The Economics of Incest Rape, Part II: Listening to the Sound of Silence

The examples in my last post all came from lower income families As in poverty level. Does this mean that there is no incest rape in middle income (MIF) and upper income families (UIF)?  No. Does this mean that there is a lower incidence of incest rape among these families? It’s hard to say. I have no access to that kind of data. I have heard of some whispers regarding a father belonging to a MIF or a UIF who raped his daughter, but I don’t know of any case where a complaint has been filed in court. One instance is Karen, a grade 5 pupil. Karen’s mother, Lisa, is a wife of a drug addict. Lisa confided to a friend that Karen’s dad is sexually abusing Karen. Lisa is afraid of her husband as he would often beat her up. The confidante is reluctant to bring the matter to the authorities as she Karen’s father is the son of a well known family in the province and she does not want to be involved in a potentially explosive situation. The abuse continues until Karen’s dad died in an accident.

While it is impossible for there to be no incest rape among MIF and UIF, the data regarding these are very scarce. The number of complaints filed is almost nil. There seems to be a reluctance to report these incidents, one reason is the stigma atached to this taboo.