VITAL POVERTY, ALGORITHMS, AND THE PREVENTION OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE - Elhem Beddouda - ETHICA SOCIETAS-Rivista di scienze umane e sociali

An Interdisciplinary Reflection Between Social Sciences, Psychopathology, and the Ethics of Responsibility

Abstract: This article proposes an interdisciplinary reflection on the phenomena of child sexual abuse and child pornography, situating them within the contemporary transformations of human relationships, digital culture, and affective fragilities. Alongside traditional socioeconomic categories, the concept of “vital poverty” is introduced, understood as a relational, ethical, and emotional impoverishment that may also emerge within economically privileged contexts. The analysis integrates sociological, psychopathological, and neuroscientific perspectives, focusing on the distinction between fantasy and behavior, the clinical comorbidities of offenders, the role of intergenerational trauma, and mental health within detention settings. Particular attention is devoted to models of early prevention and to the ethical-psychological dimension of self-regulation, with a specific focus on the concept of dhābt al-nafs as a fundamental competence in preventing the transition from impulse to action.

Keywords: #vitalpoverty #childabuse #trauma #memory #psychologyoftestimony #grooming #sextortion #redirection #prevention #selfregulation #dhābtalnafs #mentalhealth #recidivism #ElhemBeddouda #ethicasocietas #ethicasocietasjournal #scientificjournal #humanities #socialsciences #ethicasocietasupli

Elhem Beddouda, is a professional educator with a degree in Education and Training Sciences from the University of Parma, where she completed a thesis entitled Islam and Educational Function: Perspectives on Religious Assistance in Prison. She is currently enrolled in the Global Studies for Sustainable Local and International Development and Cooperation program at the same university.

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Vital Poverty as a New Form of Social Vulnerability

In the contemporary analysis of child sexual abuse and exploitation, it is becoming increasingly evident that traditional categories of economic poverty are insufficient to explain the dynamics of vulnerability. Alongside material deprivation, there emerges a subtler and more pervasive condition that may be defined as vital poverty. In many contemporary societies, including economically advanced ones, a profound transformation of the relational fabric can be observed: human bonds are increasingly replaced or mediated by digital platforms, algorithms, and dynamics of rapid relational consumption.

The result is a widespread condition of emotional disorientation, in which relationships become fragmented, unstable, and often devoid of long-term meaning or direction. What we might describe as a form of “mini love life” emerges, characterized by brief emotional connections, limited intensity, and shallow relational depth. This phenomenon is not pathological in itself, but it becomes significant when associated with a progressive loss of shared ethical and symbolic references. Vital poverty is therefore not a marginal condition, but a structural transformation of modernity that directly affects identity construction, emotional regulation, and relational capacity.

Affective Poverty and Dynamics of Vulnerability

Within this framework, affective poverty represents a central element in understanding vulnerability. Among minors, it may translate into greater difficulty in recognizing risky situations, establishing clear relational boundaries, and activating protective strategies.

However, affective poverty does not concern victims alone. In the life histories of some offenders, there frequently emerges a background of emotional deprivation, early social isolation, or unresolved traumatic experiences. In many cases, histories of abuse suffered during childhood are also found, although this does not imply any deterministic relationship: the vast majority of individuals who experience abuse do not become abusers themselves. Such complexity requires a non-reductionist approach, in which deviant behavior is not interpreted as the linear consequence of a single cause, but rather as the outcome of highly differentiated biographical, relational, and psychological trajectories.

Pedophilia and Sexual Violence: Between Clinical Condition and Behavior

A crucial point concerns the distinction between pedophilia and child sexual abuse. In clinical language, pedophilia is generally classified as a paraphilic condition characterized by persistent sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors involving prepubescent children. However, the presence of a paraphilia does not necessarily imply acting upon it.

Child sexual abuse, by contrast, is a criminal behavior that may occur even in the absence of a stable paraphilic structure. This means that, although the two phenomena may overlap, they are not equivalent. From a clinical perspective, many individuals also present complex comorbidities, including personality disorders (antisocial, borderline, narcissistic), psychopathic traits, impulse-control difficulties, and, in some cases, mood or attachment disorders.

