Law Commons^™

Child Sexual Abuse, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past two decades awareness of child sexual abuse among academics and professionals has grown from several convergent trends: the "discovery" of child abuse in the 1960's, concern by feminists over sexual assault and rape, increasing reports to law enforcement and child protective service workers of sexually abused children, and the general "deprivatization" of the family. More recently, general public awareness of child sexual abuse has followed well-publicized cases of child molestation in day-care centers, nationwide concern over pornography and its subsequent links to teenage prostitution, and runaway youth, delinquency, and family violence among adults.