The Problem of Covert Sexual Abuse

Trigger warning – pedophilia.

Pedophilia is often an invisible sex crime when it happens to babies who have no conscious memory of the abuse, particularly by adult members of the family, wherein there is definitely no proof of the crime.

Human babies are very altricial, and depend upon care from an immediate family member (or members) for a number of months (or even years) until a vivid conscious memory is formed in the infant.

We know that there are overt pedophiles, of which the perpetrators are mainly men, who sexually abuse children, whether through grooming or using physical force (or mixtures of both).

However, there are also intra-familial covert pedophiles who get away with their abuse, as it remains undetected – aka not registered in conscious memory of the infant victim(s).