Social Policy: Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) (Term Paper Sample)

SOCIAL POLICY: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE (CSA)
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INTRODUCTION
Most vulnerable children and families in the US have a lot of serious social issues ranging from poverty, victimisation, unemployment, sexual harassment, child abuse, low wages, and violence (Daro, 1994). Being harassed as well as being exposed to hazard has become part of their lives. Seeking for social justice among these groups has even become a harder task as the group is marginalised socially, economically, as well as legally.
Around the world, sexual abuse has become a well-known phenomenon. Especially, among children and adolescent, the cases has really grown alarming (Marcus, A., & Curtis, 2014). The great misconception especially in most developed world has been that poor girls have been sexually abused by the poor due to their vulnerability more so by strangers (Putnam, 2003). The reality is that millions of boys, girls, men, and women around the globe are sexually abused by a wide range of offenders ranging from close relatives to strangers.
Vulnerability could be seen as high exposure. In a social perspective, it could be viewed as children and families that have faced high level of discrimination and marginalisation over a long period to an extent that the group reflect that structural barriers as part of their life (U.S. Department of Justice, 2006). Sexual abuse as a social vulnerability issues mainly faces the dependant group including; children and disabled, and sociological groups mainly involving women.
Child sexual abuse (CSA) in perspective
CSA includes a lot of sexual abuses towards children like; incest, rape, commercial sexual exploitation, and assault. According to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), child sexual abuse is “any completed or attempted (non-completed) sexual act, sexual contact with, or exploitation (ie, noncontact sexual interaction) of a child by a caregiver. Vulnerable children are more prone to this kind of social abuse to their high level of exposure. Research has shown that vulnerable families are more exposed 8 times compared to other (U.S. Department of Justice, 2006). In addition, the children have few options for their lives mainly because of poverty, lack of education, and disabilities.
A research by Hild Welfare Information Gateway (2007) revelled that sexual abuse was the most consequential abuse that children face. This trails from physical injuries, stigmatisation, and could even lead to death if the stigma is not well huddled. The WHO stipulated that in US about 1 in 10 children for vulnerable families get raped before their 18th birthday. The results also showed that 1 in 7 girls, and 1 in 25 boys get raped before they turn 18. More worrying were the statistics on the level of exposure, where the study showed that about 400,000 children were exposed to CSA. Anda et.al (2015) reported that about 70% of the cases that were reported in US occurred to children aged 17 and below. The results are not unexpected since most families even fail to report the sexual abuse cases due to threats, family ties, poverty, and fear of isolation from the society.
According to WHO, females are more exposed than males with about 27% of female children being sexually harassed. As of 2018, the cases had increased to 31% (Prevent Child Abuse America, 2018). Sexual abuse among children in US has been related to a wide range of stress factors including poverty, low level of parent attention, and lack of education, parental abuse, and domestic violence.
Analysis of CSA from a social perspective
From the analysis, it is evident that CSA is a major concern among the vulnerable families. Their voices are however, never heard and thus no policies and groups have come forth to assist them. Consequently, they have viewed the problems as part of life with on 10% reports on abuse (King, 2009). In addition, due to their high level of exposure, they are worried about other issues of significance compared to the sexual harassment. All they need is eat and seen another day. However, there are a lot of consequences to it as it affect the physiological being of the children which may impact on their later lives. In addition, a crime has occurred and the offenders should be brought to book.
From a policy perspective, the right thing to do in dealing with sexual abuse is to reduce the level of exposure among the vulnerable groups. According to WHO sexual abuse occurs when one attempts or penetrates forcefully to another (Marcus, A., & Curtis, 2014). Therefore for the venerable group, sexual harassment is mainly penetration assaults towards children, mainly females.
In US child sexual abuse has widely been fighting against by most children rights activists. Thorough the laws as well as through non-profit making organisations. National children advocacy centre is one among the non-profit making organisations that have pushed for zero child abuse cases (Marcus, A., & Curtis, 2014). Their main objective has been stopping child abuse and sexual harassment. For this they have been initiating programs and driving polices that ensure children development, health, and safety. In addition, they have been driven towards child support as well as family support for the vulnerable group. To achieve this, the society has been built on a key pillar of undertaking in-depth research, as well as trainings. They have been able to offer public education to over 20,000 exposed children (National children advocacy centre, 2018). They have also been able to initiated 6 community based programs. They have offered about 200 education scholarships to vulnerable children, and have offered close to 300 parental trainings in different areas.
Exposure to CSA
Vulnerability as a social problem increases the risk of exposure. Children exposure to CSA could either be due to lack of information on healthy sexual development. In this case we are saying that there is usually limited information to the vulnerable families as they are marginalised (Young, 2006). The parents are mainly not educated and due to poverty, the children as well are not educated. This results to lack of information on some types of harassment and in some cases, children would think that sexual assault is part of life and thus would not report. Also most of the families are limited by cultural ineffective institutions and thus exposing their children (King, 2009). They would not report cases of incest, and relative relate rape. This would be on the view of the society where they fear being marginalised or face threats. In addition, this families are not able to deal with self-esteem issues, and in their attempt of getting better lives they get exposed to sexual abuse. It has been realised that children with special needs are 50% more likely to be exposed to sexual abuse (Anda et.al, 2015). Especially those with mental problem as they are seen as easy targets since revelling the truth would be a difficult task.
The history of sexual abuse among vulnerable categories mainly, women, children, and people with disability, trailed back to the colonisation period. During the wars, sexual harassment was use as one of the weapons to bring down a group of people. Rape towards women was prevalent those days and has been witnessed to date. Only by 1970 was it recognised in law as a social problem after the cases relating to assault had increased alarmingly. For most vulnerable group, they give in to sexual harassment in exchange of favours due to environmental constraints.
Impacts of CSA
Research has shown that the consequences of CSA are far drilling to individual and societal existence in the current age and in the future. It has significantly been reported that CSA results to increased level of depression. Depressed minds have social, and economic shortcoming. They result as the individual are victimised and feel worthless. Consequently, they could even end up committing suicide (Pearson, 1994). Most survivors of abuse have been seen to show symptoms of depressed minds. This has mainly been an issue of externalisation of the abuse and thus they develop hate towards oneself. In most cases, they attempt suicide they have irregular sleep patterns, and in some hallucination may catch up with them.
Also they become victims of guilt. And self-blame. They feel like they initiated the assault. They feel they should not have been in the compromising situation. Especially, for the children, it is hard for them to think negative of their relatives and grown-ups so they would take self-blame (Marcus, A., & Curtis, 2014). Another impact that could show the long term defect settle on body image and eating habit disorder. Due to the feel of filthiness, the children tend to feel dirty and thus they are not satisfied with their appearances. Consequently, leading to body disorders and obesity.
In addition, due to being frightened, a lot of children develop stress and anxiety. They would be stressed long after the incidence as they think about the society. Phobia, and chronic anxiety are some of the mainly stated long-term stress defects.
Some of the survivors, have tension later in life. When they feel threatened, they may make use of the fight back like they deed while trying to prevent the abuse. This includes having nightmares, flashbacks, and being confused (Putnam, 2003). Finally, for some it is difficult to establish long tasting relationship. More so with opposite sex as they feel they could be betrayed. This translates to their sexual life later where they may have intimacy problems with their partners as they feel unsecure.
Dealing with the problem/ prevention mechanisms