Sexual Abuse Of Minors Research Articles

Valoración de la atención médico forense a víctimas de violencia sexual menores de edad en la provincia de Alicante (España)

Introduction: sexual abuse of minors is a complex social problem that requires a multidisciplinary approach. Material and methods: retrospective descriptive study of 256 victims of sexual violence aged less than 18 years managed by the forensic medical team of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Alicante between 2016 to 2020. The sample was divided in two groups based on age: 0 to 12 years (104 cases; 40.6%) and 13 to 17 years (152 cases; 59.4%). Results: In most cases, the victim was female (228 cases; 89.1%), a single perpetrator was reported (218 cases; 89%) and the perpetrator was known to the victim (185 cases; 74.6%). In the younger age group, the most frequent type of sexual violence was fondling (75 cases), while in the older age group it was vaginal penetration (57 cases). In 51 cases (19.9% of the total), repeated episodes of sexual violence occurred, mainly within the family. Most victims did not present with physical injuries (70.3% of the total). Almost half of the physical injuries (60 cases; 39.5%) and all the psychological sequelae (3 cases; 1.5%) occurred in the older age group. Chemical submission was suspected in 17 cases (6.7% of the total), mainly in the older age group (15 cases; 10.1%). The most frequently detected substance was alcohol, followed by cannabis and benzodiazepines. Conclusions: our data show the important role of Institutes of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences as sources of information and providing resources that facilitate the detection of sexual violence and the development of prevention strategies.

Victims of Child Grooming: An Evaluation in University Students

The appearance of new ways of committing sexual violence via technological media and virtual spaces has produced countless situations where sexual abuse of minors may occur. This is the digital scenario surrounding the phenomenon of grooming. The present study focuses on analyzing grooming experienced by Spanish university students during childhood. The sample comprised 3293 students in higher education, 68.3% of whom were female, 30.5% were male, and 1.2% identified as non-binary. The mean age was 18.83 years (SD = 2.28). The results confirmed that sexual abuse of minors has moved towards virtual environments, indicating a prevalence of 12.2% for grooming, which was more likely to have affected women and non-binary people. In addition, student victims of grooming were more often also victims of sextortion. Consumption of pornography was also shown to be particularly important, with the results indicating that students who consumed it and started consuming it before they were 16 years old were more often victims of grooming. These findings should encourage the educational community to develop preventive actions that match the reality of online child sexual abuse. In summary, the only path towards preventing and detecting grooming is to invest in high-quality digital education and sex education from a gender perspective.

Threat of Sexual Abuse Among in-School Adolescents in Kwara State

This paper reviewed on sexual abuse among adolescents to uncover areas that would lead to further researches and proffer a lasting solution. Sexual abuse of minors is an offense that is widely denounced. There exist various elements or causes of child sexual violence that the general public is unaware of. In order to safeguard children in society, it is critical to comprehend these variables. Sexual abuse has highly serious aftereffects that have a reflective impact on the victims' physical and mental health. The abuse upsets the child's bodily and mental order, the aftereffects are excruciating. Victims experience lifelong physical health issues as well as severe stress. It is therefore suggested that parents and guardians should watch their wards closely.

Statute of Limitation on Civil Actionfor Child Sexual Abuse in the United States

In the case of sexual infringement against a minor, even if the victim muster up the courage to face the memory of past sexual violence and try to heal the wounds through legal remedies after becoming an adult, the civil statute of limitations has expired since the sexual infringement occurred long time ago. There is a problem of not being able to file a lawsuit due to the statute of limitation. In particular, in the case of sexual infringement against minors, in many cases, the perpetrator is a family member, teacher, religious person, etc. The victim, a minor, is economically and emotionally dependent on the perpetrator, so they do not easily think of filing civil lawsuits even as adults. Fortunately, South Korea established Article 766, Paragraph 3 of the Civil Act in 2020, and legislative improvements have been made so that the statute of limitations does not proceed until a minor becomes an adult in the case of sexual infringement. However, despite these good intentions, there are still limits to the relief, so this article will examine the US system. First of all, in the United States, state and federal laws operate different statute of limitations, and since the 1980s, the discovery rule has been applied so that victims can file lawsuits even after a considerable amount of time has elapsed after they become adults. For example, if the victim of a sexual assault is a minor and the victim has not yet discovered the injury after reaching adulthood, from the time he or she discovers the injury and the causal relationship between the injury and the sexual assault Legislative examples such as the requirement to file a claim for damages within four years reflect the discovery principle. However, despite these laws, there are many cases where the requirements are not met, and the relief of victims has not been smoothly carried out. Thus, California and New York State further extended the statute of limitations, and furthermore, through window legislation, even if the statute of limitations had expired, a period of one or two years was allowed to file a civil lawsuit. This legislation provides an opportunity to sue the victims of Jeffrey Epstein's decades of sexual exploitation of minors. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the Windows Act is not unconstitutional. While retroactive legislation is “an identifiable injustice”, civil actions based on sexual abuse of minors are rather reasonable in light of the injustice done to the victims. Under these retroactive legislation, some religious organizations are actively raising their own funds for the relief of victims, and are paying settlements on the condition that they do not file a lawsuit against the religious organizations. The basis for such retroactive legislation is that if society has previously borne the cost of damages incurred to the victim, the perpetrator must bear the cost.

