The Impacts Of Child Sexual Abuse In Canada

Sexual assault is one of the most challenging issues that must be dealt with within the Canadian legal system. Sexual assault is defined as sexual activity inflicted upon someone without their given consent. In order for a sexual assault to be eligible for that title, a person committing sexual acts must continue to engage without the consent of the other person. Sexual assault is also heavily related to the rape myths that exist within society and these are the decisive factors when resolving a sexual assault case. These rape myths generally target the victim of sexual assault blaming them for the actions that occurred. The first case involving consent and rape myths to ever reach the Supreme Court of Canada to be resolved is the case of

Anything from unwanted touching in a sexual manner to non-consensual sexual intercourse is classified as sexual assault in Canada. Male survivors of sexual assault frequently face unsympathetic attitudes after choosing to report the criminal offence. Unfortunately, despite the similar chances of sexual assault amongst both males and females during their teenage years, with 20% for males and 25% for females, there are fewer researches conducted on male sexual assault in Canada (Statistics Canada 2015). A large proportion (16%) of male victims are sexually assaulted in an institutional setting, which is over two and a half times greater than the percentage of females in the same location (Brennan 2008). The UCR2 (Uniform Crime Reporting Survey)

According to Fallon et al. (2005), the vulnerability of infants under the age of one year is greater than that of all other age groups of children due to their increased need for daily care and their incapability to defend themselves from harm; yet, the infants who become involved in the child welfare system show more signs of developmental delays than their older child counterparts. In Canada, the majority of infants brought to the awareness of the child welfare system are reported by healthcare professional. These infants are at risk for developing cognitive, affective or psychomotor delays. As such, child neglect and maltreatment is a public health issue holding implications for community health nurses regarding the detection, prevention

“Half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since age 16” (CanadianWomen.org). Most cases of sexual assault are not treated as seriously by the law as they should be. Victims of sexual assault often blame for the incident. Sexual assault can have long term effects on a person. Sexual assault is not considered to be a serious offence in todays society.

Introduction / Purpose of paper The mistreatment of children is a very saddening social problem in our American society. Child abuse has a very lengthy history. Children have been abused by their parents since the beginning of time. According to my research, for many centuries throughout most of our human history, laws have failed to protect children from this abuse.

The implementation of the Ontario government’s action plan against sexual violence is a positive first step but is still failing student’s on campuses across the country. Bill 132 requires universities in Ontario to create standalone policies in order to address sexual violence on their campuses. During a young women’s time on a university or college campus, one in five will be sexually assaulted. With Statistics Canada findings that, ‘the rate of sexual assault is considerably higher amongst young Canadians between the age 15 to 24; Bill 132 is the provincial government’s response to the high numbers of incidences. Despite the efforts of the provincial government, the federal government needs to play a larger role in developing comprehensive policies to address and prevent sexual violence on campuses.

Sexual violence is considered to be one of the highest under-reported crimes in Canada, where it is “estimated that only 10% of sexual assaults are reported to police” (Atlantic Collaborative on Injury Prevention, n.d., p. 13). In addition, between 15% to 25% of North American college and university-aged women experience some form of a sexual assault during their academic career (Lichty, Campbell, & Schuiteman, 2008). Consequently, this overwhelming unreported sexual violence acts can have massive ramification for the surviving students, the campus community as a whole and even the perpetrating students (Cantalupo, 2010). According to Senn et al. (2014), “this is particularly concerning given the detrimental physical and mental health consequences resulting from a sexual assault, which can include physical injuries as well as unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, depression, suicide ideation, and post-traumatic stress disorder” (p. 1).

According to Statistics Canada, children and youth under the age of 18 years of age are more at risk of physical and sexual assault than adults. In 2012, 55% of all victims of police-reported sexual assault were children and youth under the age of 18, while making up 20% of the population, and were five times more likely than adults to become a victim of sexual offences (21% versus 4%) (Cotter & Beaupre, 2014).

In 2008 the findings of the Public Health Agency of Canada estimated 235,315 investigations of child abuse. This investigation stated that the primary categories of maltreatment includes physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional maltreatment, and exposure to intimate partner violence (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2010). However, sexual maltreatment of children wasn’t truly defined until 1974 when Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act provided us with a legal definition of sexual abuse (Feerick et al., 2006):

An article posted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies explains the long-term effects of child abuse and neglect for adult survivors. The article explains that there are many different types of child abuse which falls in the categories of physical, emotional, neglect, sexual and witnessing family violence. Abuse can also intentional or sometimes even unintentional. Also, different sub-types of maltreatment may be related to different negative outcomes. The author

Sexual assault is a problem that occurs in every country, town, and village in the world. A Canadian may hold themselves to a higher standard when looking at less developed countries, either socially or economically. Yet, somehow they are the same when it comes to humiliating sexual assault victims in courts trials. The Criminal Code provisions, however, are really great when it comes to sexual assault. There is a definition of consent or more explicitly its absence, and the Supreme Court of Canada has sworn that consent be on-going and positive. Nevertheless, it is our social norms that these laws are delivered through that need to be changed. The justice system today has a big problem of re-victimizing survivors of sexual assault, abusing

There are many things in our society today that unfortunately go overlooked. One such thing that is overlooked is the number of children who are being abused. Unfortunately these children are going through life not knowing whether or not their parents will loose their temper and perhaps kill them. There are many types of child abuse, such as physical, sexual, and emotional. Physical abuse is physical injury as a result of punching, beating, kicking, biting, shaking, throwing, stabbing, choking, hitting, burning, or otherwise harming a child. Such injury is considered abuse regardless of whether the caretaker intended to hurt the child. Sexual abuse includes activities by a parent or caretaker such as fondling a child's genitals,

Although child abuse has soon become a more discussed issue, it is nothing new in today’s society. Dating back to ancient times, physical child abuse has always attributed to lives of people around the world. Approaching and understanding child mistreatment has changed as societies have modernized and progressed; whereas one thing remains an unalterable issue, child abuse happens constantly and continuously worldwide.

Child abuse in American today is amongst the most saddened topics of mankind. Many children are subjected to neglect and abuse on a daily basis. The sex and age of child makes no difference when it comes to child abuse.. Boys and girls are equally likely to suffer maltreatment. The problem is how often child abuse goes unreported. Millions of children across the world are abused in some way, whether it is verbal, emotional, physical or sexual. Child abuse has been happening all over the world to young children, however many children keep this a secret because of fear of what could happen. Child Abuse consists of any act of commission or omission that endangers or impairs a child’s physical or emotional health and development. It can be

INTRODUCTION: “Child Abuse occurs when a parent or a care taker physically, emotionally, or sexually mistreats or neglects a child resulting in the physical, emotional, or sexual harm or imminent risk of harm or exploitation, or in extreme cases the death of a child,” child abuse is a big deal because in today’s society many children face abuse, there are many effects and reasons as to why a child may be abuse.