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Family Abuse in America

In the United States, there are four to six children who classify to be the family sexual abused victims in every five minutes. Despite the fact that family sexual abuse is identified as a vital problem, our understanding and knowledge of family sexual abuse is very minimal. According to the information from the Midwest Children's Resource Center (MCRC), it states that 65 % of referrals of suspected sexual abuse cases are child age 5 or under. How does the sexual abuse affect children's lives? According to Hilary Cashman, "Sexual Abuse may cause various kinds of disturbed behavior to adolescents, such as depression, school avoidance, running away, self-mutilation, eating disorders, sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy." (33) Therefore, the appropriate metal care and the effective prevention are not only minimizing the native influence to sexual abused victim, but also they help to prevent the tragedy happen to another innocent child.

Based on the book of Cashman, "Sexual abuse is defined as the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents in sexual activities that they do not truly comprehend to, they are unable to give informed consent, or violate the social taboos of family roles."(30) Due to the fact, our society does not have a very clear definition of sexual abuse, so abusers frequently assert or hint their victims to consent to sex with them. The example of Elizabeth provided by Cashman shows how unclear definition of sexual abuse helps her abuser out of the bounds of the law. Her father started to abuse her when she was only four and went on until she left home at the age eighteen. As a matter of fact, the physical harm exists in her life until she got married, but her father kept doing some other things to her. When Elizabeth was eleven or twelve years old, she was trying to find someone to help her. The first person she ever told was a priest, however, that priest did not believe her. He...

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Family Abuse in America. (1969, December 31). In Retrieved 15:10, July 30, 2014, from