Child sexual abuse
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The term child sexual abuse (CSA) is commonly defined in contemporary western culture as any sexual acts engaged in by minors and adults. A perpetrator of child sexual abuse is known as a child sex offender. Most reported cases of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by males. Child sexual abuse is a crime in most countries, although what constitutes abuse varies across jurisdictions. Most American states now force offenders to register with a national, public database.
CSA is different from other forms of sexual abuse in that it includes forms of sexual activity that would not be considered abusive if performed by consenting adults.
The term has both moral and legal implications. As with the definition of sexual abuse in general, the definition of this term in legal, moral, and scientific literature varies in both criteria and specificity. The term includes also the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), defined by the International Labour Organization in the text of the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999.
Contents |
List of activities considered CSA
In countries and jurisdictions where child/adult sexual behavior is illegal, it is a criminal offense, although the list (range) of activities that are prosecuted varies between countries. Activities which are often defined as abuse only when children are involved include the following:
- penetrative intercourse (oral, anal or vaginal) between a child below a predefined age of consent (generally between 12 and 18 years) and an adult (or a much older child),
- asking a child to give consent to any kind of penetrative intercourse,
- fondling a child's genitals,
- asking, forcing, or inducing a child to fondle genitals (either his or her own, an adult's, or another child's),
- acting as a pimp for child prostitution (including a parent acting as a pimp),
- inducing a child to behave sexually in a performance, or to appear in child pornography,
- asking, forcing, or inducing a child to watch any kind of sexual behavior (including masturbation),
- asking, forcing, or inducing a child to look at adult genitals[1] (in many countries if a child is not intentionally directed to look at adult genitals in public baths or nudistic settings, the mere presence of them is not considered CSA),
- lewd action towards children, including disseminating pornography to a minor,
- asking, forcing, or inducing a child to undress for any reason other than to help a child who is too young or otherwise unable to wash, dress exclusively to keep hygiene for himself or herself,
- any sexual interaction of a child with an adult or other child where coercion or a power differential is present
Effects of sexual abuse on minors
The majority of experts believe that CSA is innately harmful to minors. A wide range of psychological, emotional, physical, and social effects has been attributed to child sexual abuse, including anxiety, depression, obsession, compulsion, grief, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms such as flashbacks, emotional numbing, pseudo-maturity symptoms, and other more general dysfunctions such as sexual dysfunction, social dysfunction, dysfunction of relationships, poor education and employment records, eating disorders, self-mutilation, and a range of physical symptoms common to some other forms of PTSD, such as sensual numbness, and loss of appetite (see Smith et al., 1995). Additionally, young females who are victims of abuse may encounter additional trauma by pregnancy and birth complications.
Some studies have reached other conclusions about CSA. For example, a 1982 meta-analysis by Mary DeYoung reported that 20% of her "victims" appeared to be "virtually indifferent to their molestation" and instead tended to be traumatized by the reaction of adults to its discovery. [2] Most notably, a controversial meta-analytic study of other various studies of CSA, Rind et al. (1998), found only a weak correlation between age-discrepant sexual contact as a minor and the later stability of the minor's adult psyche, noted that a significant percentage reported their reactions to age-discrepant sexual contact as positive in the short term, and found the confounding variable of poor family environment as a plausible cause for the majority of negative effects. Although the study stated in its conclusion that "the findings of the current review do not imply that moral or legal definitions of or views on behaviors currently classified as CSA should be abandoned or even altered," (Rind et al., 1998, p. 47), it on one hand drew widespread outrage from conservative activists, and on the other hand was often cited as supporting evidence by pedophile advocates.
The percentage of adults suffering from long-term effects is unknown. Smith quotes a British study that showed that 13% of adults sexually abused as minors suffered from long-term consequences.
Wakefield and Underwager (1991) note the difference between CSA experiences of males and females, where more males than females report the experience as neutral or positive, saying that "It may be that women perceive such experiences as sexual violation, while men perceive them as sexual initiation." Draucker (1992) contested this finding, arguing that sexual abuse against both boys and girls had similar effects, and that "initiation" was part of the myth that males are always the initiators of sex and cannot be abused.
