Psychological studies carried out in the city of Tarija, through psychological expertise on victims of child sexual abuse, show that it is a phenomenon that is always accompanied by psychological discomfort. The objective was to identify the psychological consequences of sexual abuse in a groupof 39 childrenand adolescents of both sexes, victims of this crime, who filed a criminal complaint and were victimologically evaluated through psychological forensic expertise in the period of time from 2002 to 2012, using three variables: intellectual level, personality and affective-emotional aspects, for which used the expertise supported by the judicial investigation processes. The results showed that sexual violation implies interference in the evolutionary development of the child.Their traumatic experiences are usually livedas an attack on his integrity, an attack on his body, his psychological state, his sexuality, his integrity, where his integrity, his dignity and freedom are affected to a variable degree. Immediate attention to the victim and her family being a public responsibility.

Keywords: victim, child sexual abuse, psychological consequences, symptoms

We were all children once, it's something we all have in common. Many of us have children or are involved in some way in the life of a child. We want children to grow up to be happy, healthy, healthy and productive adults. We want them to prosper. Children constitute both the present and the future. They represent the next generation of fathers and mothers; of grandfathers and grandmothers; of people in charge of caring for adults and children; of teachers; of doctors; of police officers; of judges; of community, religious and political leaders; and people responsible for decision-making. How we respond to violence against children today will have direct consequences for families and societies in the future. We must protect the integrity of childhood today and in the future. Violence in the lives of children can manifest itself in a direct or indirect way. But in all cases, it has devastating consequences. Day after day, children are exposed to domestic violence suffered by other members of their families. According to the results of the 2016 INE Prevalence and Characteristics of Violence Against Women Survey, 45% of the women considered stated that they had experienced a situation of violence in the last 12 months, of which 15% reported being victims of sexual violence, despite despite the important legislative reforms undertaken by the Bolivian state to eradicate this social scourge. As indicated by Pereda¹ child sexual abuse is a serious public health problem that, in most cases, interferes with the proper development of the victim who suffers it and has a negative impact on their physical and psychological state.

As Rodríguez et al.,² express it, child sexual abuse does not only occur in marginal populations but encompasses all cultures and all social classes and the most frequent area where abuse occurs is the family environment, which makes its most problematic approach. The closer the act of abuse is to the family, the more difficult it is to work with, taking into account in the case of small children or people with disabilities, the information only comes through third parties. Rodríguez et al.,² cite that in Latin America, 1 in 5 children are abused by a close family member, in more than 50% there is evidence of incestuous situations; 80% are friends, neighbors or relatives¹ indicates that this is not a recent problem. To a greater or lesser extent, childhood abuse is a historical constant that occurs in all cultures and societies and in any social stratum, constituting a universal and complex problem, resulting from an interaction of individual, family, and social factors, social and cultural that can even lead to the death of the minor³ explains that although anyone can be a victim of sexual abuse, there are some risk factors directly related to the child such as age, gender, physical appearance, being an unwanted or adopted child, disability, having greater needs affective or indirect, such as the presence of men outside the family, absence of marital harmony, drug-dependent or alcoholic parents, low socioeconomic status, large families and promiscuity in the family.

According to the definition of García et al.,⁴ sexual abuse takes place when the child is subjected by another person to sexual practices that do not correspond to their development and that at no time can they give their consent, these practices are They are characterized by sexual touching or caressing, requests to perform sexual activities, exhibitionism, exposure or use of the minor to generate pornographic material. Rape is understood as vaginal, anal or oral penetration with the penis or any other type of object, abruptly, with physical and emotional violence and control of the situation through the use of force. As Benítez et al.,⁵ indicates, research into child sexual abuse is a difficult task when it comes to revealing objective statistics, because culturally and socially the topic is treated secretly for those involved in the act. Likewise, it is noted that sexual abuse in childhood is the one that has caused the greatest social, psychological and political repercussions in recent years. To this situation we must add what is indicated by Rodríguez et al.,⁶ that in many cases of sexual abuse they are not reported for reasons that the victim is subject to a situation of emotional or financial dependence on the aggressor and in order to avoid feelings of guilt and shame, fear of being blamed for the situation and because they fear that the abuser will hurt them again, they avoid reporting the aggression suffered.

The psychological consequences of childhood sexual abuse related to this experience can last throughout the evolutionary cycle and configure, in adulthood, the long-term effects of sexual abuse developed from the two years following the experience of abuse. García, et al.,⁴ indicate that in the mental aspect short-term manifestations such as acute stress or anxiety occur. In the medium and long term, various mental disorders such as post-traumatic stress, depression, ideation, attempted or completed suicides, among others, may occur. For Acuña et al.,³ the consequences derived from sexual abuse in minors could be classified into those observed in the short or long term; or, depending on the area that is affected, that is, whether they are physical, psychological, mental, social or sexual¹ highlights that relationship problems are one of the areas most affected by victims of child sexual abuse: the social relationship with peers and adults, whether belonging to the family or strangers, given the rupture that the experience of sexual abuse implies the trust of the victim.

