Sexual abuse of boy children is a significant but under-acknowledged and under-addressed problem globally. The worldwide prevalence of sexual abuse of boys is estimated to be 3–17 per cent (Barth et al., 2013).
In India, Ministry of Women and Child Development (2007) conducted a large-scale national study of children aged five to eighteen years and found that 52.94 per cent of boys had experienced sexual abuse and 23.06 per cent had experienced a severe form of sexual abuse, with severe abuse defined as ‘sexual assault, making the child fondle private parts, making the child exhibit private body parts, exhibiting private body parts to a child, photographing a child in the nude’ (p. 14).