What Legal Action Does a Victim of Sexual Abuse Should Do?

There is nothing quite like the gift of children. They are the greatest blessing that can be bestowed upon a person, and your life would never be the same once you become a parent. It is not a walk in the park, though.

It is a responsibility that requires much of your time, dedication, and most importantly love. You live your life trying to protect them from any harm, but unfortunately, you cannot always control those circumstances. Sometimes bad things happen, and the worst of those things is the child suffering from sexual abuse. It is a vile crime that could haunt them for the rest of their lives, and this is why you need to take legal action immediately. 

Reporting the crime

There are usually signs that a child is being sexually abused, like withdrawal and mood swings, among others. You need to be on the lookout for such markers, and even if you are not 100% sure that the child is suffering from this terrible crime, you should still report it to the police. The report itself will vary depending on what proof you have and whether or not you are certain that there is actually abuse. If you witnessed a pattern of boundary violation by an adult with a child, you intervened in one, you found signs of abuse on the child’s body, or if they told you that they were abused, then you should immediately file an incident report with law enforcement. 

What happens next?

You will need to provide a lot of details about the incident, like the name of the child and the date of the incident, location, home address, name of the perpetrator, and so on. The police would then send an officer to your location, if you didn’t already go to the police station, that is, and they will be trained to deal with such incidents and victims of sexual abuse. They will draft their initial reports and gather as much information as possible before passing the report on to their superiors to start investigating the incident. They will also provide the child with safety if there is a chance of the incident recurring. 

Get a lawyer

This is one of the most important decisions that you need to make during this ordeal. Hiring an experienced lawyer who has dealt with such cases before will help you and your family get through these difficult times, and you can learn more about what it is exactly they do through a little research. They will help you take appropriate legal action and demand maximum penalties be enforced on the perpetrator as well as any individuals that might have enabled this happening. More importantly, an experienced sexual abuse attorney will help the child avoid any more traumatizing experiences like having to testify in open court and putting them through a host of other ordeals that they simply cannot stand. Moreover, they would help the victims get financial compensation whenever possible to ensure they get the best psychiatric and/or physical treatment possible.

Legal tips 

• Do not interfere 

Whether it was your child or another’s that suffered from sexual abuse, you need to be extremely careful with how you approach the matter. For starters, you should not try to investigate the matter on your own. Leave that to experienced attorneys and policemen. Don’t even try to investigate the physical signs if they are not visible in daily interactions. Subjecting the child to random scrutiny can put them in further trauma and pain.

• Go with the civil justice system

This is the choice that most experienced sexual abuse attorneys would recommend; here’s why. Victims of sexual abuse can go in one of two directions, the criminal or the civil justice system. The problem with the former is the fact that it is considered a crime against the state and the process is basically to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused individual. The civil system on the other hand grants much more control to the victim, and they are the ones that get to make decisions that will determine how the case will unfold. In civil cases, a preponderance of evidence is what’s needed to prove guilt. Victims can choose to sue, settle, or go to trial, which definitely makes things much easier for the families because they have options. 

It is one of the most difficult experiences a person can go through, and whether it was you or a child you know that went through this trauma, get help. Surround the victim by loved ones and meet experienced therapists to help you and your family move on with your life beyond this trauma.