On the other hand, Benítez et al.,⁵ states that the consequences of sexual abuse in the case of children and adolescents are usually related to the development of behavioral problems, family complications and school problems, while the social impact is linked to the increase in the budget for the comprehensive treatment of victims and their families by the judicial systems. Regarding the theories that have been proposed to explain sexual assault in general, including sexual assault against adults, the present work will focus here on the main explanatory theories of child sexual abuse. Ward and Hudson (1998) developed a meta-theoretical approach that identifies three levels of a theory. Level I theories are multifactorial and represent the weight of factors for understanding sexual offending. Level II theories are single factor theories in which a single factor and its supporting structures and their interrelationships are evaluated. Level III theories are highly specific descriptive models of offending or relapse into offending behavior.⁷ This section will focus on the main Level I multifactorial theories that have most influenced research in this field.

Finkelor model

Andreu Nicuesa⁷ indicates that Finkelor (1984) developed a four-factor model in which he examines how individual psychological characteristics and socialization processes combine to facilitate child abusive behavior. In his work he describes four factors that necessarily anticipate abusive behavior. These factors are:

Factor 1: Emotional Congruence: This question places emphasis on a subject with low self-esteem, with poor social skills, who encounters difficulties in relationships with peers.

Factor 2: Sexual Arousal by minors: At this point the author points out that it is early sexual experiences, or the fact of having been sexually abused in childhood, or coming from a physically or emotionally abusive family or having been exposed to sexual stimuli in childhood the factors that favor sexual arousal towards minors.

Factor 3: blockage: Finkelor identifies here factors of the individual's development, such as psychodynamic or oedipal conflicts, which prevent normalized sexual development, and other situational factors such as breakup, absence or disagreements with the adult partner.

Factor 4: Disinhibition: The author includes factors such as the consumption of alcohol or other substances, old age, psychosis, stressful situations for the subject such as unemployment, family separation, cultural factors that favor a dominant cultural system and the use of child pornography.

From these factors, Filkelor identifies four preconditions necessary for abuse to occur based on the four factors described above.⁷

These are:

Precondition 1: Sexual Motivation to child abuse: Based on the first three factors

Precondition 2: Overcoming of internal inhibitions: Factors such as stress, substance use, cultural factors, organic factors that affect impulse control or poor impulse control or cognitive distortions justifying child sexual abuse.

Precondition 3: Overcoming external inhibitors: Use of strategies to reach the victim, through deception, manipulation, seduction, or taking advantage of living conditions or proximity.

Precondition 4: Overcoming the child's resistance: Abusers subject the minor to graduated exposure to sexual stimuli, which favors the child's acceptance of the abusive behavior. The abuser may use emotional blackmail, seduction, or force.

Faller's integrative model

Moreno Manso⁸ indicates that Faller's (1993) integrative model differentiates between the conditions conducive to sexual abuse and the factors that contribute to the appearance of sexual abuse but do not cause it. The following conditions are conducive to sexual abuse: factors that refer to the current social system (specific education for each sex, rigid distribution of roles, power/dependence relations and sexualization of relationships), biographical factors (of the personal lives of victimsand aggressors who, in certain circumstances, can favor the emergence of a situation of sexual abuse; in relation to the victims: difficult family relationships and servitude in the face of authority; in relation to the abuser: history as a victim of sexual abuse, personal undervaluation and problems functioning in society); family factors, given the frequency of intrafamilial family abuse (incest).

From the analysis of these models we can deduce that Finkelhor's work foresees factors that apply to a large number of abusers and has contributed to a better understanding of abusive dynamics. He takes into account both some characteristics of the abuser and specific situational aspects of the moment he is experiencing. He has made important contributions to both the assessment and treatment of abusive subjects. However, it does not explain why, sometimes, non-sexual needs are expressed through sexual behaviors.

On the other hand, Faller's model is an integrative explanation that covers factors such as personal (sexual activation towards the child), cultural (domination of men, sexuality of men, role of women), family (marital conflict,bad sexual relations,non-protective mother), environmental (social isolation, unemployment, unsupervised access to the child), personality (low self-esteem, consumption of toxic substances, poor social skills) and biographical (traumatic sexual experiences without emotional care).

Through these theories, some personal components have been established such as emotional dysregulation, social skills deficits, empathy deficits, sexual arousal towards children, cognitive distortions, low self-esteem and others that have expanded knowledge about the causes of child abuse.and provided for interventionand treatment of sexual abusers. However, as Andreu Nicuesa⁷ indicates, in all of them the weight is placed on personal components or biographical or situational circumstances of the abuser. None of them take into account the interaction of the abusive behavior with the minor's response. Furthermore, child sexual abuse is conceptualized as a whole, as a single behavioral category, without differentiating into the various sexual behaviors that can occur during these offenses against minors. For the purpose of this research, it is considered that the models of Finkelhor (1984) and Faller (1993) are the most revealing that explain child sexual abuse and are widely adapted to the cases and context in which the present study was developed.

