The “Child Abuse” is the term given to the violent actions of adults in or out of a family against children. In such abuse, children may also participate unwillingly or willingly under coercion, force, threat or any other reason to let this act of abuse happen. This sexual abuse can be of physical or mental nature. The effects are most of the time very lethal and produce long harmful after effects (Miles, 2000, p.66).
Child sexual abuse is nowadays a very common act, which occurs very often. The simple explanation of the child sex abuse includes unfair and unauthorised use of a child’s presence or body for self satisfaction. It is quite shocking to know that no culture or society is free from this abuse (Weiss, 2004, p.102). Children living in all races, classes, religions and ethnics are the target of sexual abuse.
Child sexual abuse occurs in different forms. The confrontation results in the sexual assaults, mental and physical torture, intimidation, molestation, trying to deprive economically and giving threats of any kind.
It is a harsh reality that the child sexual abuse is the most highly crime that goes unreported not only in the US and UK but also in most other countries of the world. The basic reason behind this fact is various and results are dependent on the regions where the mishap has taken place.
The result of this might be the shortage of the support in this regard and the person affected more or less is agreed with the partner due to various constraints. Therefore, the real facts sometimes do not come on the real scene.
The problem of Child sexual abuse is a very sensitive issue. The abuse and the injuries that are caused by one or more adults to one or more kids specially adolescents and that can create a very harmful effect around in general and a child’s personality very specifically.
The main objective of this thesis is to gather the information to clearly state the background issues, which cause this harsh reality to occur. The reasons behind them are various as regard to the different possibilities of the culture and the economical conditions, which vary in different circumstances.
Child sexual abuse has been in the scene for a very long time in history. As everything progresses and move forward, we are also looking at an increase in the sexual and harassment confrontation and the child sexual abuse off course. The rape and the murder are the extreme of the child sexual abuse that also occur very commonly.
Threatening can indirectly also cause a lot of damage to the property and provide the frightening to the victim. The cases have become so much very common that we cannot get off an eye from them. The various forms of abuse may be quite many depending upon various economic and cultural features of the environment where the people are inhabited (Richie, 2005, p.102).
The child sexual abuse does not end here on the other partner or the person involved. The child sexual abuse can also occur to a person himself. If a person tries to harm himself by various means by eating pills and making tattoos and piercing sharp needles in his body is also a kind of the severe child sexual abuse (Weiss, 2004, p.99). The reason for this might be the different conditions that have made the person to be like this.
The various kind of child sexual abuse are described below;
Physical abuse
It confers to the physical force that has been used intentionally to harm someone.
Sexual abuse & Incest
Sexual abuse issues in a family have been more than been at the backstage. No one exactly knew or even thought about this to be really happening in this civilized world. But the cases have been on the spotlight where the father raped her daughter or the same issue like brother having a sexual assault on her sister or mother intentionally and dominating the whole situations (Lemon, 2005, p.191).
The people relating to these categories are said to be the one of the most sick persons ever been on the face of the earth. There have also been cases where the both the members of the family like mother and her son and the daughter having sex with her mother with the consent. These people are known as incest, which do not have any respect of any type and are like animals.
Emotional Abuse
The psychological abuse is also one of the most harmful abuses. The psychological abusing is another common type of child sexual abuse (Berry, 2000, p.76). The psychological tensions are created as a result of this abuse. This type is mostly seen with the children when the parents react unusually to them. The scolding, beating and taunting at first seems that is not so harmful as the other, but it has seem that after effects are far more everlasting.
Economic abuse
Economic abusing occurs when a person has a full control over the economic revenues of the family (Weiss, 2004, p.123). The person, who has this, controls the family and the matters related to it.
By doing so, he also becomes so much aggressive that he does not care about the other persons of the family and treat them bad. The family members are obliged because they know that they do not have any other option than just to carry out the orders of the so-called head of the family.
In the economic abusing we see that the any one the spouse can be the head of the family, so the men and women both are suffered when this kind of abuse takes place.
Other Related Factors Influencing Environment for Child Abuse
The child sexual abuse is sometimes called the intimate partner violence. When we talk about family abusing, we are talking about a little broader version of the child sexual abuse. The family violence includes elder abuse, child abuse and any other form of abuse to any person of the family.
