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By the time she was 19, Rikki Hoyland had already been sexually assaulted twice.
The first time was when she was just 15, and grieving the loss of a father figure. She had turned to alcohol to cope, and was assaulted by a teenaged peer while unconscious at a party.
Four years later she had put her life back together when another teen she trusted coerced her into sex.
“It’s pretty tough. I have nightmares every night,” she said.
“I feel uncomfortable in my skin every day. I genuinely just think that all I’m good for is to be used and abused and left.
“I definitely have a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression.”
The Queensland youth worker represents a new generation of adolescents experiencing sexual assault at rates never seen before.
Figures from the landmark Australian Child Maltreatment study show peer-on-peer sexual assault is on the rise with nearly one in five young people aged 16 to 24 having been sexually assaulted by another teen.
- 13.2 per cent were abused by another teen they knew
- 5.7 per cent were assaulted by a current or former romantic partner
Those aged 16 to 24 were three times more likely to report being sexually assaulted by a current or former partner as teens than those aged over 45.
It is backed up by data from the Australian Survey of Secondary Students and Sexual Health which shows that between 2002 and 2021, the percentage of Year 10 and 12 sexually active students who had unwanted sexual experiences rose from 25 per cent to 41 per cent.
Unwanted sexual experiences included being too drunk or high to consent, peer pressure, partner pressure or being too frightened to say no.
Lead Author of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study, Professor Ben Mathews, said the structure of the study meant this was a genuine rise, because it highlighted people’s lived experiences, rather than anything they had reported through the justice system.
“We’re talking about very, very substantial numbers of adolescents who are now experiencing sexually abusive behaviour at the hands of their peers, who in former generations were not,” he said.
“It does demand some concerted action.”
Researchers say there are clear links between the trauma of sexual assault and mental health issues which often first emerge in adolescence, with ABS data showing a nearly 50 per cent spike in mental health issues among young people in the past 15 years.
“There’s a general, well-established body of evidence that sexual abuse is extremely harmful for mental health and for health risk behaviours,” Professor Mathews said.
“Our study found…[sexual assaults] were also consistently the most strongly associated with health risk behaviours — things like cannabis dependence, smoking, self-harm and suicide attempt.”
For Rikki Hoyland, the first assault set her on this exact course.
“After everything went down, I stopped talking to everyone. I isolated myself,” she said.
“I was doing a lot of drugs, and I was drinking a lot. I would do anything to try and numb the pain.”
The assaults happened after what had already been a rocky family life leading into adolescence and she was suicidal and self-harmed from an early age.
“I was a very angry kid. I would often fight people just because they looked at me funny. I would throw chairs and desks at teachers.
“I was so, so vulnerable.”
What’s behind the rise?
Academics theorise the rise in sexual assault rates is being caused by social media and access to hardcore pornography.
“Some kids might feel extra pressure to have sexual experiences or sexual encounters so that they feel a sense of status and a sense of peer acceptance,” Professor Mathews said.
Figures from the Australian Survey of Secondary Students and Sexual Health showed 14.1 per cent of 14-to-18-year-old Australians viewed pornography daily or almost daily.
Another study from Macquarie University found more than half of boys reported their first exposure to porn between the ages of 12 and 14 and more than one quarter between the ages of 9 and 11.
“There is some evidence that consumption of violent pornography can influence aggressive and coercive sexual behaviour,” Professor Mathews said.
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‘Mano-sphere’ shaping violent views
The concern about porn and social media is supported by youth-led advocacy group Teach Us Consent, which heard from more than 7,000 Australian teens who were victims of sexual violence, many of them girls.
Tess Fuller from the group said many teens spoke candidly about the mental health impacts of their assault and that it was associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety.
“It stifled their sexual and social growth. A lot of them found it really difficult to keep attending school and being around that perpetrator.”
She said social media was playing a crucial role in shaping teen attitudes.
“There’s a radicalisation happening online in the so-called ‘manosphere’ that is encouraging boys and men to hold increasingly violent and misogynistic views.”
One study from the United States found that 9 in 10 of the most popular mainstream pornography videos display violence against women, and, in almost all cases, the women featured respond with pleasure or neutrally.
“It’s sending them the message that women should grin and bear (it) or even enjoy violence,” Ms Fuller said.
“That men should assume these domineering and violent positions in bedrooms, which is really a norm that lots of boys that we speak to a deeply uncomfortable with.
“We’re clearly missing a bunch of healthy male role models for boys to look up to.”
Poor mental health drives violence
Ms Fuller said there was also evidence that poor mental health could be a driver of violence towards women, with men who ascribe misogynistic views eight times more likely to have frequent suicidal ideation.
“These forms of masculinity that encourage you to suppress your emotions, not talk about your problems with your friends, and sort of deal with everything by yourself, is in turn encouraging you to lash out on other people and to potentially commit sexual violence.”
The Australian Childhood Maltreatment study found overall sexual abuse of minors is still widespread, but there was overall a downward trend, especially among boys as victims, and a reduction in perpetration by adults like family members and institutional carers.
The area that trended up most significantly was teen-on-teen abuse.
Rikki Hoyland now works at Youth InSearch, an early intervention service she relied on heavily in the wake of her assaults.
“It definitely saved my life,” she said.
These days she takes comfort in the small things like her dog, Rasty.
“I’m just dealing with it through counselling. I am back on my anxiety medication,” she said.
Rikki urged any teens who experienced what she did to ask for help.
“It doesn’t make you weak. It makes you stronger and it helps you understand yourself a lot better.”
Mental health disorders among young people have soared by nearly 50 per cent in 15 years. The ABC is talking to youth, parents, and researchers about what’s driving this pattern, and what can be done to turn things around.
