Posttraumatic stress disorder
Child abuse, including sexual abuse, especially chronic abuse starting at early ages, has been found to be related to the development of high levels of dissociative symptoms, which includes amnesia for abuse memories. When severe sexual abuse (penetration, several perpetrators, lasting more than one year) had occurred, dissociative symptoms were even more prominent. Recent research showed that females with high exposure to child sexual abuse (CSA) develop PTSD symptoms that are associated with poor social functioning, which is also supported by prior research studies. The feeling of being "cut-off" from peers and "emotional numbness" are both results of CSA and highly inhibit proper social functioning. Furthermore, PTSD is associated with higher risk of substance abuse as a result of the "self-medication hypothesis" and the "high-risk and susceptibility hypothesis." Prolonged exposure therapy (PE) was found to decrease PTSD and depressive symptoms in female methadone using CSA survivors.Besides dissociative identity disorder (DID), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), child sexual abuse survivors may present borderline personality disorder (BPD) and eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa. Research factors
Because child sexual abuse often occurs alongside other possibly confounding variables, such as poor family environment and physical abuse, some scholars argue it is important to control for those variables in studies which measure the effects of sexual abuse.
Also parents and schools need to give children and adolescents regular advice about how to spot abuse and about the need to report abuse. Software providers are urged to do more to police their environment and make it safe for children. International law
Child sexual abuse is outlawed nearly everywhere in the world, generally with severe criminal penalties, including in some jurisdictions, life imprisonment or capital punishment. An adults sexual intercourse with someone below the legal age of consent is defined as statutory rape, based on the principle that a child is not capable of consent and that any apparent consent by a child is not considered to be legal consent. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an international treaty that legally obliges states to protect childrens rights. Articles 34 and 35 of the CRC require states to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. This includes outlawing the coercion of a child to perform sexual activity, the prostitution of children, and the exploitation of children in creating pornography. States are also required to prevent the abduction, sale, or trafficking of children. As of November 2008, 193 countries are bound by the CRC, including every member of the United Nations except the United States and South Sudan.The Council of Europe has adopted the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse in order to prohibit child sexual abuse that occurs within home or family.