Sexually abused children carrying STDs

FIONA GOODALL/East and Bays Courier

AT RISK: Child victims of sexual abuse are presenting with sexually transmitted diseases.

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Doctors are dealing with an horrific side affect of abuse - more children with sexually transmitted diseases.

Instances of chlamydia, gonorrhoea, pelvic inflammatory disease and genital warts are all increasing and doctors blame child abuse.

The children have contracted diseases as a result of sexual abuse, often at the hands of relations or care givers.

Doctors say the statistics show nearly 7 percent of abused children get a sexually transmitted disease, and since many abuse cases go unreported, they suspect the true figures are much worse.

In Auckland between 1991 and 2002 14 cases of gonorrhoea were confirmed in young children, and in the 20 cases of chlamydia, four patients were five or six-year-old girls. An eight-year-old girl had both.

"People think these are low figures but we need to realise only one in six children who present with suspected sexual abuse actually gets a medical examination," Te Puaruruhau child abuse unit clinical director Patrick Kelly says.

A paediatrician, he says silence allows the problem to be ignored.

Dr Kelly's Grafton Rd unit brings police, the hospital and Child, Youth and Family together.

He says in 13 of the 14 gonorrhoea cases the children had not been taken to the doctor for sexual abuse, but instead for genital symptoms, and the disease was picked up on a routine swab.

"There are no numbers yet to support our belief that significantly more cases could exist. But we all know the majority of sexual abuse cases are not even disclosed.

"When a child is found to have a sexual disease the repercussions for the family are enermous, especially if no one owns up," he says.

"The effect is felt by the whole family because they are all investigated."

Dr Kelly says there are sometimes lifelong consequences for abused children.

Another problem was people's belief that the medical examination of a child was traumatic.

However, specialists dealing with children were well-trained and the examination was brief and non-invasive.

"We approach children as a whole person, not just as a victim of abuse," he says.

Often other health issues were also found because abused children rarely saw a doctor.

Statistics show 17 percent of girls and 4 percent of boys have been sexually abused by the time they are 16, and for 6 percent of girls that includes rape.

Between 1991 and 1998 three-year-old girls were most often referred for suspected sexual abuse, followed by two and four-year-old girls. The next most vulnerable age was 11 and then 14-year-old girls.

Dr Kelly says physical symptoms in children can be shortlived or trivial, but nearly always show in some way.

"While it simply may not occur to most people to consider sexual diseases when dealing with children, in the climate of child abuse we have here, it certainly should."

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