A Critical Analysis Exploring Sexual Abuse and its Effects

The sexually abused child: a critical analysis exploring sexual abuse and its effects.
This essay will aim to explore and evaluate sexual abuse and its possible detrimental impacts on a child. Although there is no evidence by any one persons or any data to describe what may account for abuse and what sexual abuse is, there are four main types of child abuse; emotional abuse, sexual abuse , physical abuse and neglect. (NSPCC 2010). The type of abuse that will be closely analysed in this essay is sexual abuse.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, the term sexual abuse is defined as “unwanted continuous sexual activity forced upon a person by another through coercion or threats.” A similar explanation is presented by Kempe. “Sexual abuse is defined as the involvement of dependant, developmentally immature children and adolescents in sexual activities they do not truly comprehend, to which they are unable to give informed consent, or that violate the social taboos of family roles.” While these explanations form a foundation of what sexual abuse is with terms such as “dependant” and “informed consent” and “developmentally immature” it suggests that the true nature of sexual abuse however it not yet fully determined. This may be due to the content of sexual abuse coming in many forms. (Kempe, 1978:90)
With abuse coming in many forms, sexual abuse also has different forms as suggested by Hansel et al (1998). Child sexual abuse may array from ‘contact’ and ‘non-contact’ offenses. Non-contact offenses include; exhibitionism, a term used to describe genital exposure, voyeurism, this is a form of gaining sexual satisfaction by observing victims in a sexual way i.e. a child undressing, verbal sexual abuse this is where the child is spoken to ...

... middle of paper ...

...ctive and better understanding will be accomplished. Government policies such as the Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation Action Plan 2011 responded to the maltreatment of children and young people who were violated. In this report, the needs and preventions strategies were established to eliminate child sexual abuse. Reports were prepared for practitioners to help them tackle if a child has been sexually exploited. Furthermore this plan implemented a stronger law on sex offenders claiming that “extra charges will be held against them”. In addition, victims of child sexual abuse “will get the help they need and be supported at all times” (Department of Health 2013) stated that identifying and managing sex abuse immediately was essential to maintain safety. As argued by Talcott parsons “society must ensure an equal balance to ‘function’ correctly and benefit everybody.