Clinical experience from the treatment of 350 sex offenders in Norway shows that sexual offences are related to factors early in life, and sexual offensive behaviour oftern starts in early adolescence and sometimes in childhood. Thore Langfeldt asks: What have we done to these children? How can we protect children from growing up to be sex offenders?
Children have the right to be protected against developing sexual offensive behaviour, their sexual health is dependant on the parents and the society. Society and parents need to provide increased focus on sexual development in children not only sex education but relational and bounding conditions, empower sex in childhood in general and stimulate further studies on child sexual devvelopment with focus on attachment, sexual attraction, sexual relations, gender and sexual orientation.
With a healthy sexual upbringing , we will not only lose most of our adult patients with respect to sexual offences, but also to sexual problems in general. Thore Langfeldt noted that countries with a negative attitude to childhood sexuality have a much higher rate of sexual offences like the USA and Ireland.
Conflict of Interest: None Disclosed
Financial Support: None Disclosed
Recorded at the World Association of Sexual Health XIXth Congress; Sexual Health & Rights: A Global Challenge, Göteborg (Sweden) - June 21 – 25, 2009
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