Risk factors for sexual violence

Sexual violence does not occur in isolation; risk factors, rooted in injustice and social disparity, link sexual violence to other forms of violence around the world. Risk factors transcend limits and occur in individual, social, cultural and economic contexts. Social factors that contribute to the incidence of sexual violence and cause increased risk for certain groups include:

1. Lack or Precarious Situation of Services and Sanctions: The National Sexual Violence Resuorce Center (NSVRC)⁹ expressed that community tolerance of sexual violence is demonstrated by the lack of response of systems and services. The law does not recognize sexual violence that occurs in certain environments or forms. And the evidence provided by the victim is usually not enough for a conviction. In many places, victims do not report the incident for fear of being punished by the criminal justice system. This reality shown in this report is not foreign to Bolivia, where justice is totally punitive and does not have even a minimum percentage of reparative or rehabilitative action for the victim, contenting itself with punishing the aggressor and leaving the victim to her fate. A legal and institutional system lacking structural prevention policies that fight against this social scourge against children. A legal system that prioritizes the criminal process and does nothing to prevent the re-victimization of sexually assaulted girls and boys.
2. Poverty: Another factor highlighted by the NSVRC⁹ is that sexual violence impacts certain groups disproportionately. Poverty increases people's vulnerabilities to sexual exploitation in the workplace, schools, in prostitution, sex trafficking and drug trafficking. People with low economic status are at greater risk of violence, especially women and children. This situation described in the reference report is not alien to the reality that thousands of Bolivians experience due to the lack mostly of work that generates extreme poverty, poor quality of life, overcrowding, promiscuity, alcohol consumption and domestic violence, precursors of sexual assaults on children.
3. Alcohol Consumption: Sometimes, certain people suffer from secondary impotence because they worry intensely when they notice a normal reduction in sexual responsibility caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

It is known that alcohol suppresses appetite and appetite in men excitability sexual while ironically lowering their inhibitions. After drinking too much, a man may have a relationship, however, instead of attributing his lack of sexual arousal to too much drinking, he begins to worry about it and after some failures a desire may develop in his mind of sexual assault for the purpose of obtaining such satisfaction. In society at the national levelAlcohol consumption is already a public health problem with social, cultural and even religious connotations where all the activities that take place in these fields are mediated by indiscriminate consumption of alcohol, producing serious problems of domestic violence, femicides and sexual assaults to the detriment of of vulnerable sectors such as women and children, which is related to what was expressed by Finkelhor (1984). On the other hand, this situation has caused many aggressors to want to justify their aggression by alleging a state of unconsciousness due to drunkenness. As the author Quiroz says, alcohol acts as a deinhibitor of repressed desires, so it cannot be a mitigating factor; rather, it becomes a an aggravating circumstance.

4. Gender Inequality: In its report, The NSVRC⁹ states that sexual violence is more likely to occur in societies with more traditional gender roles, where the ideology of male superiority is deeply rooted, and emphasis is placed on predominance of physical strength and honor of men, rape is more common. Rozansky¹⁰ indicates that the patriarchal and androcentric paradigm is part of the socio-historical context that gave rise to these phenomena; characterized as a social system, where the authority is the father and the power relations are vertical, hierarchically, the important man is above the others. Rozansky¹⁰ states that it is understood that violence against children has its origin in gender violence, in the inequality of power between men and women, a phenomenon in which the most vulnerable are children, women and the elderly. This explains in part that in the majority of the cases investigated, the abused minors are girls and in general, it is a nearby adult man who exercises violence, and to this we must add that the Tarijeña population has a strong patriarchal and androcentric ideology.

Gonzales and Tuana (2011) say in this regard that sexual violence is one of the harshest expressions of gender and generation discrimination. We are all responsible for the validity of these educational and socialization models that place women, girls, boys and adolescents as the property of their partners, husbands, and parents. The paradigm of sexuality built around men generates disadvantages and inequity in all areas of life and is discriminatory and directly responsible for violence and victimization of women, boys and girls.¹¹ From what these authors have expressed, it can be seen how the validity of this model is maintained through an educational system and the socialization processes that are constituted in society today by maintaining behaviors of separation between men and women in the spheres of the sport, play, assigned roles of housewives, exclusive care of children in women, the man as head of the household who must work and support his family, physical strength as synonymous with superiority, exclusion of women in activities supposedly typical of men, all of this is maintained even in a clear inequality even in the work and political sphere despite the fact that the country has created laws against all types of discrimination and segregation of gender, age, economic condition and religious, etc. Instead of reducing or eliminating these practices, it shows their permanence and the difficulty in changing the paradigm.

Gilberti (1998) suggests that incest against the girl/daughter inaugurates, within the parameters of the age evolution of the woman, her sexual servitude to the man as a fact of socially instituted violence, whether concrete or symbolic; This violence is fueled by the representation that men have of themselves as members of a valued gender.¹¹ From what the author expressed we can understand that hierarchically the valued gender (men) is overestimated above the other gender (women), where the interests, rights and roles of each one are considered unequally, implying gender discrimination. . These power relations that imply gender discrimination are part of the vertical and paternalistic system, where the man takes control of the rest of the family members in all areas, including sexual matters. Tuana and González (2011) put it this way. Sexual abuse is a problem of power. It is not explained by an individual pathology of the abuser, nor by a social illness. Sexual abuse of a boy or girl by his or her father, for example, is a situation of violation of the rights of that particular boy and girl that is supported by a general context of legitimization of gender and generational violence.¹¹

As the authors express it, this violence is an invasion of various areas, spaces, the body of the victims, their subjectivity, their development in process and if added to this are the various gender stereotypes that influence the judicial process that reflect false conceptions how sexual violence occurs in its different forms, for example when considering that sexual assault can be committed without violence or intimidation, equating the victim's lack of physical resistance with consent to a sexual relationship or presuming the falsity of their testimony;sample two things, first a male point of view in the way the provisions are written and how they are interpreted; second, a disconnection from female experiences and forms of knowledge, in order to discredit them. All these guesses show an unfavorable outlook for women in a judicial system that leaves them unprotected against gender violence and re-victimizes them.