Such complexity makes it necessary to adopt an approach that integrates psychiatry, forensic psychology, and social sciences while avoiding simplistic diagnostic interpretations.

Fantasy, Impulse, and the Transition to Action

One of the most delicate issues concerns the relationship between fantasy and behavior. The presence of unwanted thoughts or mental images does not automatically translate into action. Many individuals experience intrusive mental content without ever acting upon it.

However, the way these contents are managed can have a significant impact. Rigid repression, denial, or shame may reduce the individual’s capacity for elaboration and, paradoxically, increase internal tension and, over time, the risk of acting out.

In this sense, prevention cannot rely exclusively on external control, but must also include tools for internal regulation and self-awareness.

Digitalization, the Developing Brain, and New Vulnerabilities

Digital transformation has introduced new forms of exposure and risk, particularly for minors. Under conditions of chronic stress or abuse, alterations are frequently observed in the brain systems involved in emotional regulation: hyperactivation of the amygdala, alterations in the hippocampus, and functional immaturity of the prefrontal cortex. These changes influence self-regulation, emotional memory, and impulse control.

Within this context, online grooming and sextortion represent particularly insidious forms of violence, as they operate through gradual and manipulative relational dynamics that interfere with normal emotional and cognitive development. Grooming is based on strategies of trust-building and progressive desensitization that may alter risk perception and compromise the child’s defensive mechanisms. Sextortion, by contrast, introduces a dimension of ongoing blackmail that maintains states of fear and hypervigilance, contributing to chronic stress conditions.

These phenomena not only amplify pre-existing vulnerabilities, but may also consolidate dysfunctional patterns within neurobiological circuits already sensitive to stress.

Consequently, an integrated approach becomes necessary — one that takes into account not only psychological and social dimensions, but also neurobiological ones, in order to develop prevention and intervention strategies capable of responding to the complexity of contemporary digital risks.

Trauma and Body Memory

Contemporary trauma-informed research highlights how early trauma is often inscribed not only within narrative memory, but also within bodily memory. In children, especially in cases of early abuse, trauma may emerge through the body, behavior, and emotional regulation rather than through language.

For this reason, listening to minors requires attention that goes beyond words, including non-verbal and contextual signals. The literature emphasizes that memory, especially during developmental age, is not a static and reproductive process but a dynamic and reconstructive one, deeply influenced by relational context and interviewing methods. In the presence of trauma, these characteristics become even more pronounced: narrative fragmentation, temporal disorientation, and increased susceptibility to external suggestion may emerge.

Classical studies on child suggestibility have demonstrated how children may be particularly vulnerable to leading questions and implicit interviewer pressure, with the risk of significant mnemonic distortions. For this reason, judicial interviews with minors require specific protocols based on structured and non-suggestive methods capable of reducing memory contamination and retraumatization.

Approaches such as the cognitive interview adapted for children and evidence-based protocols privilege open-ended questions, interviewer neutrality, and a safe relational environment. The Barnahus model fully aligns with this perspective, offering a protected setting in which testimony is collected while respecting the child’s neuropsychological vulnerabilities.

The integration of legal, clinical, and social expertise not only improves the quality and reliability of testimony, but also recognizes and welcomes the non-verbal ways through which trauma may be expressed, reducing the risk of further psychological harm.

Early Prevention and Interventions Directed Toward Potential Offenders

In recent years, prevention has increasingly included interventions aimed at individuals who recognize problematic impulses within themselves but have not acted upon them. Programs such as Stop It Now! provide anonymous and free support with the objective of interrupting the trajectory toward abusive behavior before it occurs. A significant proportion of users report a desire to change but uncertainty about how to do so, while many declare a reduction or cessation of problematic behaviors after intervention.

At the same time, digital redirection tools are based on early intervention strategies capable of intercepting risky search behaviors before they translate into illegal actions. These systems use algorithms to analyze search queries and navigation patterns in order to identify users entering keywords associated with illegal or harmful content. Once such intent is identified, instead of returning relevant results, the system redirects the user toward alternative content: educational materials, informational resources, and, above all, anonymous psychological support services.

These interventions are grounded in situational prevention models and cognitive-behavioral approaches, with the goal of interrupting the decision-making process at an early stage and fostering critical reflection on impulses.

