title: Children and adolescents victimized by sexual abuse in the city of Rio de Janeiro: an appraisal of cases.
abstract: Physical and/or sexual abuse, negligence, and psychological abuse against children and adolescents, constitute a socially important syndrome, demanding preventive public policies and rules for its eradication. Sexual abuse, as a troublesome occurrence, or even its mere presumption, does not regularly undergo official notification. We have examined legal investigative registers at the Instituto Médico-Legal do Rio de Janeiro - Sede set up from January to March 2000, including women, children and adolescents, with medico-legal histories suggestive of sexual assault. From a sample of 1419 cases, we selected those involving vaginal coitus or other libidinous practices, with an upper age limit of 17 years, reducing our sample to 44 subjects. 84.09% of the assaults occurred between ages 0 and 14 years. In 62.36% of the studied cases there was no mention about perpetrators. Material for laboratory researches had not been collected in 84.09% of the cases. There is any lesions in 70.45% of the sample.
authors.affiliation: Science in Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Department of Pathology of the Medical Science Center of the Federal Fluminense University, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. naded@superig.com.br
authors.forename: Naura Liane
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: de Oliveira Aded
authors.forename: Silvia Falcão
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Bruno Luis Galluzzi
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: da Silva Dalcin
authors.forename: Talvane Marins
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: de Moraes
authors.forename: Maria Tavares
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Cavalcanti
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003075:Coitus; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D033062:Friends; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012042:Registries; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013094:Spermatozoa