Psychological effects of intra-familial sexual abuse on children
Katarzyna Walęcka-Matyja
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Abstract
´dz ´ [69] denial, sense of shame as well as in such important issues as raising a child, human sexuality, or the problem of power (G l a s e r, F r o s h, 1995). Today specialists debate whether it is the epidemic of sexual violence that is spreading or there is a greater allowance for revealing behaviours which were previously hidden for different reasons. Also, no unified nomenclature has been established, which is another reason of difficulty in encompassing the scale of the phenomenon and its classification. In the literature the following terms are used interchangeably: sexual harassment, maltreatment, sexual abuse, seduction, depraving acts, sexual mistreatment, or sexual violence. In the present article, a differentiation of terms determining sexual violence towards adults and children has been assumed and used after the Dictionary of Psychology by A. S. Reber. The term sexual harassment relates to the situation in which one of the parties to the interaction uses their own advantage in order to force the other party to satisfy someone else's sexual drive. As far as two adult persons are concerned the term implies men's style of treating women. If a child is involved the term referred to is sexual abuse (R e b e r, 2000). Undoubtedly, sexual abuse of children constitutes (alongside physical violence, psychological violence, neglect) one of the forms of wrongful treatment (P o s p i s z y l, 2000). Theorists most often divide the term into two categories: abuse involving touch (e.g. intercourse, stimulation of the genitals) and abuse without touch (e.g. verbal stimulation, voyeurism, exposing) (P a c e w i c z, 1992). Within the first category one can distinguish abuse involving physical force, threat, power (people acting in this way are called rapists) as well as abuse without the use of physical force, but involving the mechanism of seduction and enticement (so called enticer) (J a c z e w s k i, R a d o m s k i, 1986; P a c e w i c z, 1992). Among child sexual abusers there are people who were themselves victims of paedophilia and also individuals for whom engaging in sexual contacts with children is surrogate and situational in its character (T r a v i n, P r o t t e r, 1995). Contrary to common opinion perpetrators of most child-orientated sexual activities are not strangers but family members, neighbours, family friends, teachers, acquaintances. The fact is confirmed by a number of studies -75-80% of all occurrences are the above mentioned cases. Discrepancies appear in relation to the question of what percentage of abusive practices takes place within the immediate family. M. D. Schecter and L. Roberge (1976) argue that it is 10%, whereas according to D. Finkelhor (1979) and D. Russell (1983) it is as much as 50% (P a c e w i c z, 1992).
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