Eli felt lonely, and was drawn to online chat rooms where he encountered several abusers
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Eli was a shy child and he found it easier to communicate with people online.
This led to him being sexually abused, with one perpetrator attempting to lure him to a face-to-face meeting.
Both of Eli’s parents were alcoholics. Eli went to a Catholic school, where sex education was minimal.
As a child, he found it very difficult to communicate with other people and make himself understood.
When Eli was about nine years old, he began chatting to people online. He says that when communicating this way ‘I felt a little bit more confident’.
However, over time he began to feel uncomfortable about these encounters. He says that because he felt he was doing something wrong, he didn’t feel he could tell anyone when several of the people he met online sexually abused him.
Eli adds that he enjoyed the attention as he didn’t have many friends – he was lonely and didn’t want to stop the contact, so ‘it was easy to ignore the other negatives’.
He was sexually abused by both men and women, but mainly men. Most of the contact occurred late at night when his family was asleep. He would often stay awake until the early hours, and his school work suffered.
Eli did not see any of the perpetrators online but he was seen by them. The abuse involved photos and videos, which he knows are probably still out there.
He says ‘At its worst it was extreme stuff, things I would never have known existed and was pressured into doing’. He adds that because he made contact with the abusers, he thinks ‘people felt that they could get away with more’.
When Eli was 11 or 12 years old, he was pressured by one man to meet him in a car park. The man sent him photographs of himself so Eli would recognise him. Eli went to meet the man, but at the last minute realised he didn’t want to be there, and he ran away. He says he is really grateful that he did this.
He is not sure when the abuse stopped but he remembers that when he was in his early teens he had a greater understanding of what was happening, and it petered out after that.
It was only about 15 years later, when Eli confided in a close friend what had happened, that he realised he had been abused. Until then, he says, he had felt guilty about the online encounters.
The abuse has had a significant impact on his ability to form relationships, and on his sexual identity.
Eli would like to see better sex education for younger children, more education in school on the dangers of online abuse, and for children to have someone impartial they can talk to about any concerns.
Eli has spoken informally to a police officer friend about the abuse, but does not feel ready to officially report it.
He says ‘Talking about it doesn’t make it go away … it does ease some of the anxiety’.