The following articles deal with sexual assault from different aspects. Abstracts are provided for your convenience, together with links to the complete articles.

"Care of the Adolescent Sexual Assault Victim", American Academy of Pediatrics
Adolescents are more likely than any other age group to be the victim of sexual assault. Adolescents are most typically assaulted by people they know. This might be a peer or a family member.

"Confronting Abuse in the Orthodox Community", Rabbi Yosef Blau
Sexual abuse is a problem within the Orthodox community. There are complicated issues which need to be addressed when trying to deal with the phenomenon. Many victims are discouraged from reporting the crime to the authorities due to the hilul Hashem (desecration of G-d's name) which such actions might cause. A Beit Din is not usually effective when dealing with such a situation. The leadership in the Orthodox community must be better trained to deal with situations of abuse. Once that is accomplished, a system for dealing with abuse within the Orthodox community can be established.

"Definitions of Sexual Assault", Medical Library
Sexual Assault is defined as either oral, anal or genital penetration of a person's body without the victim's consent. Acquaintance rape is defined as a sexual assault where the assailant has a prior relationship with the victim. There are subsets of this category which include incest, which is defined as sex between members of the same family (which has come to include sex between step-relatives and sex between an adult and a child where the adult has a parental-type relationship with the child) and date rape in which the rapist is involved in a dating relationship with the victim. Another type of rape is statutory rape in which an adult has sex with a girl under a certain age. 

"Incest - The Family Secret"
Incest is defined as contact of a sexual nature between two people who are too closely related to marry. The term has also come to include relations between a child and one who is in a trusting relationship with that child. When dealing with children, the threat of physical force is rarely needed in order to keep them from sharing with others that they have been abused. Children often feel ashamed of what has happened and would therefore not share their story.  However, children also feel something much deeper. Their sense of trust is completely betrayed and their innocence is lost, because the same people who are in their world in order to protect them, are now the ones abusing them. This article includes a personal story by a childhood victim of incest.

"Management of Female Sexual Assault", Linda M Petter, D.O. & David l. Whitehill, M.D.
There is a special methodology which is used when performing a physical investigation of a sexual assault victim. The examination is done both in order to check for any sustained injuries/diseases and in order to obtain forensic evidence for use during any criminal or civil proceedings. While performing a physical examination, medical personnel must be aware that they are dealing with a person who has just gone through a tremendously traumatizing experience and she should therefore be treated with the utmost sensitivity.

"Rape and Prevention with College Males: The Roles of Victim Empathy, Rape Myth Acceptance, and Outcome Expectancies", William O'donohue, Ph.d.
For some time, rape has been a big problem on college campuses.  A lot of the rape prevention programs that have been started on campuses have tried to deal with the problem but most have done so only from a female perspective (i.e. focusing on what a woman should do). However, programs can be implemented focusing on what a man should do in order to prevent rape from occurring. Findings concluded that increasing the empathy that males feel for females, dispelling "rape myths" and correcting false calculations of the cost verses the reward of raping correlate with a decrease in the likelihood that the male will rape.

"Recovering from Rape", Clare G. Holzman, Ph.d.
After a rape, the victim is faced with a number of decisions that he/she must make. Often, these are not easy decisions, and there are professionals who can help him/her along the way. The victim must decide whether to seek medical attention and whether to report the attack to the police. If the rape is reported, the victim is entitled to compensation for money lost due to the attack.  However, the victim might choose not to report the rape for various personal reasons. Victims have to also choose how to best cope with the rape. One person might better cope by dealing directly with his/her emotions while another might choose to go on with daily life as much as  possible. A victim also has to decide how to best increase personal safety and from where to seek help.

"Sexual Abuse: Surviving The Pain", Barbara E. Bogorad, Psy.D., A.B.P.P.
Those who work in the mental health field report that many of the people they treat for addiction have been sexually abused as children. Additionally, many victims deny that they have been abused and therefore, do not seek help at all. There are many definitions for the term sexual abuse. Sexual abuse encompasses everything from physical contact to the showing of sexually explicit material to a child.  Incest is a form of sexual abuse. Although it has traditionally been described as sexual contact between close family members, one must also realize that it entails the abuse of a child by a family member who is supposed to be protecting that child from harm. There are several ways to identify children who have possibly been abused, and there are several ways to identify possible abusers. 

Although it is not well documented, child abuse between siblings is a big problem. In fact, it is more likely that a child will be abused by a sibling than by a parent. However, statistics are not well documented due to several factors. Parents who are not involved in their children's lives may contribute to the perpetuation of the abuse, because the abusive child might see the parent's unwillingness to confront the situation as a sign that the behavior is permitted. Due to the close proximity of siblings, a child who is molested by a sibling might dissociate from the situation in order to continue confronting everyday life with that person. In fact, the aftermath of sexual abuse by a sibling might be the same as the aftermath of sexual abuse inflicted by a parent. In terms of the profile of a child who is sexually abusive towards another child, he/she is often the victim of abuse themselves. Mostly, the abuser is not born with the desire to abuse but has rather firsthand learned about sexually abusive behavior.

"Women As Commodities: Trafficking in Women in Israel 2003", Nomi Levenkron
Trafficking in women can occur on either global, regional or local levels. Trafficking is carried out both by individuals and by organized criminal associations. There are a variety of approaches one could take in seeking to define what trafficking in women entails. The women trafficked into Israel come from a variety of countries, span the age range have differing levels of education. Women are first recruited in their country of origin and then are brought to Israel in a variety of ways. The women are then sold and kept in brothels. They are often mistreated by their pimps.