Sexual Abuse And Assault Act

Steven Whitacre experienced a very traumatic childhood of abuse from his father which led to a very difficult adulthood. In his book “My Fathers Prostitute”, he talks about his life, starting out when his father first abused him to more recent times in adulthood to where he finally sought help and started to move on in his life started to live the life he should and deserves. This book really opened my eyes on what all goes on in this world that I would have never guessed. “Every eight minutes, a child is sexually assaulted in the U.S., and 93% know the perpetrator” (“Adult Survivors of Childhood”). To me this statistic seems insane and I cannot ever imagine being sexually assaulted by anyone let alone one of my parents that I am supposed to trust and love. When you really think about it, that how every eight minutes a child is getting sexually assaulted it is astonishing. It makes me wonder how many people I know that I have been sexually assaulted but don’t tell anyone. I assume there are many different cases of sexual assault and how there are different levels of how traumatic they are to the individual someone came upon. With some people, the sexual assault only happened once, and with others like the author of My Fathers Prostitute it happens during their entire childhood to impact the individual even more. I am not saying that the individuals who have only been sexually assaulted once came out un hurt or traumatized, but I would just imagine that it would not leave

Sexual assault occurs every two minutes in the United States. Sexual violence against women is still endemic in the United States. Statistics show nearly one in five women have been sexually assaulted. Managing sex offenders is still an issue in the criminal justice system. Repeat offenders are extremely difficult to monitor. The national legislature monitoring system contains an absence of effective research in monitoring sex offenders. Sexual offender registration and notification Act (SORNA) operates in all the US states and territories. The objective is to monitor and track sex offenders by law enforcement. Also they provide information to the public and the communities about the offenders. For example, the National registry allows the public to be informed of a registered offender and their demographics.

For many victims, who were abused as a child find it nearly impossible to tell their parents due to fear of not being believed. No one should allow their child or siblings or cousin to go through that pain alone and to be at a point where they feel like they can’t speak up or that they just have to live through that alone. Yet some people do and children all over the world are suffering alone. On the rare occasions that these children do speak up, the adults are usually too caught up in the effect speaking up will have on their families. For many adults there is this fear of what it would cost them to speak up especially in the cases where the assaulter, the victim and the person- who knows about the assault- are related. Why do as people value financial or emotional security over a child’s safety? It is a moral duty to put the lives and safety of these helpless children over both emotional and financial security. These adults also fail to act in a way to protect the child being abuse due to fear of the effect that speaking would have on the family especially in the third world countries that prioritize men over women. Still today, there are countries where women are crimilized and judges for being sexualy assaulted and that brings shame to the family which is why rape still goes wildly unreported and

Consent means a clear ‘yes’ to the sexual act, however not saying ‘no’ also does not necessarily mean that you have given consent. Section 74 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 defines consent as 'if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice’. This means that the person must know and understand as to what is going on, what they want to do, are able to say what they want to do and are sober i.e. not under the influence of drugs or

What is child abuse? From the word “abuse” we can understand that it is some sort of a maltreatment of a child, causing harm and damage both to his physical and psychological well-being. At the Federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) describes child abuse and neglect as: “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Child abuse is a very substantial and widely spread problem in U.S. affecting children of any age, gender, race, background or income, with more than 1.8 million investigations done every year and on average, killing more than 5 children every day. The main issue of child abuse is that the abuser is usually someone a child loves or depends on (a parent, sibling, coach, neighbor, etc.), who violates child’s trust putting personal interests first, therefore official numbers of how many children suffer maltreatment might be not accurate enough as remarkable amount of these cases go unreported. Each case of child abuse is unique, with a lot of individual factors involved, nevertheless, we can distinguish some of the common causes, such as poverty, lack of education, depression, mental or physical health

Child abuse is when a parent or caregiver, through action or failure to act, causes injury, death, emotional harm or risk of serious harm to a child. According to The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, as amended by the CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2010, at a minimum, child abuse and neglect is defined as, "Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation"; or "An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm (Children 's Bureau, 2010)." The law recognizes a child as being any person who is under the age of 18. The law is broken into 2 sections, and each section treats the idea of child maltreatment in different ways. Criminally, those who abuse children are able to be arrested and prosecuted in court. Civil statutes say that people who suspect a child of being abused are mandated to identify and report it.

A sexual offence is a form of assault. The offences cover a wide variety of behaviour ranging from sexual touching, offences against children, domestic violence, penetration to the most severe which is rape.

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 was originally created to protect a target population of children, under the age of 18, from child abuse and neglect; however, over the years this act has been amended and improved to protect a wider population, with many specific subpopulations, over the past 42 years. In the original text of the act, two specific populations are addressed with different goals: reducing the rate of child abuse in children under the age of eighteen, and improving the treatment of children who had been maltreated or neglected (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2014). It is easy to see that this act and policies within it are aimed at protecting children specifically, yet looking only at the children,

Many people experience adversity in their lives, yet they are able to overcome them and move on. As a victim of childhood sexual assault, I know I am not alone, and I know there are surely many people who have faced more difficult circumstances then I have. Every eight minutes, a child is sexually assaulted. One of the biggest hurdles for victims is convincing themselves that it was not their fault.

It is important to examine where the laws come from and why they are in place. Generally, the laws are defined as a parent or guardian’s inability to protect his/her children from witnessing domestic violence or being abused by another person (Goodmark, 2004). When a child is exposed to domestic violence that can be considered a form of child neglect, even if the child is not harmed. This includes seeing, hearing, or simply witnessing the aftereffects of violence, such as an injured victim (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2012). While this is a large part of the laws, they are mainly in place to protect children from experiencing firsthand abuse. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was enacted in 1974 and designed to give a clear definition of child abuse, which failure to protect laws use as a basis to determine if a woman should be charged with abuse or neglect. CAPTA defines abuse as “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm” (“The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act,” 2003). Failure to protect laws use the aspect of CAPTA that considers “failure to act” a part of child abuse. Because women fail to act in protecting their children or stopping the abuser, they can be charged.

Child sexual abuse has been reported up to 80,000 times a year, but the number of unreported instances is far greater, because the children are afraid to tell anyone what has happened (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry). Childhood sexual abuse is a traumatic experience affecting the lives of not only the victim, but those close to the victim as well. Many think there is only one person truly traumatized, but in fact, everyone involved is affected. The victim has to deal with their experience the rest of their lives. They may be more at risk for other mental issues as well, including depression. The family involved has to deal with its pain, often causing hardship and discord within the family. This is especially true

Childhood sexual abuse is a difficult topic to comprehend let alone have open discussion about the issue. I know for me, I cannot fathom someone wanting to hurt a child in this way, but then I wonder what makes a person have the desire to afflict such a traumatic experience on a child. The reading this week did not answer the questions I have, but it did give me a better understanding on how people cope with these experiences.

Imagine being robbed of your innocence in a matter of seconds. Imagine not being able to speak out due to threats and fear of seeking help and not being taken seriously. Troubling, is it not? Sexual abuse has always been a problem in society that can affect anyone. Sexual abuse brings along many negative outcomes; however, throughout the years, sexual abuse has been a factor that has always been ignored. Even though sexual abuse has had many attempts to be avoided in various environments, all have failed.

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

I. Attention getter: Do you know a friend or family member who has been sexually abused? Or maybe you have experienced sexual abuse yourself? Are you aware of the psychological and developmental effects it can have on you or someone you may know? Chances are, you don’t—while sexual abuse is common, may people do not speak up, and the problem goes unrecognized.