Victims Of Sexual Abuse

Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse can happen to anyone, anywhere and at any time. Women and girls are most likely to be victims of sexual abuse. It is difficult to determine whether a victim has been victimized and because of this, most victims refuse to report their attacks to law enforcement, family members or anyone in general. Victims that report their abusers to the police and decide to move forward with charges against their assailants, have a hard time dealing with the fact that they have to relive their horrific experience. Sexual abuse is any forced, coerced or exploitative sexual act or activity. Research consistently finds that rape and other sexual abuses are primarily committed by men or boys against women or girls. Physically violent

rape and other sexual assaults are a part of sexual abuse. Legally, assault implies physical violence, and sexual abuse crimes are often referred to as sexual violence and sexual assaults but this leaves out an unknown but likely much larger of sexual abuses that are not violent or legally meet the standards of assaults per se (Belknap, 2015, p.324). Sexual abuse runs on a continuum from force to coercion. Force is how people typically think of rape and other sexual abuses. Force is a physical method used to obtain power, such as holding down, hitting or stabbing. Coercion is most associated with using psychological methods such as threats or promises of rewards (Belknap, 2015, p.325).
Sexual assaults are least likely to be reported to the police.

Sexual abuse survivors often fees ashamed and are worry that regardless of whom they report to example, family, friends, coworkers, police, prosecutors, doctors or nurses etc. they will not be believed and or they will be blamed for their victimization. Given that most sexual abuses have no witnesses save the survivor, it is usually easy for survivors to keep it a secret. This lack of witnesses further hurts survivors’ chances of being viewed as real victims if they decide to report the incident. According to Alderden and Ullman, the first four stages after a sexual assault has been reported to the police; case founding, arrest, presentation to the prosecutor, and prosecutor approval of charges. These are followed by court verdict and sentencing stages. The sexual abuse victim has frequently been referred to as been victimized twice; once by his or her assailant and again by the criminal legal system. Charges of Sexual abuse often boils down to a case of he said, she said situation because most of the times there are no concrete evidence. Because of the difficulty or lack of evidence most victims of sexual abuse are portrayed to be liars, especially in cases where the victim knows the assailant. From the moment the victim reports the incident to the police, the victim is in a position where he or she is re living the moment. The prosecutor reviews the charges then determine whether to file the charges or not

and at this point it must be devastating for the victim to hear that the charges against his or her assailant was not filed because of lack of evidence. Often times, adult rape victims do not report their cases because they worry about the negative police responses. Some victims make it difficult for others in a sense that sometimes they lied about being victimized. One reason why a victim may have lied is because he or she did not get what was promised to him or her.
Rape law reform in the 1970s in the United States centered on eliminating some of the worst aspects of the laws and the evidentiary standards.

Additionally, rape law reform was directed to addressing issues of consent, force, and intent. Unfortunately a recent overview identifies extralegal factors such as the victim’s characteristics as being used to determine police, judges’ and jurors’ decision. Moreover, the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA), is designed to provide victims with redress when state legal systems are in adequate to respond, was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 (Belknap, 2015, p.325). The VAWA reauthorization Act of 2013 was amended to provide and improve advocacy, services, and support for all victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. Since the inception of VAWA in 1994 there are more reported cases of sexual assault. There has been as much as a 51 percent increase in reporting by women and a 37 percent increase by reporting by men. VAWA created the first U.S. federal legislation acknowledging domestic violence and sexual assault as crimes, and provided federal resources to encourage community-coordinated responses to combating violence. Its reauthorization in 2000 improved the foundation established by VAWA 1994 by creating a much-needed legal assistance program for victims and by expanding the definition of crime to include dating violence and stalking. The VAWA program offers grants to different

states in order to assist the victims of VAWA. According to article on Georgia’s government website, grants under this program can provide personnel, training, and technical assistance for the widespread apprehension, prosecution, and adjudication of offenders who commit violent crimes against women. Criminal Justice coordinating council encourages applicants to work with all the key stakeholders in their communities - domestic violence and/or sexual assault victim service providers, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors' offices, judges, child abuse victim service providers, etc. - to create a comprehensive and community-specific response to violence against women
Sexual abuse is any forced, coerced or exploitative sexual act or activity. Being a victim of sexual abuse can be traumatic, it is even more traumatic when the victim has to re live the experience by relating it to police officers, prosecutors, judges and jurors who does not believe that they were victimized. Although there has been improvement in the criminal justice system for example the VAWA program, there is still a lot that need to be done to protect victims of sexual abuse. There should be more programs available to educate police officers, prosecutors and the public on how to deal with victims of sexual abuse. This will result in more victims reporting their cases to law enforcement.