Child sexual abuse

“ Only recently has society begun to deal openly with a critical piece in the puzzle of child sexual abuse--acquaintance molestation. This seems to be the most difficult aspect of the problem for us to face. People seem more willing to accept a father or stepfather, particularly one from another socio-economic group, as a child molester than a parish priest, a next-door neighbor, a police officer, a pediatrician, an FBI agent, or a scout leader. ”

“ The sexual abuse of a child is a most serious crime and an act repugnant to the moral instincts of a decent people. In its legislative findings, Congress recognized that there are subcultures of persons who harbor illicit desires for children and commit criminal acts to gratify the impulses. ”

“ Child victims who, for example, simply behave like human beings and respond to the attention and affection of offenders by voluntarily and repeatedly returning to the offender's home are troubling. It confuses us to see the victims in child pornography giggling or laughing. At professional conferences on child sexual abuse, child prostitution is almost never discussed. It is the form of sexual victimization of children most unlike the stereotype of the innocent girl victim. Child prostitutes, by definition, participate in and often initiate their victimization. ”

“ If the guilty are to be successfully prosecuted, if the innocent are to be exonerated, and if the victims are to be protected and treated, better methods to evaluate and explain allegations of "ritual" child abuse must be developed or identified. Until this is done, the controversy will continue to cast a shadow over and fuel the backlash against the validity and reality of child sexual abuse. ”

“ I have spoken out and published on this issue because I am concerned about the credibility of the child sexual abuse issue and outraged that, in some cases, individuals are getting away with molesting children because we cannot prove they are satanic devil worshipers who engage in brainwashing, human sacrifice, and cannibalism as part of a large conspiracy.
There are many valid perspectives from which to assess and evaluate victim allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. Parents may choose to believe simply because their children make the claims. ”

“ Child victims can be boys as well as girls and not all victims are little "angels."
Society seems to have a problem dealing with any sexual abuse case in which the offender is not completely bad or the victim is not completely "good." ”

“ In fact, during the 1970s, there was a successful crusade to eliminate laws requiring corroboration of child victim statements in child sexual abuse cases. The best way to convict child molesters is to have the child victims testify in court. If we believe them, the jury will believe them. Any challenge to this basic premise was viewed as a threat to the movement and a denial that the problem existed.
I believe that children rarely lie about sexual abuse or exploitation, if a lie is defined as a statement deliberately and maliciously intended to deceive. ”

“ The details in question in most of the cases of multidimensional child sex rings have little to do with sexual activity. Law enforcement and social workers must do more than attempt to determine how a child could have known about the sex acts. These cases involve determining how a victim could have known about a wide variety of bizarre and ritualistic activity. Young children may know little about specific sex acts, but they may know a lot about monsters, torture, kidnapping, and murder. ”

“ We recognize that within the larger context of addressing child abuse, there is a need to specifically address issues of sexual violence against children and adolescents. My Administration is committed to expanding efforts to improve prevention initiatives, enhance trauma-informed responses to assist children and adolescents impacted by sexual violence, and work toward healing and justice. It is an imperative not only in the United States, but also in galvanizing global action to end sexual violence against children and adolescents. ”

“ Everyone seems to demand that one choose a side. On one side of the issue are those who say that nothing really happened and it is all a big witch hunt led by overzealous fanatics and incompetent "experts." The other side says, in essence, that everything happened; victims never lie about child sexual abuse, and so it must be true.
There is a middle ground. It is the job of the professional investigator to listen to all the victims and conduct appropriate investigation in an effort to find out what happened, considering all possibilities. Not all childhood trauma is abuse. ”

“ Most multidimensional child sex ring cases probably involve a combination of the answers previously set forth, as well as other possible explanations unknown to me at this time. Obviously, cases with adult survivors are more likely to involve some of these answers than those with young children. Each case of sexual victimization must be individually evaluated on its own merits without any preconceived explanations. All the possibilities must be explored if for no other reason than the fact that the defense attorneys for any accused subjects will almost certainly do so. ”

“ Control through fear may be the overriding characteristic of these cases. Control is maintained by frightening the children. A very young child might not be able to understand the significance of much of the sexual activity but certainly understands fear. The stories that the victims tell may be their perceived versions of severe traumatic memories. They may be the victims of a severely traumatized childhood in which being sexually abused was just one of the many negative events affecting their lives. ”

“ From January to June, there were 819 cases of crimes against children reported to police: 355 involved physical abuse (referring to victims younger than 14 years of age) , and 464 involved sexual abuse (referring to victims younger than 17 years of age) . The Domestic Violence Ordinance mandates substantial legal penalties for acts of child abuse such as battery, assault, neglect, abandonment, sexual exploitation, and child sex tourism, and the government enforced the law. ”

“ Professionals in this field must accept the fact that there is still much we do not know about the sexual victimization of children and that this area desperately needs study and research by rational, objective social scientists. ”

“ If a grown man does not know when he has had vaginal intercourse with a woman, how can we expect young children not to be confused? Furthermore, some clever offenders may deliberately introduce elements of satanism and the occult into the sexual exploitation simply to confuse or intimidate the victims. ”

“ The trial court in this case, in ruling that the Confrontation Clause did not prohibit admission of the younger daughter's hearsay statements, relied on the following factors:
"In this case, of course, there is physical evidence to corroborate that sexual abuse occurred. It also would seem to be the case that there is no motive to make up a story of this nature in a child of these years. We're not talking about a pubescent youth who may fantasize. ”

