Pedophilia is a sick disease, no questions about it. It is described as a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children.

Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11 and boys at age 11 or 12, criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescent to age 13.

A person who is diagnosed with pedophilia must be at least 16 years old, and at least five years older than the immature child for the attraction to be diagnosed as pedophilia.

The surge of voices taking part in the #MeToo movement has allowed women and men alike to open up emotionally on ignored sexual abuse cases which include pedophilic actions. The majority of sexual abuse cases are not reported to the police. Only 280 out of 1,000 cases are reported to the police every year, as per the Rape, Assault and Incest National Network official website.

Of the sexual violence crimes not reported to the police from 2005-2010, victims gave many reasons as to why they were against reporting their traumatic experiences. Some victims try to negate the exposure of the offender to protect their household from a repeat incident.

Others fear the sound of their cries may fall on deaf ears as cases such as the Brock Turner trial placed a sour taste in the mouths of onlookers. Brock Turner known as the “Stanford Rapist” was sentenced to six months of jail for raping an unconscious girl. That feeling of helplessness resonates deep within people all over the country.

Pedophilia can affect young people. Trust is manipulated to take advantage of a person unable to make proper decisions because of age. This puts the victim in a state of conflict between right and wrong.

Abusive experiences suffered before adolescence are known to either repress or make themselves known well into adult life. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, flashbacks and depression are also all effects caused by sexual misconduct, according to RAIN.

Women will remain the primary victims in terms to pedophilic acts, but the cases when attributed to the opposite sex are just as apparent. The biggest face in sexual abuse debacles right now is Robert R. Kelly, stage name plainly R. Kelly.

A six-part Lifetime documentary titled “Surviving R. Kelly” has syndicated confessions from victims subjected to Kelly’s lustful whims. Numerous survivors reporting mental abuse that has been built up until they were given an opportunity to step forward. Kelly is reportedly accused of holding women and underage girls alike captive in a dungeon of indecent acts.

Robert Kelly has a tide of courtroom accusations mounting coming off the spark of the aforementioned documentary. But while Kelly is obscenely twisted up in some phantasmal world he enjoys to indulge in, there is a point to make that he himself is a victim of abuse too.

Only, he absorbed the encounters in a way he could perceive them. Carey Kelly, brother of R. Kelly, has admitted that both he and his brother were victims of molestation at a young age. Carey has gone on record to say that, “ just know that he has a problem with control. I love my brother, but he do have a problem. And if anybody out there love him, they should want to see him get help.”

This begs the question of does the lack of self control and experiences one may suffer allow them to steal a child’s innocence away from them? Judging morality is not my sport of choice and surely far from a hill to die on.

However, there is not a world where the answer to that question is yes. The answer is no. I have a younger sister who could have easily been one of the young black girls in Lifetime’s documentary.

According to RAIN, every year, 60,000 children are victims of “substantiated or indicated” sexual abuse. While the rate of conviction is high, arrests are made in only 29 percent of child sexual abuse cases and are 32 percent more likely to be made in incidents involving older children.

For children under six, only 19 percent of sexual abuse incidents result in arrest. The treatment to this poisonous behavior is deciding to treat sexual abuse like the actual crime it imposes itself to be in-stead of treading the line with tedious legislation.