ABSTRACT

Objective: Child sexual abuse is defined as “involving a child in sexual activities that they do not fully comprehend, cannot give informed consent to, or are not developmentally prepared for, or that violate the laws or social taboos of society.” This issue is a global problem that is difficult to detect and creates lifelong negative effects on the physical and mental health of victims. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the children who have been victims of sexual abuse and have applied to the Aydın Child Advocacy Center, and to contribute to solving the problem through the data obtained.

Methods: This study, designed as a retrospective and descriptive study, included cases referred to the Child Advocacy Center with allegations of sexual abuse between 01.08.2018 and 01.08.2022, whose interviews and examinations were completed. Cases that did not report abuse in their medical history or had incomplete histories were excluded from the study.

Results: In the evaluation of 762 children who reported abuse and were assessed, it was found that 84% (n=640) were girls and 16% (n=122) were boys, with an average age of 12.5±3.4 years. It was determined that most of the victims came from nuclear families (51%) and that the most common location of the incident was district centers (51.8%). Almost all of the alleged perpetrators were male (98.4%) and acted alone (89.9%), with an average age of 27.1 years. It was observed that girls were most frequently abused by boyfriends (13%), while boys were most commonly abused by peers and friends (35.2%). Girls were found to be significantly more likely to experience intrafamilial abuse compared to boys. The incidents of abuse were most commonly shared with parents (43.6%), and it was found that intrafamilial abuse (50.7%) tended to recur more often than extrafamilial abuse (34.1%), with the number of reported cases increasing over the years. Intrafamilial abuse cases were reported later than extrafamilial ones. It was noted that 43.2% of the victims described interfemoral contact or rubbing, 37% of the cases were examined, and in 4.2%, no examination was necessary due to pregnancy. Vaginal examination revealed that the most common finding was a tear older than 10 days (60%), while anal examination showed no findings in the majority of cases (75.2%).

Conclusion: In our study, it was observed that the majority of the suspects were familiar individuals. It was particularly noted that intrafamilial abuse incidents tended to recur multiple times and that the time between the incident and the report was longer compared to cases involving other suspects.