to be shameful (sharam) and thereby harmful to the honour (izzat) of a family or community. These constructs have been reported to be   a factor in the low rates of disclosure and reporting of sexual, domestic and honour-based abuse and violence perpetrated by males against females across South Asian communities (Gill 2004; Gilligan and Akhtar 2006; Thiara and Gill 2010; Gohir 2013; Gill and Brah 2014; Cowburn et al. 2015; Aplin 2017; Harrison and Gill 2017; Idriss 2017; Mansoor 2017). This study sought to extend this body of knowledge by exploring these constructs in the context of South Asian victim/survivor experiences of CSA in Britain.

Shame is a complex and universal emotion and discussed by Scheff and Mateo (2016) as still being a largely taboo and invisible emotion in modern societies. It is widely documented that CSA victims/survivors across the spectrum of ethnicity, culture and gender experience intense shame from the abuse, creating a barrier to disclosure (Crisma et al. 2004; Lemaigre et al. 2017; McElvaney et al. 2021). However, the context of shame in this study sought to explore shame beyond this very internal and individual nature of shame. Although this remained important to the research, and indeed to the sensitivities around the researcher-participant dyad, the study sought to primarily explore how shame in South Asian communities tends to transcend the individual and locate itself into a broader arena (Gill et al. 2018).

Family and community relations are important in providing an individual’s social and psychological foundation and continued sense of security (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 2006). In some communities, these relations can take on greater intensity due to a lesser focus on the individual and more on the collective (Hofstede et al. 2010). Research illustrates that individuals who are part of collective communities perceive CSA through a lens where reactions of the wider community may take prominence over the experience of the individual victim/survivor. This has been reported to be the case in Chinese, Arab and other communities defined as collective (Futa et al. 2001; Haboush and Alyan 2013; Sawrikar and Katz 2017). South Asian communities can also demonstrate this, often influenced by shame and honour or sharam and izzat (Gill 2004; Gohir 2013; Gill and Brah 2014) and this study sought to explore this specifically in the context of CSA. Examining what these constructs meant to the 15 female victims/survivors was therefore a key aim of  the research project:

I think shame could actually be the biggest thing that’s stopping anyone complaining or going to the relevant authorities, and I think it's also fear from the backlash, from the community… (not wanting) dishonour or any of that, you know, because if you do this, if you did that, nobody will want to marry you, you know.

(Priya, aged between 51 and 61, Indian)

Sharam (shame) to me means keeping yourself private. The way you act outside, the news will go back to your parents. You’ve always got to keep sharam in mind. You’ve got to make sure nobody knows too much of your business.

(Laila, 21–31, Bangladeshi)

These excerpts indicate that the community to which the women belong is considered to be a significant aspect of the women's existence, in terms of influencing and impacting their life. Many of the women confirmed that a fear of their family’s or community’s perception of their abuse was an overriding factor in their decision not to disclose. Such fears were also reported by Gilligan and Akhtar (2006) in their CSA research with South Asian communities in Bradford. For some, this concern continues even in present times, as recounted below by one research participant:

That’s why I stay quiet now, as well, because I know there’s going to be a big fight and relationships are going to break and everything. And I don’t want to be the reason for that. I wish it was different though. We shouldn’t have to be like that, you know, if someone’s done wrong, one person’s done wrong, that person should get punished, not everybody else.

(Zara, aged between 32 and 41, Pakistani)

Acknowledging the injustice she feels in not disclosing, Zara continues to feel that this is the right decision for her because it avoids the severe ramifications she believes will unfold for her should the abuse be known amongst extended family members. Such preservation of family relations and protecting one’s family from shame and dishonour were common themes in the women’s narratives. The literature review for the study had already indicated that this was likely to be the case but it was the meaning the women were giving to these constructs within the loci of CSA which was the point of interest for this study: what did shame and honour mean to them at the time of the abuse and now as adult survivors? This line of inquiry led to detailed descriptions and granular insights into how shame and honour affected their experience of CSA and through this data, the study seeks to provide a more fulsome knowledge base of the influence and impact of these constructs for South Asian victim/survivors of CSA. Drawing upon this extended source of knowledge, practitioners and policymakers are likely to be better informed about the extent and depth to which these constructs are embedded into the women’s consciousness and therefore, the extent to which they are likely to influence their experience of CSA.

