Interviewing victims of sexual abuse : effective skills and techniques

Abstract

The discussion explores the interviewing techniques used in eliciting information from child victims of sexual abuse. Experience attests that such methods may prove crucial to get disclosure from victims, ensure that truth comes to light and so justice be carried out, whilst ensuring that no further harm is done to the traumatised victims. An extensive literature review focused on issues related to child sexual abuse including; prevalence, psychological effects and traumagenics as well as issues related to effective interviewing techniques, including the Child Sexual Abuse Protocol, the Child Health Development Protocol, and the Memorandum of Good Practices. The research adopted an exploratory qualitative methodology by using semi-structured interviews to a number of experts who question victims of child sexual abuse at some point or another during the exercise of their profession. Hence, worthwhile explanations were acquired about the actual processes and techniques used which were not simply described but presented to me in an evaluative way, since the participants at times also expressed their positive and negative assessments of what is currently being done in this specific field of interviewing child victims of sexual abuse. The data was transcribed, coded and analysed in terms of a number of thematic areas relevant to the subject matter. Attention was given to techniques adopted in terms of extrovert versus introvert children, gender, age, intelligence and socio-economic background. The study showed that Maltese professionals interrogating victims of sexual abuse are adequately qualified and operate in line with well-tested current international practices. A number of recommendations were proposed on the improvement of present interviewing techniques and processes with an eye toward future improvement.