Victims Of Sexual Abuse

Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse can happen to anyone, anywhere and at any time. Women and girls are most likely to be victims of sexual abuse. It is difficult to determine whether a victim has been victimized and because of this, most victims refuse to report their attacks to law enforcement, family members or anyone in general. Victims that report their abusers to the police and decide to move forward with charges against their assailants, have a hard time dealing with the fact that they have to relive their horrific experience. Sexual abuse is any forced, coerced or exploitative sexual act or activity. Research consistently finds that rape and other sexual abuses are primarily committed by men or boys against women or girls. Physically violent

Sexual abuse survivors often fees ashamed and are worry that regardless of whom they report to example, family, friends, coworkers, police, prosecutors, doctors or nurses etc. they will not be believed and or they will be blamed for their victimization. Given that most sexual abuses have no witnesses save the survivor, it is usually easy for survivors to keep it a secret. This lack of witnesses further hurts survivors’ chances of being viewed as real victims if they decide to report the incident. According to Alderden and Ullman, the first four stages after a sexual assault has been reported to the police; case founding, arrest, presentation to the prosecutor, and prosecutor approval of charges. These are followed by court verdict and sentencing stages. The sexual abuse victim has frequently been referred to as been victimized twice; once by his or her assailant and again by the criminal legal system. Charges of Sexual abuse often boils down to a case of he said, she said situation because most of the times there are no concrete evidence. Because of the difficulty or lack of evidence most victims of sexual abuse are portrayed to be liars, especially in cases where the victim knows the assailant. From the moment the victim reports the incident to the police, the victim is in a position where he or she is re living the moment. The prosecutor reviews the charges then determine whether to file the charges or not

Additionally, rape law reform was directed to addressing issues of consent, force, and intent. Unfortunately a recent overview identifies extralegal factors such as the victim’s characteristics as being used to determine police, judges’ and jurors’ decision. Moreover, the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA), is designed to provide victims with redress when state legal systems are in adequate to respond, was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 (Belknap, 2015, p.325). The VAWA reauthorization Act of 2013 was amended to provide and improve advocacy, services, and support for all victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. Since the inception of VAWA in 1994 there are more reported cases of sexual assault. There has been as much as a 51 percent increase in reporting by women and a 37 percent increase by reporting by men. VAWA created the first U.S. federal legislation acknowledging domestic violence and sexual assault as crimes, and provided federal resources to encourage community-coordinated responses to combating violence. Its reauthorization in 2000 improved the foundation established by VAWA 1994 by creating a much-needed legal assistance program for victims and by expanding the definition of crime to include dating violence and stalking. The VAWA program offers grants to different