The objective of this work is to offer a review of the main psychological indicators or psychological consequences found in forensic psychological examinations in victims of child sexual abuse carried out by the author in the city of Tarija - Bolivia during the time period from 2002 to 2012. As Tejero et al.,¹² express it, the work of the psychologist, as an expert, must focus on the psychological analysis of the minor as an alleged victim of child sexual abuse, whether from the evaluation of possible injuries or clinical consequences in their sphere psychological or from the analysis of the credibility of the testimony and must avoid mixing expert work with assistance or therapy, for ethical and technical reasons.

Area

The present research work corresponds to the area of ​​legal and forensic psychology and more specifically falls within the subject of victimology which, as Pozueco Romero¹³ expresses, is the scientific study of victims or those individuals or groups who have suffered harm or loss, whether they are victims of a specific crime, widespread oppression, or a natural disaster. In the present case, we worked with interactionist victimology or criminal victimology, which is the study of the dynamics between victims and their aggressors and is limited to those who have been victims of a specific crime.

In this work, the type of victimization corresponds to primary, a process by which a person suffers, directly or indirectly, physical or psychological damage derived from a criminal act or traumatic event. It falls within the framework of expert practice and arises from expert cases in criminal jurisdiction. However, the psychological expert evaluation shows its own profile characterized by:

1. The person evaluated is immersed in a judicial process, which is the reason for the intervention of the forensic psychologist. There is, therefore, no voluntariness on the part of the subject of the examination or it is a voluntariness mediated by the defense strategy of his lawyer.
2. The objective of any psychological expert examination is to respond to the demand requested from the legal field, that is, to carry out an assessmentpsycho-legal from a technical point of view.
3. The psychological expert report as a legal document (means of proof) provided to a judicial procedure is subject to compliance with the principles that guarantee everything.process (publicity, orality, contradiction and immediacy), which constitute the basis for making effective the constitutional right to effective judicial protection.
4. TheThe term expert covers the concept of experienced, knowledgeable, practical, versed in an art or technique, legally authorized to give his opinion about something that is within his domain.
5. The points of expertise, so to speak, are at the apex of our task. It is the guiding axis on which we base our entire study; only those that are truly intertwined with the intertwined points will be included in the report.

The present investigation is retrospective in nature because it covers the study of psychological expertise on rape and sexual abuse of minors with and without disabilities in the time period from 2002 to 2012.

The scope of this research is descriptive as defined by Hernández Sampieri¹⁴ it seeks to specify important properties, characteristics and features of any phenomenon that is analyzed. Describes trends in a group or population. It serves to analyze what a phenomenon and its components are like and how they manifest themselves. It allows the studied phenomenon to be detailed basically through the measurement of one or more of its attributes. It identifies characteristics of the research universe, indicates forms of behavior and attitudes of the investigated universe, establishes specific behaviors and discovers and verifies the association between research variables. In accordance with the stated objectives, allowing the type of description that is proposed to be indicated. This study describes the frequency and the most important characteristics of a problem. The types of research are systems to obtain knowledge.

Research design

The term design refers to the plan or strategy designed to obtain the information desired in the quantitative approach to provide evidence regarding the research guidelines. (Hernández Sampieri, 2010) Within quantitative research, the type of design corresponding to this research is non-experimental, transectional or transversal¹⁴ characterizes transectional investigations as those that collect data at a single moment, at a single time. Its purpose is to discover variables and analyze their incidence and interrelation at a given moment, dividing them into exploratory, descriptive and causal-correlations. For the present research, it corresponds to a descriptive transectional design that, as defined by Hernández Sampieri¹⁴ investigates the incidence of the modalities, categories or levels of one or more variables in a population. They are purely descriptive studies. On certain occasions you can make comparative descriptions between groups or subgroups of people or indicators.

Study units

They are also called cases or elements, here the interest focuses on what or who, that is, on the participants, objects, events or communities of study.¹⁴ In the present investigation the units of analysis are the psychological expertise on sexual abuse of minors of both sexes in the period of time from 2002 to 2012, carried out and supported in a public oral trial by the author of this research carried out in the city of Tarija, Cercado Province.

Population or universe of study

The population or universe refers to any set of elements of which it is intended to investigate and know the characteristics of one of them, for which the conclusions obtained in the research will be valid. For this investigation, the population is made up of all the expert cases carried out by the researcher in the period 2002 to 2012 of minors with and without disabilities who suffered rape or sexual abuse of both sexes, between the ages of 6 years and 17 years reported in the city of Tarija, Cercado Province, who were sent for expert evaluation to the author's forensic office.

Population sample

It is the selection of a set of individuals that represent the entire universe under study, brought together as a valid and interesting representation for the investigation of their behavior. The criteria used for its selection guarantee that the selected set represents maximum fidelity to the whole, as well as making it possible to measure its degree of probability. In the present investigation, no type of sample was used since we worked with the entire universe, the study included 50 cases or psychological expertise of minors with and without disabilities, between the ages of 6 and 17 years in the period from 2002 to 2012, of which, 5 cases correspond to the male sex and 45 to the female sex corresponding to the city of Tarija, Cercado province.