Sexual abuse of minors in the catholic church: USA and Europe

Sexual abuse of minors in the catholic church: USA and Europe

Successful Criminal Prosecutions of Sex Trafficking and Sexual Abuse of Minors: A Comparative Analysis.

Despite increased awareness of sex trafficking of minors in the U.S., prosecution of traffickers remains difficult, in part because of victim uncooperativeness. There are questions about how that uncooperativeness is expressed, whether it is evident in successfully prosecuted cases, and whether it is unique to trafficked minors or it emerges in similar age victims of sexual abuse. To provide insight relevant to these questions, we compared appellate opinions in two types of successfully prosecuted criminal cases: sex trafficking and sexual abuse of adolescent victims. In the trafficking opinions, victims were rarely described as disclosing on their own or as knowing their trafficker before the victimization. The opinions also often alluded to the trafficking victims' uncooperativeness and delinquency history, and frequently mentioned electronic evidence and prosecution experts. The sexual abuse opinions, in contrast, tended to suggest that victims' own disclosures initiated the case, perpetrators were known and trusted adults, and caregiver support during the case was common. Finally, the sexual abuse opinions never explicitly mentioned victim uncooperativeness or electronic evidence and rarely mentioned expert testimony or delinquency. The different characterizations of the two case types highlight the need for improved education concerning effective prosecution of sex crimes against minors.

How to Study Child Sexual Abuse Within the Institutional Framework? The Experience of the Catholic Church in Poland

Sexual abuse as a manifestation of personality disorders and a crime is shaped and committed in a specific social environment. The Institute for Catholic Church Statistics was the first in Poland to undertake systematic research on the problem of child sexual abuse. The scope of this research concerns the acts committed within Catholic organizations by priests and religious. In this chapter, we present Polish research on abuse and characterize the organizational framework of the Catholic Church in Poland. We highlight the public importance of research on child sexual abuse by priests. The focus of the chapter, however, is devoted to the methodological issues of quantitative sociological research on the sexual abuse of minors within Catholic organizations. We discuss the basic assumptions, methods and scope of collected data that concerns Poland. In an accessible and understandable way for a reader who has no knowledge of social sciences, we ­explain how the facts of child abuse by priests and religious are studied in Poland.

The Pedophile as a Human Being: An Autoethnography for the Recognition of a Marginalized Sexual Orientation

By the general public and in the media, pedophilia as a sexual orientation is systematically confused with sexual abuse of minors. Neurological research supports the idea that pedophilia is an innate sexual orientation, and that is how pedophiles, in the sense of ‘minor-attracted persons,’ experience it themselves. The stigma attached to pedophilia as a sexual orientation ensures that pedophiles live in emotional isolation and that young people with pedophilic feelings have nowhere to turn with their doubts and fears. However, pedophiles are not destined to abuse children, and more openness about living with pedophilia can actually prevent child sexual abuse. In this article, based on an autoethnography, I want to provide more insight into what it means to grow up and live with a pedophilic orientation, and I want to make a case for turning the pedophile into a human being again.

Sex Offenses—Offensive Sex: Some Observations on the Recent Reform of Ecclesiastical Penal Law

In recent years, the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church has received much attention. This is also true of the related changes to ecclesiastical legislation. Less attention, however, has been paid to other aspects of the reform. The revised penal law of the Code of Canon Law, in any case, demands closer study from the point of critical legal studies. It is striking that while the reform focused on improving the legal protection of minors, it also had rather detrimental effects on the legal standing of women in the church. Reading the revised law, it appears that the reform missed the chance to improve the legal situation of the mostly female adult victims of clerical sex offenses and abuses of power. It rather spotlighted “female” offenses such as abortion in contrast to typical “male” offenses such as homicide, and it moreover criminalized women who attempt ordination. Thus, the regulations of the reformed penal law not only generally leave the systemic causes of abuse untouched, but also establish norms which reinvent or even exacerbate abusive structures. The latter finally sustain clericalism and reinstitutionalize gender inequality, commonly identified as factors fostering abuse.