Offenders
Offenders are more likely to be relatives or acquaintances of their victim than strangers.<ref>Fergusson, D. M., Lynskey, M. T., and Horwood L. J. (1996). "Childhood sexual abuse and psychiatric disorder in young adulthood: I. Prevalence of sexual abuse and factors associated with sexual abuse." In the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 35(10), 1355-64.</ref> Most reported offenders are male; the number of female perpetrators is usually reported to be between 5%<ref>Grubin, Don (1998) "Sex offending against children: understanding the risk," Home Office. ISBN 184082204X.</ref> and 20%Template:Fact, though some studies have found it to be much higher.Template:Fact
Typology
Typologies for child sex offenders have been used since the 1970s. Offenders are typically classified by their motivation, which is usually assessed by reviewing their offense's characteristics. Phallometric tests may also be used to determine the abuser's level of pedophilic interest.<ref>Terry, Karen J., and Tallon, Jennifer. "Child Sexual Abuse: A Review of the Literature."</ref> Groth et al. proposed a simple, dichotomous system in 1982 which classed offenders as either "regressed" or "fixated."<ref>Groth, A.N., Hobson, W.F. and Gary, T.S. (1982). "The child molester: clinical observations." In Journal of Social Work and Child Sexual Abuse, 1(1/2), 129-144.</ref>
There are three categorizations of sex offenders against minors studied in the field of criminal psychology. The first two are major while the third is minor.
Regressed offenders
Regressed offenders are primarily attracted to their own age group but are passively aroused by minors (pseudo-pedophiles and pseudo-ephebophiles).
- The sexual attraction in minors is not manifested until adulthood.
- Their sexual conduct until adulthood is aligned with that of their own age group.
- Their interest in minors is either not cognitively realized until well into adulthood or it was recognized early on and simply suppressed due to social taboo.
Other scenarios may include:
- Not associating their attractions as pedosexual or ephebosexual in nature due to cultural differences.
- Age of consent laws were raised in their jurisdiction but mainstream views toward sex with that age group remained the same, were acted upon, then they were charged with a crime.
- The person's passive interest in children is manifested temporarily upon the consumption of alcohol and acted upon while inhibitions were low.
Some view regressed offenders as people who are unable to maintain adult sexual relationships and so the offender substitutes an adult with a minor. This appears to be a flawed concept since it would suggest the offender was primarily pedosexual/ephebosexual and they would thus fit into the fixated category.
Fixated offenders
Fixated offenders are most often adult pedophiles who are maladaptive to accepted social norms. They develop compatibility and self-esteem issues, stunting their social growth.
"This offender identifies with children, in other words considers him or herself to be like a child and thus seeks sexual relationships with what the offender perceives to be other children".[3]
Such offenders often resort to collecting personal articles related to minors (clothing, children's books) as an outlet for their repressed desires. Most fixated offenders prefer members of the same sex.Template:Fact There is a difference of opinion as to whether this may be classified as homosexuality due to the nature of the individual's attractions. The sexual acts are typically preconceived and are not alcohol or drug related.
Sadistic offenders
Sadistic offenders are very rare and inherently violent criminals. They primarily use sexuality as a tool of sadistic suppression and not for sexual satisfaction. For this reason they do not fit within the classification of pedophilia.
Categorization
The great majority of offenders fit into the regressed category. Only between 2-10% percent of all offenders are fixated.Template:Fact
These categories, (primarily the first two), are based on the assumption that the offender suffers from an irreversible mental illness. A few have noted that the primary division between "regressed" or "fixated" offenders seems to rest on two criteria: the offending person's ability to successfully live a socially acceptable lifestyle before committing the crime and the person's primary sexual preference. Template:Fact These categorizations also assume the act is a crime in the jurisdiction they reside in.
These terms generally do not encompass the full range of possible scenarios and merely attempt to label easily identifiable situations. A growing number of minor-attracted adults feel that the two main classifications are a direct result from the lack of understanding and/or bias in the mainstream regarding intergenerational sexual attraction in western society and thus are categorically flawed.Template:Fact
"Children who molest"
Some therapists noticed that many adult sex offenders already showed what they considered deviant sexual behavior during childhood. So they promoted early treatment of deviant minors as a preventive measure. However there is still little known about normal as opposed to deviant child sexuality. It is also unknown whether so called deviant minors have a higher risk of becoming an adult sex offenders than anybody else.
The US started to focus on juvenile sex offenders or even children for therapy or detention perhaps in the early 1990s. The label "juvenile sex offender" is controversial because it is not only used to describe acts of violence, but also consensual acts that violate statutory rape laws; critics of this trend view many such children as simply engaging in sexual experimentation. They also criticize the law for forcing arbitrary classification of such pairs of offenders into victim and perpetrator.
Therapies used on children have included controversial methods historically used in the "treatment" of homosexuals such as aversion therapy, where minors are, for example, forced to smell ammonia while looking at nude pictures or to listen to audio tapes describing sexual situations. In order to measure sexual response, devices like penile plethysmographs and vaginal photoplethysmographs are sometimes used on these minors.
