Child Sexual Abuse

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Child Sexual Abuse Sexual abuse to a child at times is confusing to the family. Families who are affected by sexual abuse to a child tend to have a difficult time talking about the abuse. About one out of every four girls and one out of every five boys are sexually abused by the time they are 18 years old. Sexual abuse to children happens across every socioeconomic status, ethnic, cultural, religion and education. Getting treatment for a victim of child sexual abuse is a difficult process because of the lack of trust by the child. When child sexual abuse occurs the victim’s family has a difficult time talking about the abuse, which leads to the family pretending the abuse never happened. Once the family ignores the abuse, this tends to leave the child to face their worst fears by themselves. When sexual abuse to a child occurs, the abuser is usually someone the child knows like a relative, friend, babysitter and etc. The offender is a person that the child knows and trusts. In my opinion, sexual abuse is very traumatic to the family, especially the child. Sexual abuse can divide the family, especially if the family is taking sides over whether or not the abuse occurred. One way to help families overcome this traumatic event is to provide treatment to the victim and their family. Therapy for families who have experienced sexual abuse can be helpful. By helping the family heal from the event and helping them rebuild their lives by teaching them different coping strategies, families can learn to support each other and the victim. Treatment for child sexual abuse can be difficult, but some of the articles I read state that individual and group therapy is effective. Individual therapy has sh... ... middle of paper ... ...., & Fleming, J. (2006). Long-term effects of child sexual abuse. [National Child Protection Clearinghouse.] Retrieved from http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/issues9.html National Associations to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children (NAPSAC) and Twin City Public Television (Co-producers). (2008). Saving Children: The sex abuse tragedy [DVD] (Available from the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children at http://www.napsac.us Swan, N. (1998). Exploring the role of child abuse on later drug abuse. Research face broad gaps in information. NIDA notes, national institute on drug abuse. Retrieved from http://www.nida.nih.gov/nida_noles/nnov/13n2/exploring.html. U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (2010). The child abuse prevention and treatment act. Retrieved from http://ww.acf.hns.gov/programs/cb/laws/policies/cblaws/capta03/capital/manual.pdf

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