So, except for the past few years, sexual abuse (especially when considering children) has been sort of thought as one of those minimal problems. Well, finally its come to the forefront. With an alarming 14,000 cases of sexual abuse of children in Canada and 90,000 in the U.S. just for 2003 alone, I think we are finally starting to realize how serious the issue is.
What's even more serious is that the children who are at risk already face many challenges in society and this just adds to it. Usually, the victims of child abuse are young girls who usually have some physical or mental incapacity such as blindness, deafness, or mental retardation. This increases the chance that adults won't believe them when they say they were abused (or in the case of deaf children, they might not be able to communicate it). The abusers are usually male family members or close family friends with addiction problems such as alcoholism and drug addictions.
I think the best remedies are to teach girls when and what sexual advances are inappropriate, to stop the abuse, and to believe them when they report abuse. I mean, you would have to be a pretty clever and nasty five-year-old to try to hurt someone by getting them convicted on abuse charges.
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