“ The nature of the statements themselves as to sexual abuse are such that they fall outside the general believability that a child could make them up or would make them up. This is simply not the type of statement, I believe, that one would expect a child to fabricate.
"We come then to the identification itself. Are there any indicia of reliability as to identification? ”

“ Male and Female Victims. Both boys and girls appear to be targeted, but with an apparent preference for girls. Almost all the adult survivors are female, but day care cases frequently involve male as well as female victims. The most striking characteristic of the victims, however, is their young age (generally birth to six years old when the abuse began) .
Multidimensional Motivation. Sexual gratification appears to be only part of the motivation for the "sexual" activity. Many people today argue that the motivation is "spiritual"—possibly part of an occult ceremony. ”

“ Since the handover, there has been an increase in abuse of power, violence and corruption, as reported by MWG-JUMP.55
22. According to COMANGO, official statistics show a sharp increase in child abuse cases from 2002 to 2006, and the police is slow in investigating cases of commercially and sexually exploited children. There are no adequate provisions to protect the safety of the children physically, emotionally or otherwise. More agencies and mental health practitioners specialising in the area of child sexual exploitation are needed.56 ”

“ In other cases, well-educated young men and women have no idea that unchaste conduct with children is an offence which may entail severe punishment, even in cases in which the child's genital organs are not touched.
It should not need demonstration that such sexual malpractices on children may have serious consequences for these latter. A girl may suffer most severely, alike morally and socially, even though defloration has not been effected. It is quite conceivable that in such a way a girl may be brought to prostitution. ”

“ Sexual assault is an affront to our basic decency and humanity. And it’s about all of us – the safety of those we love most: our moms, our wives, our daughters and our sons.
Because when a child starts to question their self-worth after being abused, and maybe starts withdrawing... or a young woman drops out of school after being attacked... or a mother struggles to hold down a job and support her kids after an assault... it’s not just these individuals and their families who suffer. ”

“ Much has been heard of late respecting criminal immorality—i.e., the abuse of the sexual powers, which human law recognises as crime. The boundary of criminal immorality has of late been extended in the hope of protecting young girls. When fathers and mothers begin to realize what the destruction of their children by lust really means, natural horror is felt at the corruption or torture of young children of either sex, and a storm of righteous indignation compels an attempt to provide a remedy. ”

“ In any case, we can interfere for the special protection of children who have been exposed to peculiar risks, and have for this reason been led astray sexually. I have seen children who have been taught sexual misconduct, either by a nursemaid or by other children, and have practised such misconduct for a time; but in whom a complete cure has resulted from separation from the seducer. In some cases, of course, it will be necessary to do more than this, and to subject the child to some special treatment ”

“ The overwhelming majority of those under 16 years of age do so. See Torres, Forrest, & Eisman, Telling Parents: Clinic Policies and Adolescents' Use of Family Planning and Abortion Services, 12 Family Planning Perspectives 284, 287-288, 291 (1980) .↑ In 1986, more than 1 million children and adolescents suffered harm from parental abuse or neglect, including sexual abuse. ”

“ At the heart of our country is the emphatic belief that every person has unique and infinite value. We dedicate each April to raising awareness about sexual abuse and recommitting ourselves to fighting it. Women, children, and men have inherent dignity that should never be violated.
According to the Department of Justice, on average there are more than 300,000 instances of rape or other sexual assault that afflict our neighbors and loved ones every year. ”

“ We must all (i.e., the media, churches, therapists, victim advocates, law enforcement, and the general public) ask ourselves if we have created an environment where victims are rewarded, listened to, comforted, and forgiven in direct proportion to the severity of their abuse. Are we encouraging needy or traumatized individuals to tell more and more outrageous tales of their victimization? Are we making up for centuries of denial by now blindly accepting any allegation of child abuse no matter how absurd or unlikely? ”

“ Thus the incidence of such family violence is dramatically underreported." 648 F.Supp., at 768-769.↑ "Minors who are victims of sexual or physical abuse often are reluctant to reveal the existence of the abuse to those outside the home. More importantly, notification to government authorities creates a substantial risk that the confidentiality of the minor's decision to terminate her pregnancy will be lost. Thus, few minors choose to declare they are victims of sexual or physical abuse despite the prevalence of such abuse in Minnesota, as elsewhere." ”

“ But corporal punishment entails other dangers, in addition to the risk of the origination or the awakening of a sexual perversion. Certain children, having experienced sexual stimulation as a result of such punishment, will endeavour to secure its repetition. I have known cases in which sexual perverts have deliberately misconducted themselves in school, in order to be punished, and thus to enjoy voluptuous sensations. ”

“ Children, too, are often the victims of other sexual acts, such as rape, which in a few instances only can be included in the category of sadism. In some cases force is employed only because the victim resists the act of violation, and here there is no question of sadism; but the rape is sadistic when the use of force is per se a sexual stimulus. ”

“ Although children of all ages, and even infants in arms, may be the victims of sexual misconduct, in the majority of such cases we have to do with children who are no longer quite young; and this is true, more especially, of most cases of paedophilia erotica. This latter passion may be directed against children of the same sex as the offender, but more commonly it is directed towards children of the opposite sex. Not infrequently, however, the impulse in such persons lacks sharp differentiation, the paedophile showing inclination, now for immature boys, now again for immature girls. ”

“ Some professionals, however, in their zeal to make American society more aware of this victimization, tend to exaggerate the problem. Presentations and literature with poorly documented or misleading claims about one in three children being sexually molested, the $5 billion child pornography industry, child slavery rings, and 50,000 stranger-abducted children are not uncommon. The problem is bad enough; it is not necessary to exaggerate it. Professionals should cite reputable and scientific studies and note the sources of information. ”