Reproductive Abuse in the Context of Clergy Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

In a significant number of cases, clerical sex offenders impregnate their victims and force them into hiding, abortion, or adoption. This phenomenon is referred to in this paper as reproductive abuse. Clearly, most victims of reproductive abuse are adults, but even among minor victims of clerical child abuse, between 1 and 10 percent may have experienced reproductive abuse. On the basis of pertinent studies, this paper explores archival material on several dozen allegations of reproductive abuse in the context of clergy sexual abuse of minors in the US Catholic Church. Besides some tentative estimates of the general frequency of the phenomenon, this paper offers a distinction of three different types of reproductive abuse and an analysis of the interplay of clericalist and secular misogyny, which appears to be largely responsible for the silencing of victims as well as for the impunity of perpetrators and leads to the invisibility of this phenomenon, despite the high importance attributed to reproductive issues in the Catholic context.

Making the World Safer for Children: Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Minors

Making the World Safer for Children: Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Minors

El «motu proprio» «Vos estis lux mundi»: contenidos y relación con otras normas del derecho canónico vigente

El m. p. Vos estis lux mundi (mayo de 2019) prescribe obligaciones canónicas relacionadas con informar a las autoridades de la Iglesia sobre abusos sexuales de menores y personas vulnerables, y conductas relacionadas con la pornografía infantil, que sean llevadas a cabo por clérigos (incluidos cardenales, obispos y legados) y religiosos/as; y también sobre acciones de gobierno en la Iglesia que eludan o interfieran la investigación de esos hechos. Sobre la respuesta final que se dé a los mismos, se remite más bien a lo que ya esté dispuesto en el derecho de Iglesia para cada caso, pero solo la obligatoriedad acerca de la información es ya un paso importante. El texto podría requerir alguna clarificación acerca del tratamiento que haya de darse a algunos de los hechos y conductas que recoge, y habrá de ponerse en relación con la legislación estatal en materia de obligaciones de informar.

Sigilo de confesión y abuso de menores

The sexual abuse of minors, committed and/or covered-up by priests or members of the Catholic hierarchy, has led to legislative reforms in a number of states to prosecute the failure to report abuse of which priests become aware, including even via sacramental confession. This article aims to elucidate whether State regulations that oblige Catholic priests to break the seal of confession infringe on the right to religious freedom. To this end, the seal of confession, its legal nature and grounding are explored. The legal norms adopted in countries that have codified the mandatory reporting of abuse by the clergy are then analyzed to ascertain the legitimacy of restricting religious freedom by criminalizing the failure to report abuse even at the expense of breaking the seal of confession.

Sexual Abuse of Minors: Development in Light Field Statistics and Dark Field Research Since 1953 and Implications For The Health Care System

Data on sexual abuse of minors can be obtained from official Police Crime Statistics and from dark field surveys. This article deals with the longitudinal development of the offense in the last 63 years in Germany. The criminal offenses of sexual abuse of children according to § 176 StGB (German Criminal Code) in the Police Crime Statistics show a decrease of frequency in the reporting period (1953-2016). The empirical results of the dark field research are inconsistent, but partially show a decline in frequency. In this study, the importance of these findings for prevention and health policy is discussed.

Minority religions, litigation, and the prevention of harm

Religious anti-discrimination legislation institutionalises non-violent ways of living with radical difference associated with religious diversity. The need to govern the growing number of conflicts generated by increasingly pluralistic societies is a major reason governments have introduced a range of new laws relating to religion. These laws are important not only because they protect human rights, which they do, but also because they shape social processes that generate extreme harms such as mass murder and the sexual abuse of minors. A detailed examination of three case studies of minority religions illustrates this argument. The histories of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and The Family demonstrate that the socio-cultural processes that result in sexual abuse in minority religions are similar to the processes that result in extreme violence and that litigation plays a key role in preventing the escalation of these processes, although it is of a post hoc nature. The case of the Ordo Templi Orientis demonstrates that religious anti-discrimination legislation proactively disrupts the socio-cultural processes that lead to the escalation of tension that results in serious forms of harm.

