Child abuse is pervasive. It is an extensive social phenomena on a global level that occurs through four methods. Child abuse can occur from neglect, physical abuse, emotional abuse or sexual abuse. While the forms of abuse may overlap, the most alarming statistic throughout a vast body of literature supports the fact that birth parents are the perpetrators of child abuse in eighty percent of all cases on record (Morales, 1998). This issue is complex and of great significance for society, because many sociological and psychological studies contend that abuse suffered during the critical development period of childhood greatly impacts adult identity formation and behavior. In the U.S., more than one and a half million children suffer from some form of child abuse yearly. Because of the scope of this report, this analysis will focus on child sexual abuse, which studies show is most commonly carried out by the male gender, “90% of the cases, are perpetrated by men…Sexual abuse is one form of abuse in which the majority of perpetrators are neither the mother nor the father, but, most often, a male adult who has an ongoing relationship with and access to a child” (Morales, 1998, 1).
The unfortunate conclusion from the above data results from eighty percent of abuse cases being perpetrated by birth parents. If this is not the case with sexual abuse, that means all the more children suffer from some kind of neglect or physical and emotional abuse from their parents or a combination of them. There are many causal factors leading to sexual abuse. Poverty and drug and alcohol abuse are often cited as two factors. The poverty creates additional stress and tension in the perpetrator and the drugs and/or alcohol reduce impulse control. Because of the alarming number of abused children, one of the causes of child abuse has even deeper meaning for society. This is because suffering abuse as a child is one of the causal factors. ...