More boys fall victims to ‘non-touching’ sexual offences in comparison to girls, a study conducted by Unicef and Save the Children has found out. However, majority of these incidents go unreported.

Non-touching sexual offence include use of dirty words that are sexual in nature, exposing minors to pornographic images and films, and adults looking at children’s private parts or making the children look at their own. The study was conducted in Kathmandu Valley and four districts Kaski, Chitwan, Morang and Surkhet among 5,413 children.

The study in Kathmandu revealed that 57 percent of boys who participated in the study had dirty words aimed at them by adults. Only 27 percent of the girl participants reported having been abused by way of words.

Likewise, 35 percent of the boys in Kathmandu were forcefully exposed to pornographic images and films while 20 percent were girls. When it came to adults looking at children’s private parts or forcing children to look at theirs 35 percent were boys and 29 percent were girls.

Stakeholders say social norms and gender stereotype are the reasons behind this disturbing findings. “We think that only girls are sexually exploited, but boys are also equally vulnerable. Unfortunately, even the policy makers are not aware about it and a lot of polices related to sexual offence specifically state a girl child,” said Yubaraj Ghimire, children protection coordinator of CWISH.

Patriarchal mindset, Ghimire added, is another reason why boys do not feel comfortable reporting incidents of sexual abuse.  

The survey done among children aged 11-15 in four other districts also suggests similar story, with a small difference in the percentage. The difference between boys and girls suffering from use of dirty words was only five percent. As for sexual abuse of physical nature like caressing, touching or fondling, girls suffered more than boys, according to the study. Fifteen percent of the girls in the Valley compared to 13 percent of the boys said that they had been abused physcially. The study done outside the capital showed that 18 percent of girls had fallen prey to physical abuse while only 11 percent of the boys had been victims of similar offence. Earlier, a survey conducted by Voice of Children in 2007 among street children had also found that boys accounted for 80 percent of the sexual abuse.