| Institution: | 1. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7067-6696;2. Dipartimento di Scienze della Sanità Pubblica e Pediatriche, Sezione di Medicina Legale, “Università degli Studi di Torino”, corso Galileo Galilei 22, 10126 Torino, ItaliaCorresponding author: Serena Maria Curti, M.D. E‐mail:;3. Dipartimento di Scienze della Sanità Pubblica e Pediatriche, Sezione di Medicina Legale, “Università degli Studi di Torino”, corso Galileo Galilei 22, 10126 Torino, Italia;4. Dipartimento di Pediatria d'Emergenza, “A.O.U. Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino”, piazza Polonia 94, 10126 Torino, Italy;5. Graduate School of Professional Psychology, University of Denver, 2450 S. Vine Street, Denver, CO, 80210 |
| Abstract: | The literature on child sexual abuse (CSA) perpetrated by female sexual offenders (FSOs) is exiguous, and many studies have focused on judicial databases. The present retrospective study, instead, analyzed clinical and judicial data of a group of both victims and alleged FSOs, to additionally include women who have not been convicted by the criminal justice system, but who hold strong clinical suspicions of being perpetrators of CSA. The medical records and the Court files of 11 children and their eight suspected FSOs have been collected and critically reviewed in light of the literature to date. This approach allowed for a deeper understanding of the relationship between child and FSO. The authors hypothesize that the victims’ severe psychopathological outcomes were a result of a failure to develop appropriate attachments with their prospective caregivers, which could have been damaged by the pathological relationship with FSOs, who were the victims’ caregivers. |
