Sexual abuse in childhood: a multi-dimentional look from the view point of victims and perpetrators

Objective: In this study, sexual abuse was investigated in the case of the children who were criminals or victims. Sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, educational level, family background, etc.), reasons of referral, diagnoses and report results were evaluated particularly. Method: Personal files of all of the children-adolescents who were referred to Karadeniz Technical University Medical Faculty Child and Adolescent’s Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2010 have been examined retrospectively. Data of the cases sent by legal authorities or detected as the victim or defendant of a sexual abuse event after psychiatric evaluation were analyzed by using SPSS 13.0 and required statistics were applied. Results: There were 118 cases in total; 88.1% (n=104) were victims and 11.8% (n=14) were defendants. Average age of victims was 10.8±3.3 and 82 of them (78.8%) were girl and 22 of them (21.2%) were boy. On the other hand, average age of the defendants was 14.3±1.0 and all defendants were boys (100%). It was found that the most frequent (48.8%) sexual abuse type in girls was stroking directly or over clothes (n=40) while in boys it was anal-genital contact (59.1%, n=13). Among victim children and adolescents, most of the cases were 12 years old or older. Also in this group, depressive disorder was the most common diagnosis (30.2%) and this was the only group with drug users. According to the forensic reports of the defendants, 85.8% of all perpetrators had mental competency. Conclusion: Children’s sexual abuse is an important public health issue. When the long and short terms results are considered, it is a serious crime both legally and psychosocially. Our aim should be effective treatment after abuse and at the same time, preventing that kind of incidents. In this regard, it is proposed that some programs which inform children and their families about sexual abuse in more details must be developed with contributions of physicians, judicial departments, ministry of education and media.