Oklahoma

How does state law define child abuse and neglect for reporting purposes?

• Mandated reporters must report abuse or neglect as defined by Oklahoma statute 10-7102 and legal guidance interpreting the statute.
  • "Abuse" means harm or threatened harm to a child's health or safety by a person responsible for the child's health or safety including sexual abuse and sexual exploitation
    • "Harm or threatened harm to a child's health or safety" includes, but is not limited to:
      • nonaccidental physical or mental injury,
      • sexual abuse,
      • sexual exploitation,
      • neglect, or
      • failure or omission to provide protection from harm or threatened harm.
    • "Sexual abuse" includes but is not limited to rape, incest and lewd or indecent acts or proposals, as defined by law, by a person responsible for the child's health or safety;
    • "Sexual exploitation" includes, but is not limited to, allowing, permitting, or encouraging a child to engage in prostitution, as defined by law, by a person responsible for the child's health or safety or allowing, permitting, encouraging, or engaging in the lewd, obscene, or pornographic photographing, filming, or depicting of a child in those acts as defined by the state law, by a person responsible for the child's health or safety;
  • "Neglect" means failure or omission to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and supervision, or special care made necessary by the physical or mental condition of the child.

Are child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, statutory rape, incest, intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation and/or trafficking of a minor reportable as child abuse or neglect and if so, how are they defined and what is reportable?

For the most current definitions of these terms, refer to the Oklahoma Statutes at the Oklahoma Public Legal Research System website.