Shame/sharam and Gender Inequality

Women spoke about how notions of shame/sharam had always been a part of their life, since childhood. Parents were reported as being overly concerned about their physical appearance as female children, such as what clothing they were wearing and how they were wearing it. There tended to be a preoccupation with their behaviour in everyday activities and how this could be labelled as shameful: what they said; how they said it; what they did; and what they did not do:

[Sharam] is engrained into us since birth.

(Laila, aged between 21 and 31, Bangladeshi)

As soon as I… started puberty and grew breasts I had to always wrap a shawl around my chest area. Simple things like… when I would do my laundry… and then take it out, my mum would make us... put things like our bras and our underwear on the washing line and then she’d put like a sheet over it.

(Sonam, aged between 21 and 31, Bangladeshi)

Such behavioural expectations had created a consciousness which rested upon the fragility of what was deemed right and wrong and what could or could not be spoken about. A shift in the ‘wrong’ direction could destabilise family life and lead to disapproval. Although expectations and norms associated with parenting are integrated across communities and countries (Nomaguchi and Milkie 2020), this study identified narratives around what people would think about certain behaviours and what impressions these behaviours would create about the family. Women described childhoods as being heavily weighted towards not only what parents thought about their behaviour, but also extended family members and even the local community. This mattered to their parents and was a critical factor in parents wanting to have an unproblematic family life. The women shared how CSA was a significant threat to this sought out and desired stable, family life. 

Shame was also discussed in the context of gender differences, with women sharing narratives of how it was girls and women who were raised to be alert and aware of shame and its implications, rather than boys and men:

The blame is always going to be on the woman… so sometimes it’s best not to say anything as the blame will always be on you.

(Laila, aged between 21 and 31, Bangladeshi)

Hopefully our generation is going to change and let girls know that you don't have to hold all of this on your shoulders. Its girls and boys, not just girls who  hold the shame. And then if something goes wrong, it’s the girls who get punished for it as well. When the man does wrong, the girl gets punished, when the girl does wrong, the girl gets punished. So, the man gets away scot-free every single time. And it’s not fair.

(Zara, aged between 32 and 41, Pakistani)

The burden of honour/izzat

Although connected with shame or sharam, the women’s narratives relating to honour or izzat were more serious and affirmative in tone and language:

Honour isn’t just about you, it’s about your entire family. The family name… family’s really important in the Asian community… it’s never just about you… It’s always about what are people going to say… it’s about how people see you.

(Laila, aged between 21 and 31, Bangladeshi)

While the constructs of shame and honour are not only experienced by South Asian females—as discussed by Begum (2018) in the context of South Asian male CSA and Mansoor (2017) in relation to the Muslim South Asian community as a whole—they have been reported to predominantly govern and impact the lives of females. Again, narratives relating to honour were often interwoven with narratives about gender differences:

Izzat (honour) is something the girl has to protect. The girl is the family’s izzat. But if somebody came and… raped me... that would be the family’s izzat gone. Not just my izzat. So, it’s my job to protect this izzat. And if somebody takes it away from me, it's my fault, and I will have to pay for it. So, it's always on the woman. We have to hold it and it's such a heavy thing to hold for all our life… and then we have to pass it onto our daughter, right? You know, it's just… it’s not fair. Where does the man come into it?

(Zara, aged between 32 and 41, Pakistani)

Zara’s account explicitly conveys honour as being a construct wholly embodied by the female rather than the male, manifesting itself within her. Honour as a construct relevant to violence against women has been increasingly discussed and integrated into UK policy following a series of honour-based killings of females from minoritised communities (Siddiqui 2018). Begum et al. (2020) discuss how defining and managing female behaviour through the lens of honour/izzat remains a contemporary threat to females in minoritised communities. Zara also expressed her fears concerning honour killings indicating that the subject of CSA can be perceived by some members of South Asian communities, as compromising honour, which has inevitable implications for disclosing and reporting:

I knew that it’s [CSA] not something that's spoken about. I was scared to say something because of what might happen and I’d heard stories about honour killings and being sent to your country to get married and you know, all those things. They really put me off [from disclosing].