Instruments

In this research, we have worked with standardized tests that measure specific variables and projective tests, which evaluate participants' projections and determine their status in a variable, with qualitative and quantitative elements that are detailed below:

The goodenough children's intelligence test

Since its appearance in 1926, the Goodenough Test has held a privileged place in any battery of tests. It is the most agile and economical instrument to measure the mental level of the child, individually or collectively, and both pedagogues and psychologists have not hesitated to choose it as one of their favorite tests due to its adaptation to the latest studies on the psychology of children's drawing (Xandro, 1996).

The raven progressive matrices test colored scale

Measures intelligence, intellectual capacity and general mental ability. Through comparison of shapes and reasoning by analogies. It is a lacunary, non-cultural, non-verbal, non-manual test, interesting and simple, it is economical in personnel, time and material since it can be used in various applications, with the exceptions of the response protocol. Because it is non-verbal, it applies to any person regardless of their language, education and verbal ability, even illiterate and deaf-mute people. Because it is non-manual, it can be applied to anyone regardless of their condition or motor capacity. Because it is non-cultural, acquired knowledge is not involved, so the level of schooling is not decisive in its application (Raven, 1998).

Koch tree drawing personality test

The Tree Test is a projective test of deep personality, through its different contents areas of personality are explored. It is a widely used technique both in clinical practice and in work practice. Assesses emotional stability and strengthyoica (Xandro, 1996).

Machover human figure test

It is a graphic test that consists of making a drawing of the complete human figure on a sheet of paper. This drawing allows us to analyze especially aspects of the subject's personality in relation to his self-concept, his body image and his current emotional state. The drawing of a person offers a natural means of expressing the needs and conflicts of their body. Thus the drawn figure is the person, the paper on which he draws represents the environment, in which personal experiences and their psychic representation, images of social and cultural stereotypes converge; acceptance or not of his life stage; identification and submission of one's own sex; emotional stability (Xandro, 1996).

Man in the rain test

The drawing of a person in the rain is not a test in the rigorous sense of the term, but a technique that arises from the clinical experience of an author whose paternity could not be established with certainty, by the American psychologist Arnold or Abraham Anchin. The differential variable proposed by this technique is to evaluate, through the quality and structure of the graph, the mental, emotional, instinctual, and instinctual reaction of a person in the situation. The concept of situation here has a specificity: a man in a situation of environmental tension, for this its authors chose a symbolic element to represent the tension or environmental pressure that is rain. Its administration is individual and collective for children and adults. Evaluates anxieties, fears, behavioral aspects that are activated in a situation of environmental pressure, the predominant defensive modality, and diagnoses or infers underlying psychopathological structures (Hidalgo, 2006).

Buck's house test

The House Test is a projective drawing technique in which the figure to be handled is obviously a house, which will reflect the individual's conflicts and object relationships, where the house also represents the concept of body image, indicators of conflicts and expression of defenses (Xandro, 1996).

This research work consists of the following stages:

Preparation of psychological expertise

Consisting of the execution of the expert requirement, it begins in:

1. Fiscal requirement for the appointment of a Forensic Psychological Expert by the Fiscal Agent assigned to the case by the Public Ministry and determination of the expert points to be evaluated.
2. Oath as Forensic Psychologist Expert before the Public Ministry.
3. In all cases, my person has been the officially appointed Forensic Psychological Expert and author of the Expert Reports.
4. Expertise carried out between the period of time from 2002 to 2012, by me as part of my functions as Director of the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities under the figure of institutional collaboration with the Public Ministry authorized by Express Rectoral Resolution.

The preparation of a Psychology Expertise includes the following phases:

1. Theoretical and methodological framework (evaluation strategy) based strictly on the required expert points.Duration time 1 day.
2. Review of documentation from the investigation notebook (victim's statement, police report, forensic medical report, social report, accusation and/or tax accusation). Duration time one (1) day.
3. Development of Psychological Expertise: Consisting of the application of the instruments and techniques defined for each expert point to the victim. Duration time two (2) days.
4. Preparation of the Expert Report and formal presentation to the Prosecutor assigned to the case. Duration time one (1) day.
5. Support and defense Expert Report in Oral Trial Public and Contradictory in a Sentencing Court. Duration time one day.
6. A Psychological Expertise takes approximately six (6) days to complete, in this investigation the estimate for carrying out the 50 Expertises is 300 days.

Documentary review of files

It consisted of:

1. Expertise selected between the period 2002 to 2012 prepared by the author that were supported and defended in public and adversarial oral proceedings and that have an enforceable sentence in each of the cases.
2. Number of cases: 50 psychological tests, of which 45 are female and 5 are male
3. Ages: 6 to 17 years.
4. Document review period of files 2017 - 2018
5. All original documentation is in the custody and power of the author of this study as he is the official expert appointed by judicial authority.
6. Written authorization and consent have not had to be obtained from the victims because the researcher is the author of the same and is in their legal custody. Furthermore, the names of victims, aggressors, or judicial actors have not been used anywhere.
7. Review of the selected psychological expertise in its aspects: general data of the victim, expert points, instruments used, results achieved and expert conclusions.
8. Review of variables such as: Sex and age of the victim, type of rape, sex of the aggressor, place of the incident and who reports it.
9. Review of background information linked to the reporting process, such as: tax request, victim's statement, legal medical report, social report, informative statement of the victim and the complainant, police report, accusation or tax accusation.
10. Review of applied psychometric and projective tests.
11. Review of the application of the forensic testimony credibility technique.
12. Collection of data from each of the areas under study such as: data related to the reporting process, effects or consequences at the level of personality, emotional affective and the credibility of the forensic testimony based on the review of the documents indicated above.
13. Collection of figures and percentages of the trends of each of the variables through a data matrix.
14. Review of specific literature on the topic and research that is related to the topic.

