Preface

Sexual crime is a global public health problem that affects the lives of numerous individuals. A multidisciplinary effort involving many professionals is required to prevent these types of crimes. The establishments involved in sexual assault case identification and victim rehabilitation include the legal system, medical institutions, and law enforcement. In addition to the lawyers, prosecutors, and judges of the legal system, medical experts are often involved as well. It is essential for all parties to be well informed and cooperate in order to deal with cases of sexual assault.

Correct and effective coordination of the various parties is integral to dealing with cases of sexual assault. Any case of this type should involve both identification of the perpetrator and rehabilitation of the victim. Specifically, shame and embarrassment, self-blame, and fear of exposure are among the problems that survivors encounter. Thus, victim rehabilitation should involve supportive care in a healing environment. Various medical specialties that should be involved even in a single case are forensic pathology, gynecology, pediatrics, forensic psychiatry, clinical psychiatry, physiology, dentistry, forensic toxicology, and forensic genetics. The coordination of all these is a seriously difficult task and the victims frequently complain about being re-victimized following the disclosure of an assault. Although most countries around the world have made serious efforts to prevent sexual crime, it is difficult to find a model where the goal has been reached. Therefore, researching and publishing on the subject is challenging.

In general terms, the main target is to achieve an effective prevention program to find a definite solution to the social problem. However, this is extremely difficult due to numerous factors, one of which is the fact that diverse cultures require different strategies to cope with sexual violence. Therefore, a single model will not be suitable for all cases, and societies need to develop their own strategies according to their own needs.

The standardized, objective, timely, and compassionate management of sexual assault in the interdisciplinary approach employed in this book will provide data helpful for civil or governmental authorities to organize prevention strategies.

This book is a compilation of chapters on the multidimensional and highly complicated problem of sexual crime to help facilitate a solution. It brings together the work of distinguished scholars from diverse academic disciplines. It is organized into two sections: "The Behavioral Aspects of Sexual Crimes" and "Responding to Sexual Abuse/Assault".

In the first section, there are chapters on female offenders in child sexual abuse, school employees as perpetrators, marital rape in different categories of cultures, and women's empowerment in the context of sexual violence in India. The section also addresses cyber-digital relationship abuse as a new form of dating violence.

In the second section, chapters address child abuse in various countries, intervention strategies for promoting recovery (e.g., one-stop sexual assault center model), and abuse in humanitarian disasters.

I would like to thank all the contributors for their remarkable efforts in providing their valuable knowledge and data.

I would also like to thank Sotirios Kalfoglou for his constant support and invaluable suggestions on the overall organization of the book.

> **Ersi Kalfoğlu** Faculty of Medicine, Department of Forensic Medicine, Istanbul Yeni Yüzyıl University, Istanbul, Turkey
