New Rhetoric: The Concept Of "Sexual Offense" Needs To Overcome The Concept Of “Sexual Abuse"

Abstract

This article will address the need to change the nomenclature to refer to the crime of sexual violence against children and adolescents, showing how pernicious it is to maintain the vernacular sexual abuse for the protection of childhood and adolescence. The article will show the reasons why this proposal for a change of mentality has been suggested for more than a decade by this author (Werner 2009 and 2010), as well as the gains that this exchange will bring to this population so vulnerable. This article suggests that the word sexual abuse be exchanged for the word sexual offense to correctly designate the crime of sexual violence against children and adolescents, so that the Doctrine of Integral Protection, which international law proclaims and that Brazil is a signatory, is, in fact, fulfilled.