Child Abuse

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job because they risk criticism no matter what they do. If they intervene, the parents complain, and if they don't intervene, they are accused of negligence.

Many children in dysfunctional families quite logically run away from home. When they do this, they subject themselves to exploitation by the strangers with whom they come into contact. Occasionally they are lucky and are rescued by a competent person who understands their plight. This probably happens more frequently than most people realize. But there are also the horror stories in which the child is subjected to sexual abuse or is exploited to create pornography or becomes involved in drug abuse or develops a criminal lifestyle.

These are real problems, and we need to do more to improve our laws so that children have rights too, not just their parents. We need to train law enforcement officers and social workers better. We need to improve our social agencies. But having said this, there are some popular ...

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social development. Such a relationship often requires secrecy and the child is placed in a most untenable position. Growing up is difficult enough, and there's certainly no need to add to the difficulties. Clearly any sexual behavior that involves physical force, physical harm, threats or other forms of coercion, or which significantly interferes with a child's social or sexual development is abusive. One problem with these criteria is that opinions vary as to whether any sexual relationship between an adult and a child can be consensual. It is common in the literature to find assertions that no child can have a consensual sexual relationship with an adult. Sometimes the position is ...

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