Analysis of quantitative data

The data analysis was carried out on the data matrix using a computer program that was SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

1. Descriptive statistics for each variable: The data, values ​​or scores obtained were described through the frequency distribution of each variable, complemented by the aggregation of the percentages valid cases in each category.
2. The frequency distribution was presented through histogram graphs.

The following results obtained in this research are presented below, which are explained according to the following aspects:

Intellectual level of the victim

The results presented in Table 1 show that 76% of the victims have normal, normal, clumsy and borderline levels of intelligence, with 64% of them being girls or adolescents. In the stories studied, it was observed that the abuse of adolescent girls is generally carried out by people close to the family system, which indicates that closeness and trust is what puts the minor at risk. Generally, it is thought that for sexual abuse to occur, it has a lot to do with the intellectual level, as a way to explain sexual abuse. In the study carried out, it was found that the majority of children - adolescents had a normal average intellectual level, which indicates that another characteristic dominates and that it would be given by the state of secrecy on the one hand or fear on the other. The above is telling us that the attachment phase is not necessary, since the trust is already given by the family, often being oblivious to what happens when they are alone with the abuser. What happens is that they send the adolescent girl to stay with them when they are busy.

When we talk about this point, it is necessary to consider that between the time in which the sexual abuse occurs and the time in which the complaint is opened, work on an emotional level by the abuser has occurred with the children-adolescents, which has undermined the possibility of speaking to caregivers. Blackmail, sowing fear, playing with the safety of the minor, makes her not speak. On the other hand, there are 24% of victims who present different levels of mental deficiency, of which 21% correspond to female adolescent girls. People with disabilities are those who have permanent or temporary restrictions in carrying out a psychological activity such as intelligence, which may result in a disadvantage, which would limit their participation in family and social life, which is influenced and which may be aggravated by the physical and social environment.

Children with disabilities are more dependent, forall the more impressionable than children without disabilities. The child may be less able to report the abuse, for example because of difficulty speaking, isolation or lack of social contact. The family may be providing less affection, so the child with a disability may easily accept a relationship as compensation or as a form of attention and friendship. It may be difficult for the child and distinguish between different forms of touch, when most of their body care is taken care of by other people. The girl or boy with a disability does not believe that they can have control over what happens; perhaps they are used to others deciding for them. They often have low self-esteem as a result of social or family messages of worthlessness, deficiency, or being a burden. They tend to be more eager for affection, which is interpreted by the abuser as consent to sexual violence. Families of children with disabilities tend to isolate themselves from other social groups as a result of shame and fear of rejection, which increases family stress levels and, with it, the probabilitymistreatment and abuse of children.

Effects of sexual abuse on personality traits

The results presented in Table 2 show that 33% of the sample of both victims with and without disabilities, present effects on the personality structure of insecurity that is expressed in a fear of a specific object (be it a person, a place or a situation). Any of these elements is identified as a cause of fear. Victims of sexual abuse tend to experience this insecurity weeks, sometimes months after the event, it is common for victims to feel insecure and think that something bad is going to happen. The fear persists for a long time after the events and is caused by various factors that remember the moment of the abuse.

The victim tends to think that the aggressor is going to harm them again by being alone in a place, the victim tends to think that someone is hiding in the dark, ready to attack them again. Loneliness tends to cause a lot of fear and insecurity. On the other hand, 21% of the population presents inhibited personality traits, or social introverts, since their emotional interests are directed above all to their inner world and their automatic reaction to new cases is to distance themselves from them, their judgment is more independent from public opinion and live with their thoughts and memories. They attach greater importance to intimate events, generally needing solitude, isolation, irritability and little sociability. They have a preference for subjective imagination, abstraction and expressions, reserved and masked, they are self-critical, sensitive and reflective activity is sometimes deferred to the point of passivity. And in 13% of the sample there is naivety or emotional immaturity, which is a lack of maturation of the inhibition of emotional relationships. The immature boy or girl responds to each situation with his or her own emotional values ​​and constitutes a way of adapting to the new situation that he or she lives in, and that does not respond to the parameters expected for his or her age.

Effects of sexual abuse on the affective-emotional plane

35% of the population who are victims of sexual abuse of both sexes, with or without disabilities, present as the main effect emotional instability that is characterized by a variation in feelings and emotional states, such as ups and downs of mood, for no reason or for insignificant causes. It manifests itself with periods of sadness and despondency, inability to experience pleasure, lack of interest in everything, boredom and irritability, inconsistency in persevering with a task or goal, low tolerance for frustration, weak emotional control, emotional dependence, low self-esteem, which feeds distrust in others.

Emotionally unstable people have great difficulty separating the different areas of their life: if they have family conflicts with their parents or siblings, they transfer them to the studio, or friends tend to be dependent and insecure, they need to rely on many pillars and as one fails, they are assaulted by a destructive feeling that radiates to other situations in their life, with their low threshold of tolerance for frustrations and few emotional resources, their emotional dependence is frequent. On the other hand, we have 18% of the population that shows effects of anxiety, which is expressed in shame, guilt, fear of punishment or loss of affection on the part of the offender, including fear of breakup and loss of home. These fears are reinforced and suggested by direct threats from the aggressors or participants.

