“THE IMPACT OF SEXUAL ABUSE ON CHILDREN”

“The Impact of Sexual Abuse on Children”



“The Impact of Sexual Abuse on Children”

INTRODUCTION

Child abuse is becoming rampant day by day with more members of cases coming to the limelight. Maybe it is because of the awareness among children now regarding the issue. In the past majority of the cases went unreported as the victim was concerned about his reputation. Here we will discuss two child abuse cases having totally different scenarios. (Beitchman & Hood, 1992)

The McMartin preschool case of the 80s is one of the most widely discussed cases. McMartin family, the owners and operators of the school were charged with the child molestation by the mother of a student. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran from 1984 to 1987, and the trial ran from 1987 to 1990. Case was filed in 1983, followed by arrests in 1984. The pretrial investigation took three years to complete, and it took another three years until 1990 for the trial to complete. The main allegations were against Ray bucker, grandson of Virginia Mcmartin, the owner and founder of the school. The other allegations included exposing children to animal sex in the school. After six years of criminal proceedings the jury found no substantial evidence against the accused and the charges were dropped. Although, one of the jury member confessed that they are sure about the molestation taking places but they cannot do anything without substantial evidence. (Friedman, 1993)

The other important case in point would be Justin and Matthew Wilkes case. Pete Albertson was an instructor at the camp Puh Tok in Monkton, MD. After becoming friends with the family, Albertson started to make his moves on Justin and finally succeeding in molesting the boy. He later molested Matthew as well until Matthew got the courage at the age of 13 to confess being molested to his mother. Albertson was convicted of fondling and oral sex and was awarded three year sentence.

After getting out he started to stalk Justin and harass him by sending letters and cards. He told the Wilkes brothers that they would grow up to be molesters themselves as they have been molested in childhood. In 1993, Justin Wilkes committed suicide to save himself from disgrace. Later, Donald Wilkes, father of the boys was found dead in his car. He committed suicide out of the guilt that he could not protect his children. Matthew received a mail from Albertson who was in Germany, containing pictures of children being sexually molested. Justin contacted the authorities and they tried to lure Albertson back to America, but in vain. In late December 1996, US customs received the information of Albertson having landed in America. He was finally arrested from his mother's house and was indicted for 10 years in prison and was given another three for violating parole. (Ward, White, Manuelian, & Boyle, 1998)

STATUTORY LAWS ON CHILD ABUSE

Below are discussed two statutory Massachusetts state laws on child ...