Citation

sen-Gerber J, Hutchinson SF. Child Abuse Negl. 1979; 3(1): 61-66.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1979, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the brief space allowed for this paper, we have attempted to describe a very serious and complex problem which threatens our children and challenges our professional and governmental resources. The legal and medical professions must develop new tools and systems to significantly impact the plight of sexploited children. Detection, protective intervention, placement and treatment should each involve a coordinated multi-disciplinary system.We are not going to produce mentally healthy and happy children by issuing an executive order that all children must be loved. But we can enact and enforce legislation to protect them and give them a fighting chance in this world. As Eric Ericson wrote:Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered, and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child's spirit; for such mutilation undercuts the life principle of trust, without which every human act, may it feel ever so good, and seem ever so right, is prone to perversion by destructive forms of consciousness.