Child Sexual Abuse: Legal Frame, Mechanisms and Future Challenges in the Republic of Macedonia
Child Sexual Abuse: Legal Frame, Mechanisms and Future Challenges in the Republic of Macedonia

Summary/Abstract: Child sexual abuse is а destructive socio - pathological and criminogenous phenomenon that has recently emerged as an extremely serious social danger. Increased evidence of pedophilia and sexual abuse is not only a result of the growing awareness for their reporting, but is mostly implicated by the inertia of the legal authorities and the lack of their constructive protection policy. In most cases, victimized children suffer long lasting psychological and psycho - social consequences. The growing common awareness of the social implications of this danger emphasizes the need for intensifying measures and activities in the legal domain above all, in order to coordinate and comprehensively response. The Republic of Macedonia in its efforts to meet the demands of the ratified international conventions, continuously harmonizes the domestic legislative with the EU regulations and directives, especially the Criminal Code by increasing the penalties for the child abuse perpetrators. However, for the purpose of prevention and protection against child sexual abuse, a coordinated social reaction is essential. This implies existence of protective interventions system which will primarily cover different levels of prevention, detection and recognition of the abuse, providing the children direct legal, health, socio - psychological care and rehabilitation as well as proper treatment of the perpetrators. This paper, using the normative, inductive method, the method of historical analysis and the method of comparison child sexual abuse analysis, deals with the issue of child sexual abuse in terms of legal aspects, especially the ratified international conventions and the specific measures and instruments provided by the Criminal Code of the Republic of Macedonia. Noted are detected deficiencies and proposed are measures for overcoming them.

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