The children seem to be the one who are affected secondly due to the whole issue. It is seen that the children are short in confidence and they become afraid and shy of the situations. They do not want to get any attention and want to keep silence in most of the places where they go (Edward, 2004, p.56).
There have been cases that the children have been the direct victims of the child sexual abuse. They are beaten to hell, as they are very young to understand that what is right and what is wrong. To teach them a lesson, the fathers are most of the times ready to beat them and in the end give them a short voice message to get better.
The women seem to be the one who is sacrificing her life. Most of the times it has been as found out from the research that the women keep them quite because of the stability of their families (Bancroft, 2003, p.92). They are ready to take up the challenge that will keep the members of her family under a single roof.
She seems to be worried of the fact that if she do or say something in reaction to what has happened to her, she will have to suffer more than what she is suffering now. The result of this can cause the family break-ups and the children to move from one place to another.
The resultant in the best way the mother of the family is to keep quite and bear the beating she is getting. That is how they will be bonded together until other options appear on the option card, which more or less never really comes. (Perry, 2002)
How to help an abuser understand the impact on a child
The best method of making an abuser understand the impact of abuse on a child is to illustrate the severe results due to the action. A great number of long and short-term effects can be observed on children abused sexually by their friends, their relatives and teachers.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the most commonly found problem noted by researchers so far. It is a clinical syndrome where patient or victim shows a variety of symptoms. “Whose symptoms fall into three clusters: re-enactment of the traumatic event; avoidance of cues associated with the event or general withdrawal; and physiological hyper-reactivity. A recent review article suggested over 50% of sexually abused children meet at least partial criteria of PTSD and another study suggested a third of all sexually abused children develop full diagnostic criteria. If not effectively addressed, PTSD can become a chronic problem affecting the child well into adulthood.” (Miles, 2000)
Sexually reactive behaviour is another major negative having short-term negative effects of sexual abuse. As a matter of research children who were sexually abused they were noted to be engaged in more sexualized behavior in comparison with children who were not abused sexually by the people around them.
“Research shows that about 33% sexually abused children are also viscotms of mental ailments like anxiety, depression and frequent fear attacks. “Other frequently occurring symptoms include promiscuity (38%), general behaviour problems (30%), poor self-esteem (35%), and disruptive behaviour disorders (23%)”. (Bancroft, 2003)
It is also observed by different researchers that estimated number of 22-48% abused children have many symptomatic indications. They become afraid of many adults including their teachers of similar sex. Such students see the person opposite to them as a prospective offender and they try to increase the gap between them and their teachers.
When asked for homework, discussions and personal one to one meetings, these children avoid contacting their teachers but in the middle of their friends and class fellows as they positively feel better in the presence of their peers.
Memory loss and haltered for class fellows is another symptom arises among the sexually abused children. They lose self-esteem and suspect that every one knows about their abuse. This situation becomes severe when the offender exists in the same environment and children cannot avoid him or her.
As sexual abuse is not related to male offenders all the time, many females family members, like sisters, mothers, and aunts engaged in incest relationship, servants, and even teachers are engaged in sexual abuse against children.
References
Miles, Al; 2000, “Domestic Violence: What Every Pastor Needs to Know” (pp. 66-107), Publisher: Word Press
Weiss, Elaine, 2004, “Surviving Sexual Violence: Voices of Children Who Broke Free” (pp. 99-169), Publisher: Oxford University Press
Richie, Beth E., Sokoloff, Natalie J., and Pratt, Christina, 2005, “Sexual Assault At The Margins: Readings On Race, Class, Gender, And Culture” (pp.102-147), Publisher: Wadsworth
Lemon, Nancy K. D., 2005, “Sexual Violence Law, Second Edition (American Casebook Series)” (pp.152-205), Publisher: Wadsworth
Berry, Dawn Bradley, 2000, “Domestic Violence Sourcebook, the” (pp.56-93), Publisher: Oxford University Press
Edward S., Kubany, Ph.D., McCaig, Mari A., and Laconsay, Janet R., 2004, “Healing the Trauma of Domestic Violence: A Workbook for Women (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)” (pp.56-78), Publisher: Oxford University Press (p-12-48)
Bancroft, Lundy, 2003, “Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men” (pp.92-122), Publisher: Prentice Hall
Perry, B.D; (2002) Child Sexual Abuse in: Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment Vol 1; (David Levinson, Ed) Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks pp 202-207, 2002;