ABSTRACT
In the mid-1980s child sexual abuse quite suddenly became a highprofile media ‘story’. The sudden upsurge in the numbers of children taken into local authority care as a result of a ‘diagnosis’ of child sexual abuse provoked angry reactions from parents, certain sections of the media, and MPs, amongst others. The resulting public inquiry under Lord Justice Butler-Sloss focused attention both on the plight of children who had been sexually abused and on appropriate methods of dealing with the problem (HMSO 1988). In Britain in the 1880s issues of ‘white slavery’, child prostitution and incest were the focus of considerable, if often prurient, concern, in spite of the fact that the sexual abuse of children had been a taboo for the best part of a century before. In response, feminists linked up with philanthropists and evangelicals to promote the rescue and rehabilitation of those who had been subjected to the ‘horrors and abominations’ of incest (Mearns 1883, quoted in Wohl 1978:207). Looking back at the debates of the 1880s and 1980s reveals important similarities, and differences, in perceptions of the problem of child sexual abuse and how it should be tackled. I begin this chapter by looking in more detail at the earlier campaigns, and their lessons for today.
