You may or may not recognise the symbol of the blue teddy bear with the bandage across its heart. The symbol of child sexual abuse was created by the UWI Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS) for its anti-abuse campaign Break the Silence; IDGS hosted an informal media session last Friday at its St Augustine office to discuss the symbol and the campaign.
It seems the symbol is set to go far. Prof Rhoda Reddock, UWI St Augustine deputy principal and former head of the IGDS, said that Unicef is adopting the symbol for a regional campaign; branding and marketing lead on the Break the Silence project, Kathryn Chan, also said the symbol can be freely used in child sexual abuse campaigns in the same way the red ribbon is for HIV and Aids activism.
At the media meeting, Reddock, one of two lead researchers on the project, said the Break the Silence project had officially ended, closing off years of work to examine how communities understand and respond to child sexual abuse. Because the project was not designed to collect statistics on prevalence, Reddock had no figures to present, but rather a set of findings on the topic.
One finding was that existing support services for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse are inadequate for our country's needs. Another finding was that there is a great need for collaboration with and among government ministries to improve the national response to child sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse has repercussions beyond childhood, she emphasised. Apart from the connection between such abuse and the spread of HIV–seven per cent of sexually abused children end up HIV-positive, Chan said–adult survivors often demonstrated a propensity for high-risk behaviours, low self-esteem, being abusive or accepting abuse, and violent sexual behaviours.
Given that the project estimates one in 12 adults (both male and female) in T&T has been a victim of child sexual abuse, there are obvious consequences for our nation if the longstanding trend continues. Reddock also made the recommendation that sex education should be implemented in schools, saying it should be a human right. Research suggests that sex education empowers young people to make healthier decisions about their bodies and also can help them avoid or speak up about sexual abuse. The blue teddy campaign seems to have made a difference in the reporting of sexual abuse in T&T over the past year, Reddock said. Imagine what comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality classes in our schools could do.
Another finding the Break the Silence team reported was that there is a lot of "mother blame" in our culture when it comes to child sexual abuse. More than anyone in the family unit, the mother is seen as the guardian of morality, particularly of girls' morality, and she is often blamed for not doing enough to prevent abuse from occurring.
This is tied to a gender bias in how we perceive sexuality: girls are supposed to be the modest, stay-at-home ones who have to say no to marauding boys who are allowed to be out in the road and to pursue sexual opportunities. As one of the IGDS briefs handed out at the meeting says: "The onus is on women and girls to make themselves unavailable to men and not for men to refuse them. In homes, mothers are made unequally responsible for sexual morality; and for young girls, managing their sexuality becomes a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is shameful for girls to be seen as sexually active while on the other there is a strong social imperative to be highly sexualised in appearance and behaviour."
The IGDS deserves praise for this project, which spawned two community groups for survivors of child sexual abuse and raised awareness through murals and anti-abuse marches in schools and communities nationwide. The national community, including Government, now needs to pick up the baton.There is a desperate need for quantitative data on child sexual abuse, if only to dispel the pervasive notion that it only happens in certain villages or certain socio-economic or ethnic groups in this country.
Once quantitative data can show–as it certainly will–that child sexual abuse cuts across all boundaries of class, race and geography, it would become obvious that a better national response is required. The few, brutal cases that make the news are but the tip of a treacherous iceberg, and our children deserve to be educated about, and protected from this clear and present danger.