Sexual Assault: The Impact Of Sexual Abuse On Children

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Each year, millions of people are sexual abused. Sexual assault has become one of the biggest crime in some countries, mainly targeting children and young adult. Sexual abuse can be hard to define due to the fact that there are many kinds of this abuse. Children are most exposed to sexual abuse between the ages of seven and thirteen. Most of the cases of sexual abuse happen during childhood with incest been one of the most common form. There is also assaults, child pornography, rapes, and many more. Studies show that one in five girls and one in twenty boys are victims of sexual abuse. Children who’s been sexually abuse when they were this young, can influence the mental and physical development of the child. Children who were victims of sexual …show more content…

When I say scars, I don’t only mean physical harm, those “scars” also mean mental damage that the victim suffers in this period of time. Lack of trust, trouble controlling emotions, most of the time they get the feeling that they’re worthless, and even eating disorders. One of the most common symptom among sexually abused victims is depression. Since they been abused when they were just children, they been thinking about this for a long time so all of that weight in their shoulders make them believe negative things about themselves and start feeling worthless. Most of the time, victims take the abuse as like if it was their fault, and some even go to the extreme and take their life. Some of the physical repercussion that the victim experience are body problems and eating disorders. Having body problems can refer to them feeling ugly or dirty, having a huge discomfort with their appearance. Some of the victims develop a defense mechanism when it comes to them feeling unsafe. Therefore, every time someone tries to get close to them or try to build a relationship with them, they tempt to push them away because of the fear of this happening again. This is one of the many reasons why sexual abused victim is hard to develop social relationship with other …show more content…

This happen when I was around ten to eleven years old. I was always hanging out with one of my cousin who was younger than me for only six months. We were like best friend, nothing could split us apart. About one or two years ago, my aunts call me crying hysterically. In that moment my aunt informs me that my fourteen-year-old cousin was touch inappropriately by one of my youngest cousin who I consider him to be one of my best friends. My little cousin decided to tell my aunt about this because she had a boyfriend of her own. So one day her boyfriend tired grabbing her arm, she had like this flashback of how my other cousin grabbed her arm the same exact way her boyfriend was doing. My cousin having this flashback and developing a defense mechanism, her first instinct was to slap him. Every time I see the my “cousin”, the one who took the innocence of my little cousin, he does not admit that he did it but he never looks directly in at my eyes, he always looks down or somewhere I’m not looking. That made me believe on what my little cousin told us. At first it was hard to believe that one of our own family member could do that to another, but when he didn’t look at me in my eyes, I knew he did it because he didn’t know that I knew what he did, so there was no need for him not to look him in the eyes. Since that day, I haven’t

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