Child sexual abuse in Islamic criminal law

A child is an individual in need of care and supervision in order to raise him/her as physically and mentally in a state of health, to meet his basic needs such as care and nutrition, to provide education opportunities and to protect him from harm. This need creates responsibilities along with some authority on the family and society. The safety of the child, one of the most basic vital needs, is violated due to the crime of sexual abuse of children, and the psychological effects of the sexual act as well as the effects on the physical health of the child have devastating consequences. In fact, many cases of sexual abuse result in death. Although child abuse has been handled in four main categories as physical, emotional, economic and sexual, in this study only the criminal nature of sexual abuse of children is analyzed according to Islamic law. Since the conceptualization of the related acts as "sexual abuse" and the development of provisions specific to children coincided with a very recent period, the need to develop a perspective has emerged by taking the views of Islamic law scholars on the subject and modern period practi-ces as reference. In this respect, the relevant literature was reviewed with the rese-arch-examination method and the inductive method was used. We are of the opinion that sexual abuse of children is a crime according to Is-lamic penal law, in general, sexual abuse of children under the age of 15 is a crime as sexual abuse of children, such as to exposure to sexual acts, to see pornographic ma-terial or to employ them in the prostitution sector. According to Islamic Law, the simple form of this crime is considered within the scope of acts similar to adultery and is punished; according to one view, it has been seen that the qualified state necessitates the hadd of fornication according to a sullen view. It has been determined that when degrading situations occur, they sho-uld be punished with tazir. The additional sanctions of Islamic law on these acts are also among the consequences of sexual abuse. In addition to penalties such as poun-ding away, imprisonment, killing, etc. the perpetrator of sexual abuse is obliged to pay compensation to the child; These include interfering with the custody rights of families who abuse the child or cause abuse through gross negligence and taking the child and his family under protection by defining marriage bans due to the sexual act.