Awareness Talk on Preventing Child Sexual Abuse

I attended a short awareness talk on child sexual abuse today, given by the NGO "Protect and Save The Children" (P.S. The Children).

Why did I bother to attend?
The reports on child sexual abuse in the newspapers has been increasing in frequency & the hardcore ones are very horrific (e.g. Nurin case). It is my duty as a parent, not just to ensure he has food, shelter, learn to read & write, but it is equally important to equip my son with the skills to protect himself. I will not be able to be by his side forever. I felt that this was an area I lack knowledge in.

How prevalent is it?
What we read in the papers is just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of it goes unreported. PS The Children surveyed 18,500 teenagers in 2004 and found that 40-odd% had experienced some form of sexual abuse. 25% had experienced hardcore sexual abuse. That's way too high. (statistics here are based on my memory as I forgot to bring along pen & paper)

What was my take home message?
I would have been good if they spent more time in teaching the parent how to equip the child, but it was just a short awareness talk and there was much to cover. The "stranger danger" method (e.g. stay away from strangers) of protecting your child will not work in child sexual abuse. In majority of cases, the abuser has a built up a relationship with the child (the abuser would have "groomed" the child).

(1) Teach your child the correct names of his/her private body parts. This way, when the abuse happens & they tell you or someone else, you will straight away know something is wrong. No ambiguity. For e.g. if he was taught to use "bird" for his private part & then told you/teacher that uncle so-and-so played with the bird, it might not occur to you that it was a case of abuse.

(2) Build your child's self esteem. A child with low self esteem is far more vulnerable. They would not be assertive enough to say "no". It makes it much easier for the abuser to continue the abuse.

(3) Teach your child the difference between good & bad secrets. Abusers obviously need the child to keep the abuse a secret. They use various pscyhological tactics to keep it a secret, including threatening harm to the people the child loves, guilt.

(4) Teach your child the difference between a good touch & a bad touch.

(5) Teach your child to say "no", run & tell

There was more, but unfortunately, I didn't take notes. They do have a good website that covers the topics in the talk. Check out: www.psthechildren.org.my

They are in the midst of finalising with a corporate sponsor, a one day workshop on preventing child sexual abuse, scheduled for 7 Nov 2009. When the details are finalised, it'll be posted on their website.