Mental health articles

Prevention for child sexual abuse The final area to be considered is prevention. The empirical literature indicates that child sexual abuse is endemic within society and that all children are at risk of abuse in virtually any location by virtually any filial or nonfilial relations (almost all of whom are male). Methods of approach are also widely divergent. Conversely, because socialization patterns inculcate males into beliefs of superiority and entitlement to sexual access of females, males appear to be at increased risk to offend. Thus, 4% to 21% of males have either sexually abused a child or profess some likelihood to abuse (Bagley et al., 1994; Briere & Runtz, 1989; Finkelhor & Lewis, 1988). Another group of young males also appears to be at risk to abuse as extremes of socialized conduct, abusing for sport, as a conquest, or because of a sense of male entitlement (Bolen, 2000a). In contrast, society’s primary method (and almost the only method) of preventing child sexual abuse is teaching children how to deflect the approaches of potential offenders. These programs are taught to children in elementary schools and are held on an occasional basis. In a previous paper (Bolen, in press), it was argued that this prevention paradigm has not worked and cannot work. First, there is no indication that child sexual abuse prevalence has been reduced over the 15- to 20-year history of these programs. Second, the problem of child sexual abuse is too varied—with too many locations, types of perpetrators, and methods of approach—for children to be effectively targeted. Indeed, the current prevention strategy is analogous to teaching self-defense strategies to all persons in the United States as the primary prevention strategy for lowering overall levels of violence. Needless to say, such a strategy in which victims rather than offenders are targeted is destined to fail. Some professionals, especially child protective services workers, continue to maintain biases concerning victims and nonoffending mothers. The worst of these biases are the falsely held beliefs that: (a) up to half of all reports made by adolescents are false; (b) most allegations made within a divorce or custody dispute are maliciously and falsely filed, most often by mothers; and (c) nonoffending mothers often collude in ongoing abuse. None of these beliefs are supported in the empirical literature. Other concerns are that a small number of professionals continue to endorse a view that children are partially (although minimally) responsible for the abuse and that many more professionals continue to believe that mothers are partially responsible. Given society’s response to child sexual abuse, certain assumptions appear to underlie society’s response to child sexual abuse. These assumptions, deriving from samples of identified victims, are as follows. Children are abused most frequently by parents, followed by other intrafamilial offenders and caregivers. Mothers co-offend in most parental abuse, and less frequently they are the sole perpetrators. When mothers do not actually commit the abuse, they most likely knew that it was occurring. Child sexual abuse is primarily a family problem, and both mothers and fathers contribute to and must be held responsible for the abuse. Even though mothers must be held responsible for the protection of their children after abuse, most cannot adequately do so, necessitating removal of the child. Some abuse is committed by offenders unrelated to the victim. When comparing these assumptions with those deriving from the historical conceptualization of child sexual abuse, it is clear that the systemic response to child sexual abuse is closely associated with early theories, especially family systems theory. This theory focuses primarily on intrafamilial abuse and especially father-daughter incest while also considering mothers with high levels of suspicion. Indeed, these are some of the primary underlying assumptions of the systemic response to child sexual abuse. Thus, the professional response to child sexual abuse is grounded in its historical conceptualization. Regretfully, however, most of the tenets of this historical conceptualization are not supported empirically. It is no wonder that our society is doing such a poor job of responding to the problem of child sexual abuse.

Tags: child, sexual abuse