(Zara, aged between 32 and 41, Pakistani)

Although discussed substantively in relation to male perpetrated abuse and violence against South Asian women (Thiara and Gill 2010; Gill and Brah 2014), an exploration of the construct of honour in the context of CSA in Britain’s South Asian communities had not been undertaken in a substantial way—hence the evolution of this study.

Preserving What for Whom?

A consequence of how the women felt about shame and honour in their lives and their subsequent silence about the abuse was that many of them were living in a vacuum of secrecy and isolation. However, they themselves felt little if any affiliation with the constructs, expressing disdain, disappointment and disgust at how debilitating the constructs can be for South Asian women experiencing abuse:

I think it [shame] is a very destructive notion, and I think it’s a very silencing tool and it can manifest in such a way that creates masses of mental health issues and deprives a community of its wellbeing.

(Yasmin, aged between 32 and 41, Pakistani)

The excerpt below provides an example of the human cost of preserving shame and honour:

You know, he’s (perpetrator) followed me all my life. Every time I move houses, he moves houses, to a couple of streets away from me. Even now he lives a couple of streets away from me. And that's one thing, I know, he’s promised me. No matter where I go in the world, he’s going to follow me. And I’ve learned to deal with that.

(Zara, aged between 32 and 41, Pakistani)

As the women had a genuine disconnect with the constructs and shared the damaging effect of them on their lives, the author was curious as to why the constructs still appeared to resonate in their lives—for some more than others. What were they continuing to preserve and for whom? The author wishes to emphasise that she does not judge the women who have not disclosed or reported their abuse. Through getting to know them, before, during and after the research, she has immense respect and admiration for them and understands through their narratives, why they remain silent and preserve family harmony. Rather, the author wants to direct the question of preserving what for whom, to future efforts and enquiries into CSA amongst South Asian communities, believing that further exploring this preservation of honour is fundamental to unlocking change and reaching a position whereby victims/survivors of CSA do not feel that they need to preserve anything for anyone.

The answer to this question provides a critical point of learning for child protection practice and policy and highlights the need to persist in efforts to discover more about cultural barriers to disclosure. The result will be a wider knowledge base from which practitioners and policymakers can work: providing more insights into why disclosure may not take place; explaining why referrals to statutory services are lower than expected; and guiding professionals and services to improve their engagement with South Asian children and families so that their access to and experience of relevant services is improved.

Women’s Lived Experiences of Shame and Honour

This study has provided important and unique insights into how British South Asian victims/survivors of CSA made sense of what they had experienced. Through the narrative approach of ‘storying’ (Clark et al. 2021), their very personal experiences have been given a voice and many have shared how this has been a therapeutic process in their journey of recovery, but also enabled them to reflect on their experiences in a different way. Reassuringly for the author, some feeling less guilty and having less self-blame than before. Several of the women spoke about how this had been the first time that they had really thought about the constructs of shame and honour in such depth and the influence that the constructs had had upon their experience of CSA. This illustrates the value of narrative research in exploring the human lived experience (Andrews et al. 2013):

It’s definitely made me think about things with a different perspective, because obviously it’s weird… I mean sharam (shame) definitely and izzat (honour)… plays a huge part in my life. It’s constantly there. It’s like that shadow that will never leave you kind of thing, but I’ve never really broken it down the way I’ve done today, so I found it quite helpful.