The child lives two contradictory realities, either the responsible adults are figures full of evil, incapable of loving and preserving him, intolerable feelings or thoughts with respect to people from whom he expects the opposite given their helplessness, or, he himself feels bad, dirty and deserving of punishment. He usually chooses the second option to survive emotionally. To all this, we must add the fear caused by the consequences of his complaint, confronting as real the very imaginary threatening fears, parental divorce, economic abandonment, etc. In many cases, there is an increase in abuse due to having reported, re-victimization can be added here if there is institutional mismanagement of the child who has revealed his case, and he may even try to withdraw his report.

Another effect in 15% is the feeling of lack of protection and helplessness since as the child discovers the meaning of what happened, feelings of deep lack of protection paralyze him, he remains immobile and unable to resign himself, even if the mother is nearby. , this feeling provides the very essence of helplessness and prejudice in the adult world. His defenses are nullified, leading to disillusionment, hopelessness and exaggeration of his own responsibility and therefore to feelings of guilt about the events.

What is expected for a child is to distrust strangers, kidnappers, criminals, which leaves the true most immediate danger in the background: the betrayal of vital relationships, the abandonment of guardians and the annihilation of the basic security that provides family. He cannot form the idea that a father can be cruel and seek his own advantage without his mental health being endangered. In this way, an inevitable fragmentation of traditional moral values ​​occurs: lying in order to keep a secret becomes the best of virtues, while telling the truth ends up being the worst of sins. A child thus victimized will give the impression that he accepts or seeks to be sexually assaulted, in the cases of systematically abused children who never reported it (Table 3).

Sexual violence is not only linked to people with intellectual disability problems, but it covers a broad spectrum in which the condition of double vulnerability of the dependent child and their inability to defend and denounce the crime and being a woman is visualized. This makes this population prone to being the target of sexual assaults because they are more accessible and manipulable in every sense, emotionally and socially. Much more accentuated in a sexist society that conceives women as sexual objects and not as human beings with all the rights inherent to their condition.

In our research it is evident that the impact on boys and girls is similar in their degree of intelligence, showing that the typology of the victims focuses on the variables of young people of both sexes because they are considered weak and vulnerable in that period of development, being an easy victim of an attack, on the other hand the variable woman because she is considered the weaker sex, because she is culturally conditioned to accept male authority and believe that her worth is subordinated to her sexuality. Therefore, in this classification of victims, a criterion of age asymmetry or maturational inequality is generated, which prevents the minor's true freedom of decision and makes shared sexual activity impossible since the participants have experiences, degree of biological maturity and expectations about very different sexual relationships. On the other hand, a criterion of coercion is presented that refers to sexual contact maintained with a minor through the use of manipulation, pressure, authority and deception and must be considered a behavior of sexual abuse, regardless of age of the perpetrator.

Regarding the psychological effects of sexual violence in children, Pereda (2009) indicates that symptoms of anxiety and depression are observed between 4 and 44% in males and between 9 and 41% in female victims of sexual abuse. The most affected area is that of social relationships in their relationship with their peers and adults given the rupture that the experience of sexual abuse implies in the trust of the victim in which 43% of them stated that they had few friends compared to non-victim minors with 11%.

Acuña³ on the other hand, states that victims have a greater tendency to present depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders, suicide, suicidal ideation, low self-esteem, enuresis, encopresis, eating disorders, emotional lability, aggressiveness, emotional dysregulation, feelings of guilt, stigmatization and the difficulty of trusting other people. There are factors that can enhance the severity of the consequences, such as sexual contact with family members, minors, and the intensity and duration of the abuse.

Rodríguez et al.,² highlights that in a large part of the victims of childhood sexual abuse the presence of self-harming behaviors, suicidal ideas, suicide attempts and low self-esteem. Detected in 72% of the sample with the varied presence of one emotional problem or another. Continuing with this author, he indicates that 100% of the cases present difficulties in establishing relationships with peers, isolation and social anxiety, fewer friends and social interactions, as well as low levels of participation in community activities.

In this same line of analysis, Almonte et al.,¹⁵ express that the experience of sexual abuse in the victim can have a negative impact on their psychosexual, emotional, social and moral development. Sometimes the consequences of abuse can remain and be reactivated throughout the victim's life. Similarly,¹⁶ citing the results of the research by Ellis, Atkeson and Calhoun, indicates that victimized women exhibited a higher incidence of depression, less enjoyment of daily activities and more maladjusted interpersonal functioning; Likewise, they also showed more fears and nightmares than the control group.

Of the research presented above, all of them have a common denominator: psychological affectation in victims of sexual assault in both sexes, with the emotional and behavioral areas being the most affected, such as depression, anxiety, emotional lability, aggressiveness, stigmatization, feelings of guilt, stress post-traumatic, inhibition and others, although it is difficult to make a complete list of the psychological consequences that sexual abuse can cause in victims, it is feasible to list those that are cited most frequently in the detection of cases treated such as those indicated previously.

