We initiated this research in order to address some of the issues that have arisen in discussions about the nature of prostitution. In particular: is prostitution just a job or is it a violation of human rights? From the authors' perspective, prostitution is an act of violence against women; it is an act which is intrinsically traumatizing to the person being prostituted. We interviewed 475 people (including women, men and the transgendered) currently and recently prostituted in five countries (South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, Zambia). In response to questionnaires which inquired about current and lifetime history of physical and sexual violence, what was needed in order to leave prostitution and current symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) we found that violence marked the lives of these prostituted people. Across countries, 73 percent reported physical assault in prostitution, 62 percent reported having been raped since entering prostitution, 67 percent met criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. On average, 92 percent stated that they wanted to leave prostitution. We investigated effects of race, and whether the person was prostituted on the street or in a brothel. Despite limitations of sample selection, these findings suggest that the harm of prostitution is not culture-bound. Prostitution is discussed as violence and human rights violation.

The authors' study included 42 female adult patients. All the patients had been sexually abused by family members. The participants were grouped into two groups: those with self-mutilating behavior (SMB) and those without such behavior. They were evaluated for history of physical and sexual trauma, suicide attempts, eating habits, and SMB. The ratio of SMB in the sample was 33.3%. Our findings support that SMB and sexual abuse are closely related to eating disorders, particularly anorexia. The relationship between SMB and suicide attempts was found statistically significant. Childhood abuse, especially sexual abuse, is a largely ignored psychosocial problem in Turkey. SMB and sexual abuse are highly correlated, and therefore SMB might be considered as an important signal for the presence of sexual abuse.

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Paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis (PLE) is a remote, nonmetastatic complication of carcinoma. Neuropsychiatric symptoms usually predate the diagnosis of cancer by 3 months to 6 years and very rarely the symptoms develop after the diagnosis of malignancy. We report the first case of limbic encephalitis associated with an immature ovarian teratoma. Within the month following the diagnosis of the tumor with pathologic stage Ia, somewhat acutely she developed neuropsychiatric symptoms that was exclusively a limbic disorder with impairments in almost every realm of limbic function. This case may show us that it is important to recognize the neuropsychiatric symptoms of PLE as the first manifestation of a very small malignant ovarian tumor and to aggressively try to identify the underlying cancer.