Adolescents who display abusive sexual behavior against prepubescent children

Little is known about the sexual victimization of prepubescent children by adolescents in the Spanish context. A survey was designed in order to collect updated evidence on these abusive sexual behaviors from professionals who work in direct contact with minors, with four thematic sections: (1) professional identification, (2) case characteristics, (3) abusive sexual behavior criteria, and (4) intervention; 42% assisted such cases, most of them involving one male perpetraror (mean age = 15 years) and a female victim (mean age = 8 years), over a span of time and not involving physical violence. Unanimous criteria to label a sexual interaction between minors as abusive were not found among the professionals, nor was observed a broad knowledge of specialized resources for the referral of those cases that could be identified.