Violência sexual familiar: significados da experiência vivida por duas crianças de 7 anos

Abstract

State, national and international statistics reveal both the epidemic and endemic characteristics of criminality expressed as family sexual violence against children. The Sentinela ( Sentry ) Programme Against Abuse and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Teenagers , part of the Avança Brasil (government plan coordinated by the Brazilian Ministry of Planning) concerned with implementing and executing the Child and Teenager Statute, shows the depth of this problem. By using the technique of family drawing with storytelling, the present work carries qualitative phenomenological research about the meanings that the victim child lives. This procedure facilitates the graphic and verbal externalisation of psychological and traumatic contents defensively kept in silence. Analysis of the obtained results confirms the existent studies about the harmful effects that the investigated experience causes. Besides, it reveals new aspects about the matter, such as: sense of lack of family protection, especially by the mother s side family, before the abuse; and fear that it may happen again, for the same reason. These new views about the problem can help to richly reformulate the existing policies.