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Recently in the news there have been back-to-back stories of children being sexually abused by adults.

At least two boys have come forward with allegations of rape by guards or other staff at the Mountain View Youth Development Center in Dandridge, and authorities are alleging statutory rape by the wife of a former South-Doyle football coach. To quote recent stories: "The wife of a former South-Doyle High School assistant football coach will return to court in June on charges that she had sex with a sophomore player on the team." And then there was this story from April 13 that began, "A Knoxville man was convicted on Wednesday for giving a 16-year-old girl prescription pills, then raping her."

The language in these stories suggests that the News Sentinel has an explicit bias in its reporting. If the accused is female, the abuse is called sex, but when it's an adult male abusing a young female, it's called rape?

The Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed in 2003. This is the federal law that was passed by Congress to work towards eliminating rape in all places where adults or children are held in confinement. One of these places is the Mountain View Youth Development Center, where our most vulnerable population of boys is housed. These boys are confined at Mountain View because a court has found that they are in need of treatment and rehabilitation. On May 6, the News Sentinel published the headline "Sex with juvenile garners two years." Our federal law does not refer to a child "having sex" with a guard for a very good reason. What has happened between the children and the guards at Mountain View is not sex. It is called rape. These boys have been victimized. Call the abuse what it is.

Christina Kleiser, assistant public defender, Knox County Public Defender's Community Law Office