(Sonam, aged between 21 and 31, Bangladeshi)

Female CSA victims/survivors from South Asian communities appear to not only internalise their individual feelings of shame, but also find themselves having to digest wider implications of this shame—considering the consequences for extended family and community members. Although disclosures of CSA by children remain rare (Alaggia 2004; Solberg et al. 2021), it appears noteworthy that from a sample of 15, only one of the women disclosed her abuse to her non-abusing caregiver as a child. There was a shared sense amongst the women that they did not feel that a disclosure would lead to a supportive response from families due to concerns about shame and honour. There was also a consensus that a disclosure would jeopardise family honour and threaten the stability of family life. 

Responses from non-abusing family members to CSA disclosures can vary (Crisma et al. 2004; Tener et al. 2018), and therefore a lack of support from families is not singly a point of significance. However, its relevance is heightened in terms of why they felt that support would be lacking, which was centred around concerns about shame and honour. This again indicates that by being both a female and South Asian presents an added layer of complexity for victims/survivors and reaffirms the relevance of an intersectional perspective to expose what is possibly a dual vulnerability.

Another concerning factor within the nexus of shame, honour and being female is the advantage that these factors provide to South Asian male perpetrators of CSA. Aware of the entrenched efforts to preserve family honour through female behaviour, they feel assured that the victim/survivor will not disclose the abuse:

He (perpetrator) had a very good grasp of that (shame and honour) and he used that as a weapon against me. Yeah, yeah, it definitely protected him… because he knew that this stuff (CSA) wasn’t discussed in our communities. He knew what it meant to be a girl being raised in a Punjabi family, he knew.

(Parminder, aged between 32 and 41, Indian)

If it does come out, the parents just push it under the carpet and kind of not let anyone find out… people can look at them (the girls) in a bad way. The perpetrator always gets away.

(Laila, aged between 21 and 31, Bangladeshi)

Perpetrators can therefore be emboldened by the constructs of shame and honour. This can facilitate abuse and allow it to continue. Examining the narratives around this was beyond the scope of this chapter but is continuing to be explored by the author due to having significant implications for child protection practice and keeping children safe. Furthermore, although additional research would be required to explore the influence of shame and honour across generations, many of the women shared narratives suggesting that the constructs remain prevalent in British South Asian family life today. Such areas of concern underline the need to continue exploring the lived experiences of South Asian victims/survivors of CSA with the intent to better guide and design child protection practice and policy.

Statutory Safeguarding Responsibilities

The protection of children at risk in Britain is governed by national and international law (Children’s Acts 1989, 2004; United Nations n.d.) and policy guidance such as Working Together to Safeguard Children (HM Government 2018) and Keeping Children Safe in Education (Department for Education 2022) which guide child protection practice in England (Scotland and Wales having their own equivalents). These legal and policy frameworks have been established around principles seeking to safeguard all vulnerable children, regardless of race and ethnicity.

Although legal frameworks can never ensure the safety and protection of all children, several high-profile child deaths involving children from minoritised communities (Chand 2008; Bhatti-Sinclair and Price, 2016; Bernard and Harris 2019) and discussions concerning perennial inequalities in safeguarding practice, centred around race and ethnicity (Webb et al. 2002; Harrison and Turner 2011; Bernard and Harris 2016, 2019; Bywaters et al. 2017; Laird and Tedam 2019), does call into question how effective child protection practice and policy is in meeting the needs of minoritised children.

The argument for improved cultural competency amongst practitioners; the over-representation of Black children in the child protection and care system (Welbourne 2002; Barn 2007; Owen and Statham 2009; Tilbury and Thoburn 2009; Webb et al. 2020); and the under-representation of children from South Asian communities (Ahmed 2005; Tilbury and Thoburn 2009; Webb et al. 2020) are topics that have been documented for many years.