Within the dark web, the application of such tools presents additional complexities linked to anonymity and decentralized platforms. Nevertheless, targeted initiatives are attempting to intervene even in these environments through informational infiltration campaigns, targeted banners, and exit links to support services, while maintaining a balance between preventive effectiveness and privacy protection.

Overall, redirection represents an innovative approach that shifts the focus from repression alone toward active prevention, intervening upon the cognitive and motivational processes that precede unlawful behavior.

Mental Health, Prison, and Recidivism

The mental health of sexual offenders represents a frequently neglected field. Within detention contexts, conditions of isolation, stigma, and inadequately treated psychiatric disorders are commonly observed.

Preventing recidivism therefore requires not only punitive measures, but also structured therapeutic programs, risk assessment, and long-term psychological support pathways.

International literature emphasizes the importance of adopting evidence-based intervention models capable of integrating risk assessment with individualized therapeutic pathways. Among these, the Risk-Need-Responsivity Model highlights how intervention effectiveness depends on alignment between the subject’s level of risk, specific criminogenic needs, and individual characteristics, including cognitive and motivational capacities.

Another crucial element concerns therapeutic continuity between detention settings and the broader community. The transition back into society represents a particularly high-risk phase in which the absence of adequate support may facilitate relapse. Follow-up programs, monitoring, and long-term psychological accompaniment are therefore essential to sustain processes of change and reduce recidivism.

Finally, a truly effective approach also requires overcoming the institutional and social stigma that frequently surrounds this population. Considering the mental health of sexual offenders does not imply minimizing criminal responsibility, but rather represents a necessary condition for intervening more effectively on risk factors and ultimately strengthening the protection of potential victims.

Dhābt al-Nafs: Self-Regulation, Awareness, and the Prevention of Acting Out

Within the framework of prevention, a particularly relevant concept is that of dhābt al-nafs, or self-control understood not as rigid repression, but as the capacity for conscious self-regulation. Rooted in Islamic ethical tradition, this principle represents a fundamental dimension of inner work: it does not merely prescribe behavioral restraint, but promotes an authentic relationship with one’s inner world. In this sense, dhābt al-nafs functions as a tool that prevents forms of dissociation while fostering a profound connection with the self and laying the foundations for self-awareness.

In clinical and social contexts, this concept offers a useful interpretative key for addressing problematic fantasies or impulses without resorting to self-criminalization. One of the most frequent critical issues concerns the confusion between thought and action. The presence of unwanted ideas or deviant fantasies does not automatically correspond to behavior. However, feelings of shame and fear of judgment may lead individuals to deny or repress such mental contents, and this often becomes fertile ground for acting out over time, since the thought is not truly elaborated but merely suppressed.

Dhābt al-nafs stands in the opposite perspective: recognizing the existence of the impulse without completely identifying with it represents the first step toward its management. This does not mean legitimizing or normalizing inappropriate contents, but creating an inner space in which they may be observed, understood, and regulated. In this sense, self-control is not denial, but elaboration.

From a psychological perspective, this approach is coherent with emotional regulation and metacognitive models, which emphasize the importance of awareness of one’s mental states without becoming overwhelmed by them. Accepting the existence of a problem constitutes a fundamental condition for activating processes of change, whereas denial tends to reinforce impulsivity.

From a preventive perspective, promoting dhābt al-nafs means strengthening the capacity to interrupt the potential trajectory leading from thought to action through awareness, stimulus management, and access to adequate support systems, including anonymous forms of help.

Ultimately, dhābt al-nafs represents an ethical and psychological competence capable of transforming a potential risk factor into a space of awareness and responsibility. Effective prevention does not arise from the repression of thought, but from its lucid and supported elaboration.

Conclusion: Toward a Multidimensional Prevention

Preventing child sexual abuse requires an integrated approach capable of bringing together social, psychological, clinical, educational, and technological dimensions. In a world marked by vital poverty, the digitalization of relationships, and affective fragility, investing in emotional competencies, mental health, and collective responsibility becomes essential.

The central challenge is not merely reducing risk, but understanding and transforming the conditions that make such risk possible.

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