Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

Abuse is a violation of an individual's human and civil rights. Abuse may consist of a single act or repeated acts and may affect one person or more. Abuse can take many forms the following are only examples. It may be physical, verbal, psychological, or discriminatory, it may be an act of neglect or an omission to act, or it may occur when a vulnerable person is persuaded to enter into a financial or sexual transaction to which he or she has not consented, or cannot consent. Abuse may take the form of honour based violence, modern slavery or exploitation.