In an earlier post, Stepfathers Are Our Brother’s Keeper, I talked about the under-reporting of child sexual abuse and the courses of legal action available. In this post, I’ll talk about the signs of sexual exploitation in children.
Child’s Age Affects Determining Abuse
The younger the child, the more difficult it will be to determine if the child was or is being sexually abused. A pre-teen or teenager may tell you directly but then you have to determine if the accusation was motivated by something other than sexual abuse.
While allegations of sexual abuse are serious, falsely accuse someone of sexual abuse is equally serious. So how can you know if someone is sexually abusing your child? Unless you actually witness the abuse or the perpetrator admits it you can’t!
Everything relies on your gut instincts based on the evidence you find. One Colorado Mom followed her instincts setting up a hidden video camera to obtain evidence of her husband abusing her child. A great tool to help you assess the possibility of molestation is the following Signs of Child Molestation produced by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
