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The world community has recently recognised every child's fundamental human right to protection from sexual maltreatment. Yet the number of ways children are sexually maltreated, and the numerous responses these events evoke, still raise several difficult questions. What is abnormal child sexual development? What are abnormal child sexual relations? What role do communities and families play in encouraging or discouraging certain sexual activities? Should countries influence the internal workings of another to the extent that they determine their peoples' sexual behaviour and their views of human development? What role do children themselves play in determining their gendered development, their sexual activities, and their own sexual futures? What exactly is meant by sex, maltreatment, and childhood? What do notions of rights and law mean, and how could they be developed without inappropriately placing more children at risk for maltreatment? This book begins the process of addressing these issues as it considers how human rights law can help detail what could and should be done to protect children from sexual maltreatment. This ambitious goal is met by exploring diverse forms of sexual maltreatment, comparing societal responses to existing research and policies, uncovering basic themes, and framing directions for future endeavours. Roger Levesque places particular emphasis on the ways in which abusive activities in different countries and societies are linked with one another and the way diverse societal views of children place them at risk. Throughout, Levesque brings together several intersecting debates in social science and law, as he pragmatically considers human rights law as a tool for combating child sexual maltreatment.