Sexual Abuse as Another Hidden Problem

Abstract

Henry Kempe considered sexual abuse to be just as common as physical abuse and neglect, yet felt that it was receiving insufficient professional and social attention while children and young people were suffering extensively and had been left without care from child-care professionals. Henry’s 1978 paper covered the protean presentations of sexual abuse vividly, with examples of physical complaints, diseases, mental health presentations, addictions, as well as the disruption of socialization and sexual development. Henry Kempe forced a reluctant professional community to acknowledge the problem of sexual abuse of children, and our inadequate response to it to date, forging the way for many of us who followed to make further contributions, and for that we owe a considerable debt to his efforts and his courage as expressed in this address and subsequent paper.