In similar discussions, the inaccessibility and ineffectiveness of preventative and support services have also been critiqued (Qureshi et al. 2000; Ahmed 2005), often highlighting the need for practitioners and services to be more sensitive to the needs of minoritised children and families (Bernard 2001; Welbourne 2002; Tilbury and Thoburn 2009; Chand 2008; Laird and Tedam 2019). Inadequacies in provision include limited access to interpreting services and the need for greater consideration of language barriers (Qureshi et al. 2000; Chand 2005; Gilligan and Akhtar 2006; Bernard and Harris 2019). Service users have been reported as feeling ‘demeaned and degraded’ (Ahmed 2005, p. 93) or misunderstood and misinterprete d (Featherstone and Fraser 2012). With regards to CSA services specifically, whilst exploring the uptake of CSA services amongst the South Asian communities in Bradford, Gilligan and Akhtar (2006) found that many women were unaware that such services even existed. Allnock et al. (2012) found that CSA services appeared to be less available/accessible to minoritised ethnic children, and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (2015) reported that children from minoritised ethnic communities are known to receive a poorer quality of service than their peers. In recent times, the UK Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) researched barriers to accessing services and identified a number of themes, including shame and honour, which must be addressed to ensure more effective and equitable service provision for minoritised children experiencing CSA (IICSA 2021). In short, the needs of minoritised ethnic children remains a point of concern for child protection practice and policy in Britain. This chapter argues that efforts to address such inequities must be addressed with increased fervour and urgency.

A key means of addressing shortfalls in practice is to effectively research the lived experiences of victims/survivors of CSA. If we are not sufficiently informed enough of all children’s experiences of child sexual abuse, we are limited in how we can identify risk and provide relevant support. This study makes a contribution to this extension of knowledge, illustrating that responding to CSA requires greater consideration of a victim/survivor’s race, ethnicity and culture (in addition to gender). This provides a fuller insight into her experience of abuse, and provides important knowledge for those tasked with protecting children.

Employing such an intersectional framework to their analysis of child protection decision-making in England, Germany and the Netherlands, Middel et al. (2020) also explore the need to understand the lives of children at risk in the context of multiple familial factors. They discuss how a more holistic approach provides a more effective framework for safeguarding vulnerable children.

Conclusions

This chapter has shared initial findings from a research study which is exploring the lived experiences of British South Asian female victims/survivors of CSA. Early data is substantiating existing research concerning the significance of shame and honour on South Asian women’s experiences of male-perpetrated abuse. It extends this learning to encompass CSA and discusses how these constructs can be just as pervasive and oppressive in incidences of CSA as they have been in other forms of male-perpetrated abuse of South Asian women. Through probing further into the constructs, this study enables practice and policy to move beyond what has been quite a fixed child protection practice and policy narrative of cultural barriers. Through the narratives of the women, what they are preserving and for whom becomes clear. The what—shame and honour—envelops a complex set of feelings and expectations and potentially lifelong implications. The perceived risk of thrusting family members—the whom—into situations of shame and dishonour appears too great, inhibiting disclosures and reporting.

By applying an intersectional lens, the study exposes what can be deemed to be a dual vulnerability for South Asian women; by being female and vulnerable to male-perpetrated sexual abuse, and by being South Asian and impacted by constructs of shame and honour. This study encourages those responsible for safeguarding children to become more cognisant of this amplified position of vulnerability.

The challenge of recruiting South Asian victims/survivors has also been highlighted by this study, emphasising a need to persist in engaging research participants from South Asian communities, and to think more attentively and creatively about how such recruitment can take shape. Only through hearing more from this group of women can their experiences be more fully documented. For instance, as the current study progresses, additional narratives are emerging which relate to experiences beyond shame and honour. It is therefore important to understand that although shame and honour are significant constructs in the experiences of South Asian women, they are not the only factors which ought to be considered and pigeon-holing experiences within this framework must be avoided.

Those working in the field of CSA remain concerned and inquisitive about the lower-than-expected rates of CSA disclosures and reporting, and this must also remain an active line of enquiry when supporting children from South Asian communities. This chapter calls for a greater onus to be placed upon practitioners, services and policy-makers, to better understand the extent to which shame and honour is embedded within South Asian communities and to more rigorously investigate cultural barriers. Table 5.1 outlines key messages and implications for policy, practice and research. Only through a process of continuous exploration, examination and review of this issue will necessary adaptations to child protection practice and policy be made and children facing such barriers be more effectively protected from risk.

Table 5.1 Key messages and implications for policy, practice and research
Full size table