National Study of Child Sexual Abuse Cases in Oman: Characteristics and Medico-Legal Outcomes

Background: To keep abreast with the best international practices, the Arabian Gulf countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child treaty, which includes clauses on safeguarding the well-being of children against child abuse and neglect. It has not yet been studied whether the enactment of laws, policies, and facilities designed to protect the rights of the child leads to appropriate legal dispositions against perpetrators of child sexual abuse (CSA) in Oman.  Aims: This study has been embarked upon to address two interrelated objectives; (i) to describe the characteristics of the victims and perpetrators of CSA, and (ii) to examine factors associated with positive medico-legal findings and judicial outcomes for CSA complainants in Oman. Method: This is a retrospective survey covering one year - January 2017 to December 2017.  The data from the participants who fulfilled the study criteria were drawn from the statistics published by Oman’s Public Prosecution. The study survey was designed to solicit socio-demographic characteristics of victims and perpetrators of CSA, types of prevalent CSA cases, whether CSA stemmed from intra-familial or extra-familial encounters, and characteristics of medico-legal findings and judicial outcomes. Result: During the designated period, 269 victims and 269 defendants were identified. The majority of the victims were male (55.8%), and their ages ranged from 9 to 15 years (mean age of 12 years).  Among the perpetrators, all were male, with ages ranging between 20 to 40 years (mean age of 28.3 years). A great majority of the cases reported were of extra-familial type. The types of CSA identified constituted inappropriate sexualized behaviors (63%), followed by sodomisation (26%) and vaginal coitus (7.1%). In forensic settings, 49% were found to have a positive forensic examination, and the factors that accounted for outcomes in favor of the victims in medico-legal findings included the female gender of the victim (AOR=2.78, 95%CI= 1.01-7.87), and the ages of the victim being between 8 to 12 years (AOR=4.29, 95% CI=1.51 – 12.16). Among those cases that were tried in court, 76% were convicted and sentenced to an average of 30 months in correctional facilities. The factors associated with the conviction of the perpetrator were the ages of the victims being between 13 and 17 years (AOR=3.45, 95% CI= 1.22 – 9.79), the type of abuse being sodomization (AOR=1.95, 95%CI=1.08 – 6.78), and cases that included positive forensic outcomes (AOR=2.66, 95% CI = 1.23 – 8.45). Discussion: To date, studies on medico-legal and judicial outcomes of CSA from developing countries have received scant attention. The present sentinel study lays the groundwork for future studies using the robust methodology required to further scrutinize medico-legal findings and judicial outcomes of CSA in similar regions in the Middle East.  The present findings also suggest that trends in Oman tend to echo those reported from developed countries, but there are also culture-specific factors that shape reporting, as well as medico-legal and judicial outcomes.<br><br>Funding Information: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.<br> <br>Declaration of Interests: None.<br><br>Ethics Approval Statement: Ethical approval was granted by the Ministry of Health Research and Ethics Committee (MoH/DGPS/CSR/18/7063), and official permission was obtained from the general public prosecutor. The study was conducted as per the Declaration of Helsinki and the American Psychological Association with regards to ethical human research, including confidentiality, privacy, and data management.<br>