Households with incestuous rape: An inquiry into their help-seeking behavior

• Main Author: Lucero, Rainera L.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2000
• Subjects: Help-seeking behavior; Interpersonal relations; Incest victims; Counseling Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/2286
• Institution: De La Salle University

The study describes five households where incestuous rapes happen and the acts of incestuous rape in four southern municipalities of Cebu. It covers cases taking place from May 1994 to May 1999 and involving victims eight to twelve years old. It also explores the perceived facilitating circumstances in the households where incestuous rape happen, the perceived immediate effects of incestuous rape to the victims and to the households, the household's response to the crime, the support systems for incestuous rape victims and their households, and the perceived results of help provided to them. It uses the household as the unit of analysis and determines the five households using purposive sampling.This study interviewed one household key informant from each of the five cases and an extended family member in one case. For the purpose of triangulation, key help providers of the victims and their households were also interviewed. A total of 15 key informants were interviewed in data collection.Findings showed that incestuous rape happened in poor households, deriving their income from farming and paid labor. These were households composed of more children than adults. Most victims were eldest children in their respective households. Situational, perpetrator-related and victim-related factors comprised the perceived facilitating circumstances of incestuous rape. The acts involved psychological, physical and sexual assaults. Findings suggested long victimization among younger victims, victims living with their perpetrators and having close relation with them. The health consequences of incestuous rape in the victims, physical changes they developed and reactions of the rape witnesses triggered disclosure of incestuous rape.The study revealed that help-seeking for incestuous rape is initiated by a household member. The victims and the households' support system is composed of three levels: informal help providers, formal help providers within the community and formal help providers outside the community. Indifferent attitudes, inadequate skills and disobliging system of service delivery constrained the help-seeking.The support provided to the victims and their households were primarily intended for legal pursuits. Long term physical and mental health consequences in the victims as well as the consequences in their households were not adequately addressed.The findings imply the need for community-based preventive interventions and improvement in the formal help delivery in responding incestuous rape.