It is also evident that it is very difficult to determine a common pattern of affectation for all victims and this is due to the different variables that come into play in this problem, such as the type and intensity of the abuse, the age of the victim, whether the abuse itself It is intrafamilial, and due to the characteristics of each individual who, based on their developing personality, perceives and feels differently from one case to another. Another aspect to take into account in the discussion is that many of these investigations are located in a phase of regression of the victimization process after a period of time after the traumatic event and during which the victim tries to accept or adapt to the crime and reintegrate his personality. Therefore, they go to mental health care services showing the long-term effects or sequelae produced by the aggression. These consequences will depend on factors such as the victim's structure, the containment and support capacity of his or her family environment, and the response of the judicial system.

In the case of our investigation, it corresponds to a psychological forensic expertise that is applied immediately after the alleged crime has been committed, that is, a primary victimization in which a person suffers, directly, physical or psychological damage derived from the commission of a criminal act. Therefore, the responses issued by those evaluated correspond to an impact phase that occurs immediately after the criminal event. Therefore, the psychological consequences detected correspond to short-term consequences. Such as emotional insecurity, which is a feeling of discomfort, nervousness associated with a multitude of contexts, which can be triggered by the perception that oneself is vulnerable and instability that threatens one's own self-image. Affective inhibition characterized as the difficulty in identifying and expressing emotions and feelings that in some cases can generate a total dissociation with the emotional world. Emotional instability that is expressed through the expression of relatively abrupt changes in the person's emotional state and anxiety as a state of emotional agitation, disturbance, anguish that the child cannot control and that ends up affecting the child's behavior. .

Regarding the sex variable, no significant differences have been found in the degree of affectation between men and women and it is consistent with the studies cited, this shows us that the experience of sexual abuse produces significant short and long term damage, altering the important and in some cases irreversibly the normal cycle of psychological development of children, producing disturbances that alter their intimate, social and family life.

Not all people react in the same way to the experience of victimization, nor do all experiences share the same characteristics. The emotional impact of a sexual assault is modulated by four variables: the individual profile of the victim (psychological stability, age, sex and family context); the characteristics of the abusive act (frequency, severity, existence of violence or threats, chronicity, etc.); the existing relationship with the abuser; and, finally, the consequences associated with the discovery of abuse. In general, the severity of the consequences depends on the frequency and duration of the experience, as well as the use of force and threats or the existence of rape itself (vaginal, anal or oral penetration). Thus, the more chronic and intense the abuse, the greater the development of a feeling of helplessness and vulnerability and the more likely the appearance of symptoms.

Regarding the relationship between the victim and the aggressor, what matters is not so much the degree of kinship between them, but rather the level of emotional intimacy that exists. In this way, the greater the degree of intimacy, the greater the psychological impact, which can worsen if the victim does not receive support from the family or is forced to leave home. On the other hand, with regard to the age of the aggressor, sexual abuse committed by adolescents is, in general, less traumatizing for the victims than that committed by adults. The importance of the consequences derived from the disclosure of the abuse in the type and intensity of the symptoms experienced cannot be ignored. The reaction of the environment plays a fundamental role. Parental support - giving credence to the minor's testimony and protecting him - especially from the mother, is a key element for victims to maintain or recover their level of general adaptation after the disclosure. Probably the feeling of being believed is one of the best mechanisms to predict the evolution to normality of child victims of sexual abuse.

The influence of additional stressful situations, as a consequence of the revelation of the abuse, on the emotional stability of the victim is still significant. Specifically, the possible breakup (legal or de facto) of the couple, the imprisonment of the father or stepfather, the departure of the victim from the home (sometimes the only way to guarantee their safety, but which entails a significant emotional and adaptation cost) or involvement in a judicial process (with possible criminal consequences for the abuser) are some of these situations. Regarding the last point mentioned, long trials, repeated testimony and questioned testimonies imply secondary victimization and offer a worse prognosis.

For all this, as García Piña et al.,⁴ concludes, sexual rape implies interference in the evolutionary development of the child. It is a traumatic experience that is usually experienced as an attack on one's integrity, an attack on one's body, one's psychological state, one's sexuality, one's integrity, where one's integrity, one's dignity and one's freedom are affected to a varying degree. Immediate attention to the victim and her family being a public responsibility.^17–19

1. Sexual violence is not only linked to people with intellectual disability problems, but also covers a broad spectrum in which the condition of double vulnerability of the dependent child is visualized.
2. The impact on boys and girls is similar in their degree of intelligence, showing that the typologies of the victims focus on the young person variables of both sexes because they are considered weak and vulnerable in that period of development.
3. From the results obtained from our research and in relation to other research, a common denominator is found, which is the psychological affectation in victims of sexual assault in both sexes, with the emotional and behavioral areas being the most affected, such as depression, anxiety. , emotional lability, aggressiveness, stigmatization, feelings of guilt, post-traumatic stress, inhibition.
4. It is evident that it is very difficult to determine a common pattern of affectation for all victims and this is due to the different variables that come into play in this problem, such as the type and intensity of the abuse, the age of the victim, whether It is intrafamilial, and due to the characteristics of each individual who, based on their personality in formation, perceives and feels differently from one case to another.
5. Regarding the sex variable, no significant differences have been found in the degree of affectation between men and women and it is consistent with the studies cited, this shows us that the experience of sexual abuse produces significant damage in the short and long term in the psychological development of children.
6. In general, the severity of the consequences depends on the frequency and duration of the experience, as well as the use of force and threats or the existence of rape itself (vaginal, anal or oral penetration).

None.

The author declares there is no conflict of interest.

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