The past experience has been, too often, that their reports of abuse have been not just disbelieved but scorned, and female paedophiles have been left with unfettered access to future victims. The article is a sober and balanced piece, and the selected comments from survivors of abuse from women perpetrators are heartbreaking.

A large part of this societal disbelief regarding sexual abuse by women is of course gendered stereotypes about the passive nature of female sexuality and the supposedly innate caring capacity of women that is meant to make women incapable of such behaviour.