Sexual abuse is not just about sex. It also happens to be about power over another.

It’s hard to make blanket statements about child sexual abuse when it comes to the actual statistics. This is largely because the government lumps physical and sexual abuse together and survivors who blissfully “forgot” their abuse, tended to not report it until much later in life; meaning they were not counted in the final numbers evaluation.

Nonetheless, what those statistics show is that almost 62% of girls and 31% of boys are sexually abused by the age of 18 years old. Those figures are frightening, despicable, shocking and evil. Sexual abuse of a child is not acceptable – period.

Sometimes parents are not sure what sexual abuse is and may not understand what is going on in their homes and/or family. They may not know that child sexual abuse is both an abuse of the child sexually and about the abuse of power. It is considered by some to be violence that isn’t always accompanied by force.
Sexual abuse is a myriad of things and that includes words, sounds and exposing a child to sexual acts or sights but not directly involving the child. Sexual abuse may be overt and covert at the same time, or put another way, it may be blatant and/or hidden; a cauldron of unacceptable and immoral behavior.

Behavior of this nature needs to be stopped, and often the best place to stop it is before it happens. Oddly enough, most of the prevention that society talks about today is “not” before the deed is done, but “after” it has been found out. While it may be dealt with after the fact, this does not deal with the fact that it should never have happened in the first place.

“In the many years of practice I’ve had in this area, I’ve found that a great many parents override their child’s natural instincts when it comes to people. For instance, making the child ‘like’ Uncle Mike and not listening or paying attention when the child doesn’t want to spend time with him,” indicated Charlie Donahue, a New Hampshire personal injury attorney.

“Discounting the child’s sense of what is right for ‘them’ is asking for trouble. Hitting the child for ‘not’ liking uncle doesn’t work either. The reality is, the kid doesn’t like uncle for a really good reason and that is usually that they ‘feel’ uncle is bad. Kids have good inner radar, we ought to listen to them,” said Donahue.

The facts speak loudly and clearly; sexual abuse is not perpetrated by the stranger with a beard. The predator is usually someone related to the child or a friend of someone in the family or associated with the family. In any situation like this, it is critical to speak to a compassionate and skilled personal injury attorney.

“Sexual abuse ‘does’ happen at home. A good personal injury attorney knows this and can assist the victims in dealing with a court process. Don’t wait, don’t guess, don’t assume and most of all, listen to what the child is saying. They only tell what they feel. It is then our responsibility to protect them,” stated Donahue.

To learn more, visit Donahuelawfirm.com.