Essay On Childhood Sexual Assault

Criticism of This Policy It is commendable that the State of Illinois has so much progress in advocating for survivors or childhood sexual abuse and assault. However, this progress does have criticisms. Many critics of this policy argue that this will result it false claims of childhood abuse and assault. Those who oppose this law believe that it will be taken advantage of and may be used to get revenge on someone.
While this policy is a major step forward in terms of advocating for survivors of childhood sexual assault and abuse there are still some questions to be raised about how the court proceedings will play out. For one, by the time the victim is an adult there usually is no longer physical evidence of the horrible crime that has been committed against them. Unless the perpetrator was atrocious enough to document the even through video or photography, the prosecution must rely on the testimony of the survivor. While it is a fact that survivors of sexual assault and abuse should always have their testimonies believed, this is not always a reality. During their testimony, they will …show more content…
Not only do social workers administer this policy by bringing awareness to their clients who have faced abuse but they played a role in the development as well. One of the main reason that this legislation was changed was the increased awareness about the nature of survivors of childhood sexual abuse and assault. Changes to this law were made in response to the increased awareness that symptoms and memories of childhood sexual and abuse at times do not arise until adulthood. Based on their work with their clients, counselors were the first to become aware of this fact. Therefore, social workers had an extremely important role in increasing knowledge around the topic of the manifestation of symptoms and memories in survivors of sexual abuse and