Variation in cultural practices, norms and research findings
Between cultural relativists and cultural universalists there is no consensus whether and which among different past or present cultural practices in Western or non-Western societies can be defined as abusing either general universalistic human rights or special universalistic rights of minors due to which there is no generally accepted definition which of them can be listed as CSA.
In different cultures the practices sanctioned by cultural norms involve for example cutting and bleeding of the genitals, female circumcision, circumcision (of males), castration, infibulation, sexual relationships between adolescent boys and adult men sanctioned by the state and sanctified by religion in ancient Greece and feudal Japan, child prostitution tolerated in some societies as a way for children to support their families, groping of schoolgirls in Japanese trains, in the Western societies now abolished remedies against masturbation (once named 'self-abuse'), and nudity in public baths and nudistic settings etc.
In some South Pacific island cultures, such as the Sambia of Papua New Guinea, one of the primary rituals of initiation for boys involves having them ingest semen, which they consider to be the literal essence of manhood. The boys obtain semen by fellating older boys who have already passed through the initiation. Upon initiation into higher stages, the roles are reversed, making the fellator the fellated. Ritual fellatio is somewhat common throughout southeastern Papua New Guinea but has been studied the most in the Sambia (Herdt 1982). [4] [5] [6]
Because of the lack of a universal definition, the research on CSA is open both to personal biases of the researchers and of their critics.
Epidemiology
Goldman (2000) notes that "the absolute number of children being sexually abused each year has been almost impossible to ascertain" and that "there does not seem to be agreement on the rate of children being sexually abused". A meta-analytic study by Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998) found that reported prevalence of abuse for males ranged from 3% to 37%, and for females from 8% to 71% with mean rates of 17% and 28% respectively. A study by Fromuth and Burkhart (1987) found that depending upon the definition of CSA used, prevalence among men varied from 4% to 24%.
Sexual abuse, consent, minors, age gap and culture
The simple definition of child sexual abuse is when an adult forces or coerces sex on a minor. There is an ongoing controversy surrounding this definition. The controversy lies within the argument as to whether minors can or cannot give cognitive consent. The mainstream opinion in countries such as the U.S. and U.K. is that any minor under the legal age of consent is deemed mentally incapable of consenting to sexual activity with people older than they are, thus any and all contact is automatically considered abuse.
Also, in cases of multi-generational relationships where both parties are legal adults, such relationships are still often widely considered immoral and taboo, even though legal. Such relationships often result in humorous anecdotes or parodies, and in some more severe cases, social ostracism.
In most cases involving minors, the combination of these two elements results in the passing of laws which prohibit minors from giving legal informed consent, even if they are indeed a willing partner to the best of their own knowledge. Thus, if such acts are discovered, the adult may be charged with a criminal offense.
Definition based on moral objection; relativity
The view of the majority of the public at large appears to be that any and all sexual contact between minors and adults is immoral and automatically abuse in all cases. In more severe opinions it is considered inherently evil, and in their own words, "the perpetrators must be held liable to the utmost extent of the law."
Innocence of minors
On one hand, moral opponents of adult-child relations also strive to maintain preservation of the perceived innocence in minors.
On the other hand, some claim this argument based on innocence is inherently flawed in that it is ignorance, not innocence, which is wrought by not allowing children to be exposed to sex at an earlier age.
This debate is a separate one in and of itself, and lends to ideals which both sides of the argument deem worthy enough for strong objection. Both sides routinely refer to the "preponderance" of psychological, sociological, and historical evidence to back their claims.
Both sides agree that genuine cases of force and coercion are indeed true abuse.
Objection to homosexuality
In cases of same-sex relations between adults and minors in western civilisation, there is also the stigma based on the homosexual nature of the actions.
Criticism of the definitions
Sexual relations between adults and minors in western society remain controversial.Template:Fact
Critics disagree with labeling all underage sexual activity involving adults as partners or observers as abuse based on the concept of informed consent, arguing that simple consent should suffice to exclude consensual acts from the definition of child sexual abuse. Those critics, including some sociologists,Template:Fact psychologistsTemplate:Fact, educatorsTemplate:Fact, and some pedophilia advocates, also object to the use of the terms victim and perpetrator when describing consensual acts. Some doubt that there is scientific evidence that consensual sexual activity causes harm to minors and argue that some sexual activity of or with minors is considered a crime solely because of sexual morality. Some researchersTemplate:Fact contend that categorizing all sexual activity with minors as abuse makes it difficult to study the effects of abuse on children. OthersTemplate:Fact claim that a distinction should be made between, on the one hand, severe sexual abuse that is often associated with severe symptoms such as suicidal tendencies, sexual aggression, and self-mutilation (Kisiel and Lyons, 2001), and on the other hand, milder types of child sexual abuse that do not necessarily cause harm. Rind et al. (1998) argued that "Child sexual abuse does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis," although anecdotal evidence documents harmful effects of early sexual activity (see Bass, Ellen et al, The Courage to Heal, 3rd edition, 1994)
However, these criticisms are highly controversial.Template:Fact The mainstream definition of child sexual abuse is predicated on whether minors are developmentally able to give informed consentTemplate:Fact, not just consent based on their feelings and expectationsTemplate:Fact. Informed consent requires full cognitive understanding of one's own mind and the mind of the other person. The scientific evidence from psychological experiments, such as the Sally-Anne test, clearly show that full understanding does not develop until the end of puberty.
