ABSTRACT
I had intended to start this book with two separate case histories - one male, one female - illustrating very different aspects of child sexual abuse, but having spent most of a whole day with Barbara (not her real name) I felt that to do justice to her remarkably honest account I would need to devote the entire chapter to her alone. It makes painful, difficult reading. What happened to her should happen to no child but, as she herself remarks, in comparison with what might have happened, and what does happen to millions of other children around the world, it could have been much worse.
