Children’s bodies aren’t like automobiles with the assailant’s fingerprints lingering on the wheel. The world of sexual abuse is quintessentially secret. It is the perfect crime.
The following quote by, Beatrix Campbell, a British journalist, is from her book, Unofficial Secrets, ch. 2 (1988). In the book’s introduction, Campbell quotes a police source on the subject: “Sexual abuse is like a corpse on a slab, saying nothing. You’ve got nothing to go on. It’s a police officer’s nightmare. You just want it to go away.”
It is true the predator leaves little traceable makes and links in regards to porn, and the sexual abuse on the bodies of children of children often show little evidence which can be followed in which to catch those who have victimized them. However the scars they leave on the mental psyche of a child never fade, they cannot be wiped away with time. While the flashes and nightmares of abuse may lessen with time, there are marks of abuse the will always remain and they affect all who are around a survivor of abuse, for the abuse of a child shapes the future of adulthood. Thus while sexual abuse may in a sense be the perfect crime, and appear to be unstoppable, it is not hopeless, for ending the demand for children must also become the primary focus.
