Sexual Abuse of People with Mental Retardation

Abstract

People from the”Normal“ population don't have enough knowledge about the problems caused by mental retardation. Very often they have wrong sense and biases about mentally retarded people, considering them as people who suffer from pshychic illness. Mentally retarded people, very often are considered very different from the ”Normal“ population, but if we come closer to them we will see that there are more similarities than differences. The period in which we live today is full of challenges and fulfillments, which are frightening for people with mental retardation. It will be logical if the progress and contemporary techniques and the society go together with progress of human relationships, but, in fact, we are witnesses of lots of unhuman acts. The number of mental retarded people who have been victims of sexual abuse increases more and more everyday, and the most tragic is that they are not even aware of the situation in most cases. Persons with mental retardation in most situations become victims of this kind of unhuman acts because they don't know to say ”No“ to adults. This paper is a supplement for investigations about frequency, reasons and possibilities for prevention of sexual abuse of people with mental retardation.