Penal Law in the Roman Catholic Church

This article provides a general account of the universal law of sanctions in the Roman Catholic Church. The crisis of the Catholic Church caused by clergy sexual abuse of minors has revealed, among other things, the widespread well-intentioned but naïve inclination to resort to penal law as opposed to any theology of mercy and forgiveness. Although the author argues that penal law has a proper place in the Catholic Church, he considers that in a voluntary community that shares a homogeneous system of moral values without strong penalties involving deprivation of liberty – a community like the Catholic Church – moral and administrative sanctions could be more effective than penal sanctions. A distinction between administrative sanctions and penal sanctions, and therefore between administrative tribunals (should they be established) and penal tribunals, is highly recommended.

Is Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy Related to Homosexuality?

Sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests has been a persistent and widespread problem in the Church. Although more than 80 percent of victims have been boys, prior studies have rejected the idea that the abuse is related to homosexuality among priests. Available data show, however, that the proportion of homosexual men in the priesthood is correlated almost perfectly with the percentage of male victims and with the overall incidence of abuse. Data also show that while the incidence of abuse is lower today than it was three decades ago, it has not declined as much as is commonly believed, and has recently begun to rise amid signs of episcopal complacency about procedures for the protection of children.

Van zwijgcultuur naar zerotolerancebeleid

The handling of complaints about sexual abuse of minors has troubled the Catholic Church in many countries for several decades. An important issue is the allegation that the church tried to hide abuse and to leave perpetrators without punishment. The commission that investigated the sexual abuse of minors in the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands (the Deetman Commission) is ambiguous in its answer to the question whether the church fostered a ‘culture of silence’ or not. Examination of the available evidence leads to the conclusion that external transparency had no priority, although pastoral, therapeutic and disciplinary measures were taken to stop abuse. These measures, however, often reinforced the already existing culture of silence. The recently introduced zero-tolerance policy of the church seems to promote external transparency, but it also raises new questions.

'Chronophilia': Entries of Erotic Age Preference into Descriptive Psychopathology.

A scientific nomenclature of erotic age preferences informed the mid- through late nineteenth century joint appearance of homosexuality and sexual abuse of minors on the medico-legal scene. Yet, even in the twenty-first century, legal, psychiatric and culture-critical dimensions of related terms are rarely cleanly distinguished. Review of primary sources shows the ongoing Western suspension of notions of ‘sick desire’, alongside and beyond the medicalisation of homosexuality, between metaphor, legal interdiction and postulated psychopathology. Virtually all early attention to erotic age preference occurred in the context of emergent attention to erotic gender preference. Age of attraction and age difference centrally animate modern homosexuality’s pre-modern past; its earliest psychiatric nomenclature and typologies (1844–69); its early aetiologies stipulating degrees of sexual differentiation (1890s); its concomitant sub-classification (1896–1914); its earliest psychophysiological tests (1950s); and, finally, its post-psychiatric, social scientific typologies (1980s). Several identifications of ‘paedophilia’ were seen throughout the 1890s but as a trope it gained cultural momentum only during, and as a seemingly intriguing corollary of, the progressive depsychiatricisation of homosexuality across the Anglo-European world (late 1950s through 1980s). Early twentieth century sources varied in having it denote (1) a distinct perversion, thus possible ‘complication’ of sexual inversion (2) a discrete corollary of psychosexual differentiation akin to gender preference (3) a distinct subtype of fetishism, thus a likely imprint of early seduction (4) a more intricate expression of erotic symbolism or psychosexual complex or (5) a taste answering to culture, a lack of it, or a libertine disregard for it.

Childhood sexual abuse by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church: A prevalence estimate among the Dutch population

Estimates of the extent of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) within in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in the general population are difficult to find. The independent Commission of Inquiry into sexual abuse of minors in the RCC in the Netherlands collected population-based data to estimate its prevalence. A large random online population sample was surveyed using a two-phase stratified sampling procedure. In Phase 1, 34,267 subjects aged 40 years and older were screened for childhood exposure to sexual abuse by non-family members, a history of institutionalization and a Roman Catholic upbringing. In Phase 2, a stratified subset of 2,462 subjects was assessed to obtain more detailed target information about sexual abuse reports within the RCC. We employed multiple imputation for the estimation of RCC CSA in the original Phase 1 sample. The prevalence of non-familial CSA in general (14.0%) was higher among women (17.2%) than among men (10.6%). The prevalence of CSA within the Dutch RCC (1.7%) was higher among men (2.7%) than among women (0.7%). As expected, older subjects reported more often CSA in the RCC than their younger counterparts. Respondents who stayed for some time in RCC run institutions for education or child protection had a higher risk to report sexual abuse. Although sexual abuse of minors by representatives of the RCC was a structural problem during a period that the Church was highly influential in the Netherlands, the estimated prevalence of the phenomenon is only a fraction of the prevalence rate of non-familial CSA.