Citation

Faller KC. Child Abuse Negl. 2019; 99: e104285.

Affiliation

School of Social Work, University of Michigan, USA. Electronic address: kcfaller@umich.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104285

PMID

31775078

Abstract

Unlike other forms of child maltreatment, determination of child sexual abuse relies principally upon the child’s disclosure. That is to say physical child abuse is typically diagnosed by a health care professional who determines the child’s injuries have been inflicted (Dias, 2015). Child physical neglect derives from the child’s physical condition and/or living conditions (Giardino et al., 2019). For example, the child is filthy, hungry, and living in squalid conditions. This diagnosis may be made by a health care professional, a child protection worker, and/or the police.

Child sexual abuse typically leaves no physical evidence, or the evidence is fleeting (Adams, Harper, Knudson, & Revilla, 2003; Christian et al., 2000), and usually the only persons with firsthand knowledge of this violation are the victim and the perpetrator. The perpetrator is loath to disclose the assault because sexual abuse is not only a criminal act, but also has other terrible consequences, for example, loss of custody of a child when sexual abuse is intrafamilial, the demise of significant relationships, loss of employment, and social ostracism. Determining the likelihood of sexual abuse comes down to the words of a child, which may be delayed, halting, and lacking in detail, versus the more articulate words of the accused adult. Furthermore, in most cases, there is a power differential between the alleged victim and alleged perpetrator, victim being the powerless and perpetrator being powerful. Indeed, virtually every disclosure of child sexual abuse generates a counter-claim, that the child is fantasizing, mentally ill, misinterpreting innocent events, or lying ...

Language: en

Keywords

Child sexual abuse; Disclosure; Non-disclosure