Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect Utah
Standard
Causing harm or threatened harm
Exemption
Not addressed in statutes reviewed
Categories of Maltreatment Defined in Statute
Physical abuse
Neglect
Sexual abuse
Sexual exploitation
Emotional/mental injury
Categories of Maltreatment Not Defined in Statute
Abandonment
Full Text of Statute
DEFINITIONS
Utah Code Ann. § 62A-4a-402 (Supp. 1998)
'A person responsible for a child's care' means the child's parent, guardian, or other person responsible for the child's care, whether in the same home as the child, a relative's home, a group, family, or center day-care facility, a foster care home, or a residential institution.
'Child' means a person under 18 years of age.
'Child abuse or neglect' means causing harm or threatened harm to a child's health or welfare.
'Harm or threatened harm' means damage or threatened damage to the physical or emotional health and welfare of a child through neglect or abuse, and includes but is not limited to:
Causing nonaccidental physical or mental injury;
Incest;
Sexual abuse;
Sexual exploitation;
Molestation; or
Repeated negligent treatment or maltreatment.
'Incest' means having sexual intercourse with a person whom the perpetrator knows to be his or her ancestor, descendant, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, or first cousin. The
relationships referred to in this subsection include blood relationships of the whole or half blood without regard to legitimacy, and include relationships of parent and child by adoption, and relationships of stepparent and stepchild while the marriage creating the relationship of a stepparent and stepchild exists.
'Molestation' means touching the anus or any part of the genitals of a child or otherwise taking indecent liberties with a child, or causing a child to take indecent liberties with the perpetrator or another with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.
'Sexual abuse' means acts or attempted acts of sexual intercourse, sodomy, or molestation directed towards a child.
'Sexual exploitation of minors' means knowingly employing, using, persuading, inducing, enticing or coercing any minor to pose in the nude for the purpose of sexual arousal of any person or for profit, or to engage in any sexual or simulated sexual conduct for the purpose of photographing, filming, recording, or displaying in any way the sexual or simulated sexual conduct, and includes displaying, distributing, possessing for the purpose of distribution, or selling material depicting minors in the nude or engaging in sexual or simulated sexual conduct.
