Child Sexual Abuse happens because the system of silence around the act perpetuates it. Child Sexual Abuse happens because this system of silence encourages some more men to want it to happen; and so the political, societal, cultural and religious attitudes which serve to underestimate the child, specially the female child, creates a climate in which abuse can thrive.

They do the same thing to women. They tell her to not get raped, she must stay out of the rapist’s way. In other words, they try and prevent sexual assault by focussing on altering the behaviour of the victim. Women are expected to learn kung fu, just in case, or not walk through parks alone, generally make themselves as less accessible to sexual assault as is humanly possible. The same thing is applicable to children. Points out the sociologist Swift, ‘This results in not the prevention of sexual assault but the prevention of sexual assault on cautious women and children, and those proficient in the physical martial arts. The attacker continues to victimise the young, the weak, the vulnerable or the uninformed. Sexual assault is not prevented by this approach, but rather displaced.’

Swift wrote that in 1979; in 1987 sociologist Leventhal pointed out, ‘The ultimate goal of any program to prevent sexual abuse is to teach behaviours so that when an adult makes a sexual advance towards a child, the child will act in an appropriate manner by saying no and telling a responsible adult what happened. Yet none of the evaluative efforts has examined the direct outcome. Instead, a change in knowledge, which is really an intermediate measure, has been examined without any evidence that such a change is linked to changes in behaviour.’

And yet prevention programmes are relevant even if they have to be seen as a small—albeit important—part of a more comprehensive approach to protecting children from sexual abuse and its consequences. Child-centred programmes are necessary and effective when dealing with strangers because the rules for dealing with strangers require less interpretation than those with family members: do not enter into a conversation, do not go too close, get away as soon as possible.

But points out Bill Gillham in his Protecting Children From Sexual Abuse: ‘Expecting children to protect themselves from people they know is quite another matter. Children are, on the whole, remarkably compliant: they trust easily (And who would want them to be fearful, mistrustful and suspicious?). Yet it is this known category of implicitly trusted (or at least unsuspected) adults which often constitutes the largest category of risk.’ He adds, ‘The cynic who observed that sex is five per cent motivation and ninety-five per cent opportunity might have had Child Sexual Abuse in mind.’

I know this thought will automatically come up: yes, yes, basic information on this is a good idea for our children; what are the schools and teachers doing about it? What is the media doing? Schools and teachers play a very important role in the awareness of Child Sexual Abuse; but parents play the most important role. They have given birth to that child, it is the child’s right to be appropriately informed and correctly educated by its parents. When it comes to their children, why do parents think mostly of their rights and rarely of their responsibilities?