Big rise in adolescent rape victims

By BRIDGET CARTER

The number of Auckland teenagers telling police and counsellors of being raped by an acquaintance has doubled in the past year.

The figure includes a growing number of adolescent victims.

The sharp jump mirrors police statistics showing that sexual crime increased 48.4 per cent last year in Auckland central and 9.5 per cent nationwide.

Linda Ngapera, of the Counselling Services Centre in South Auckland, said that young women raped by acquaintances now comprised 40 per cent of referrals.

The number of adolescent victims had skyrocketed and was now the biggest single category.

The rise in overall referrals in the past year was probably because more people were reporting sex crimes, but the figure was only the tip of the iceberg, she said.

A typical scenario would be where the victim had fallen asleep at a friend's place.

Alcohol was often, but not always, a factor.

Over the Christmas period there were many reports of women telephoning the centre, saying they thought they had been raped, but could not remember.

The number of drug-related acquaintance-rape cases, where drinks had been spiked, had climbed markedly and they were now quite common in South Auckland.

The centre, which handles about 500 cases a year, counsels people who have reported sex crimes to South Auckland police.





The eight rape victims it helped in January included three teenagers raped by acquaintances.

Of the 11 referrals of rape victims in February, six were under 19.

Ms Ngapera said those numbers were double those of last year.



Many victims were naive and parents needed to be more proactive to make sure they knew what their children were doing.

Kathryn McPhillips, of the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation, said half its callouts dealt with acquaintance-rape victims aged between 11 and 19.

The centre, which serves the North Shore, central and West Auckland, logged 220 crisis callouts last year.



"There is a definite theme of acquaintance issues," she said.

"It is a contentious issue because it is hard to prove through the court process.

"It is a tricky thing."



Ms McPhillips said the foundation received an average of one report of a drug-related rape every six weeks.

Last June, there was a cluster of five cases where the victims thought they were taking a recreational drug, but received something else.

Only one of those cases were reported to police.



Late last year allegations of "drug rape" made headlines when a Wellington man was charged with drugging and raping a 35-year-old woman, whom he met on the street and drank with in bars.

He was found not guilty in the High Court at Wellington in December.

Meanwhile, police figures show that the incidence of sex crime in central Auckland jumped from 279 cases in 1999 to 416 last year.

Detective Inspector Kevin Baker of Auckland CIB attributed part of the increase to offences detected by a squad set up in 1999 to target paedophiles.

It was "certainly a concern" that sex offences had increased by 12 per cent over the past five years.

"We keep a very close watch on these figures."