Critics of the mainstream definition counter that the focus on informed consent is a red herringTemplate:Fact. They believe the issue should be whether sexual relations involving simple consent are harmfulTemplate:Fact. They believe they are notTemplate:Fact. They point to a long tradition of older men marrying young girls that is common across time and culturesTemplate:Fact, and also to pederasty (man/adolescent-male sexual relations), which was deemed acceptable in Ancient Greece, New Guinea, and feudal JapanTemplate:Fact. It is not clear whether the absence of informed consent is a predictor of harmTemplate:Fact.
See also
- Incest
- Child grooming
- Commercial sexual exploitation of children
- Megan's Law
- Reflex anal dilatation
- Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
- Category:Convicted child sex offenders
References
<references />
- Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect "American Academy of Pediatrics: Guidelines for the Evaluation of Sexual Abuse of Children: Subject Review" Pediatrics 103 (1) January 1999, pp. 186-191
- Draucker, Claire. Counselling Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. SAGE Publications 1992 ISBN 0803985711
- Herdt, Gilbert H. (ed.) "Fetish and fantasy in Sambia initiation". In Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea. Pp. 44-98. Berkeley: University of California Press 1982. ISBN 0520044487
- Smith D., Pearce L., Pringle M., Caplan R., "Adults with a history of child sexual abuse: evaluation of a pilot therapy service" BMJ 1995;310:1175-1178
- Kisiel, C. L. and Lyons, J. S., "Dissociation as a Mediator of Psychopathology Among Sexually Abused Children and Adolescents" Am. J. of Psychiatry 158:1034-1039, July 2001
- Underwager, Ralph and Wakefield, Hollida, "Antisexuality and Child Sexual Abuse" IPT Volume 5 - 1993
- Eric Vern L. Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, "Problems of Research into Adult/Child Sexual Interaction" IPT Volume 8 - 1996
- Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions (). Edited by Feierman JR. New York, Springer-Verlag, 1990
- Juliette D. G. Goldman and Usha, K. Padayachi, "Some Methodological Problems in Estimating Incidence and Prevalence in Child Sexual Abuse Research". Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 2000 [7]
- Fromuth, M.E. and Burkhart, B.R., "Childhood sexual victimization among college men: definitional and methodological issues". Violence and Victims 1987; 2:241-253
External links
- Kali Munro, Therapist (See child sex abuse articles)
- Women Who Rape
- Executive Summary of the Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services)
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on Child Sexual Abuse.
- Child Sexual Abuse: Evaluation and Outcomes - a review from the Penn State College of Medicine and the Child Advocate Network.
- Ethical Treatment for All Youth Ethical Treatment for All Youth] by Geoff Birky; a website which protests and documents trends in the area of "children who molest".
- Child Sexual Abuse: What It Is and How To Prevent It.
- The Role of Schools in Sexual Abuse Prevention and Intervention
- Male Survivor - "Overcoming sexual victimization of boys and men"
- National Sex Offender Public Registry
- The Difference Between "Sick" and "Evil" by Andrew Vachss, originally published in Parade magazine, July 2002.
- When Are We Crossing A Child's Sexual Boundaries?
Mass media articles
- Lobdell, William, Missionary's Dark Legacy; Two remote Alaska villages are still reeling from a Catholic volunteer's sojourn three decades ago, when he allegedly molested nearly every Eskimo boy in the parishes. The accusers, now men, are scarred emotionally and struggle to cope. They are seeking justice., Los Angeles Times, Nov 19, 2005, p. A.1.
- Teri Hatcher's Desperate Hour, Vanity Fair, Apr 2006da:Seksuelt misbrug af børn
de:Sexueller Missbrauch von Kindern fr:Abus sexuel sur mineur ko:아동 성학대 ms:Penderaan seksual kanak-kanak