With over 80,000 reported cases a year of sexual abuse in the United States alone, and with it estimated to be at least that number of unreported cases, it’s become clear child sexual abuse has come to be commonly regarded as a great cause of mental health problems at varying ages from child to adult life across North America.
Since Canada has not as yet to been able to complete a clearly defined statistical analysis of the problem, it’s assumed that the numbers are relatively the same as per capital. From the studies that have been done up to this point, it seems to support this statistical assumption.
Since there is little or no way of verifying, via studies and reporting, the amount of sexual abuse in Mexico, it’s believed because of the social and economic conditions, the abuse rate is even higher there; comparable to that in third-world countries.
There is a two-tiered epidemic going on. First, there are the so-called “baby-boomers” who grew up in a generation where there was a “hush hush” rule about even saying the words sexual abuse, let alone accusing someone of it. So it never became socially acceptable even to report one of the most horrendous experiences a human being can endure and continue to suffer from, untreated, for the duration of their life.
It was right at the beginning of the baby boomers era (1945 – 1964) when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948, they declared in Article five: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. It took that generation more than 30 years to begin talking about just how inhuman their perpetrators were throughout the 1940’s to the ‘70’s, and even before that.
Now, we’re faced with the second phase of the psychological remnants of the multiple decades of abuse, pasting it on to the next generations.
All of those thousands of new cases every year being added to the pile aren’t necessarily past victims of sexual abuse. In fact, only a small percentage (approx. 5%) of past victims become perpetrators. Past victims generally feel empathetic towards victims of abuse.
So, as the 30 and 50 year olds run to psychiatrists/therapists to repair the damaged past, we’re left running around trying to figure out what to do with the newest victims of sexual assault/abuse. Fooling ourselves into safety by posting offender registries with thousands of names and addresses doesn’t make the problem go away. And simply relying on telling our children to don’t speak to strangers, since only about 3% of sexual abusers are someone they don’t know, won’t work either.
The real work needs to come from first understanding where the epidemic has come from, and then offering the help and treatment at the right timing. There are already several specialists who treat both the victims and the offenders.
All of the professionals agree, there needs to be more reporting. More children and adults talking about and reporting sexual abuse. There needs to be a lot more education that is open and honest beginning from the time a child reaches any type of educational system.
This social epidemic that creeps into every neighborhood, and every social class needs to be slowed down at the very least. It’s a leading cause in the Americas of depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD, and many other psychological disorders which causes our society billions of dollars in medical and mental health care every year. Never mine the costs incurred in the justice system dealing with the offenders.
The really disturbing problem is that one single victim who has grown up with that secret that has tortured her or him for 20 years of self abuse, alcoholism/drug abuse, self-mutilation, thoughts of suicide and or attempts, the sleepless nights and nightmares, wondering if they’ll ever survive, yet waking up every day wishing they hadn’t.
What about the child who is destined to this? Who’s going to stop their pain?
