It is equally sad to know that 6 to 20% of child burn survivors are victims and a consequence of abuse -
I have personally watched the physiotherapy procedure of a child who sustained 60% burns through abuse - boiled water was poured over his entire body - he was only 4 years old. His screams will always live with me.
Many teenage survivors experience abuse before and after burns. In many cases they are abused because they are considered as the devils children after burns and treated as less than human.
We must at all costs raise awareness of and fight this evil that maims so many lives and terminates great potential.
******Beulah Kleinveldt for the Campio Burns Group
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The Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention (CJCP), The University of Cape Town and the Gender Health and Justice Research Unit, together with UBS Optimus Foundation have recently released their final report regarding the sexual victimisation of children in South Africa. We have included the Executive Summary for your perusal.
Ann Skelton, long-time advocate for children’s rights, said:
“Knowing what is happening to children is the first step to finding solutions. This study takes us into the secret world of sexual abuse and provides sobering insights into the types of abuse that are happening in South Africa, how prevalent the abuse is, and how many children are affected. The statistics are presented in a tangible way – how many children `on the school bus are likely to have been abused? How many soccer stadia can we fill with children who have been abused? The stark facts make for difficult but essential reading.”
Optimus Study South Africa: Technical Report
Executive summary
This report presents the findings of the Optimus Study conducted in South Africa. This study was designed specifically to estimate the annual incidence and lifetime prevalence of sexual abuse and maltreatment in South Africa. Prior to this, no nationally representative data on the extent or impact of child sexual abuse existed.
In order to obtain a comprehensive picture of the nature, extent and impact of child sexual abuse in the country, the study drew on two data sources; firstly, a population survey that was conducted with a sample of 15- to 17-year-old adolescents recruited nationally from schools (4 086 participants) as well as households (5 631 participants), and secondly an agency component that consisted of a series of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with frontline staff and agency directors servicing the communities or geographical spaces identifies through the sampling process.
Through a thorough exploration of these areas, the study identifies where resources can best be targeted, provides a local evidence base for the development of effective interventions, and identifies whether intervening in one form of abuse or neglect might also have the potential to address other forms of violence.
Results
The study results revealed that of the young people interviewed in schools, 35.4% - one in every three young people – had experienced some form of sexual abuse at some point in their lives. Figures from the household portion of the study are slightly lower, but confirm that the rates are high: in households, 26.3% - more than a quarter of young people interviewed – reported having experienced some form of sexual abuse. Since rates of reporting in the schools portion of the study are generally higher, indicating that disclosure of these very difficult experiences may have been easier in that context, we base our estimates on that sample. This means that a total of at least 784 967 young people in South Africa have been the victims of sexual abuse by the age of 17 years. A total of 351 214 cases of sexual abuse had occurred among 15- to 17- year-olds in the past year alone.
The difference between males’ and females’ reported rates of abuse were not as stark in this South African study as they may have been in other studies. In the school survey, boys (36.8%) were found to be slightly more likely than girls (33.9%) to report some form of sexual abuse. Previous research has almost unfailingly underscored the particular vulnerability of young girls to sexual abuse. The findings from this national prevalence study indicate that boys and girls are equally vulnerable to some form of sexual abuse over the course of their lifetimes, although those forms tend to be different for boys and for girls.
The mean age at which girls first experience sexual abuse was 14, while typically boys reported
their first experience to be at the age of 15 years.
One in 10 (11.3%) young people had experienced unwanted sexual touching by a known or
unknown adult in their lifetime, based on reporting rates from the school survey.
Based on reporting rates from the school survey, 9.4% of young people had been made to do
sexual things against their will by another child or teen; 11.7% had experienced someone trying
to force them to have sex; 12.9% had experienced exposure abuse; and 15.7% had had a sexual
experience with someone 18 or older (some of which may have been consensual).
These findings illustrate that while sexual abuse is slightly more likely to occur once in a young
person’s lifetime, in 40% of these cases, it occurs two or more times.
In the school survey, 42.2% of respondents had experienced some form of maltreatment
(whether sexual, physical, emotional or neglect), while 82.0% reported experiencing some form
of victimisation (whether criminal victimisation or exposures to family or community violence).
By and large, girls and urban dwellers were more likely to report these experiences than boys
and those living in rural areas.
A number of factors were associated with an increased risk of sexual victimisation. These
included living with neither or just one biological parent, parental absence either due to
hospitalisation or prolonged illness, parental substance abuse, disability status of the child, as
well as sleeping density (the number of teens or adults with whom the respondent shared a
room).
The study also highlighted the protective factors associated with a reduced risk of sexual
victimisation. Parents’ knowledge of who young people spend their time with, and how they
spend their time and where they go, were significantly associated with a lower likelihood of
young people reporting that they had been victims of sexual abuse. In addition to this, warm and
supportive parent-child relationships were also found to be significantly associated with lower
risk of sexual victimisation, specifically for girls.
Sexual abuse was dramatically and strongly associated with mental health symptoms: young
people who reported having been sexually abused were more than twice as likely to report
anxiety and depression, and three times as likely to report PTSD symptoms, as other young South
Africans.
One-fifth of children who have been sexually abused by adults are also likely to have problems
with schoolwork or school attendance. Nearly a third of those sexually abused by a known adult
reported having injuries as a result of this abuse, although in turn, only a third of those injured
actually sought assistance. While fewer children who had been abused by an unknown adult were
injured, they were far more likely to seek medical assistance.
Respondents were unlikely to report incidents of sexual abuse to the authorities. For instance, in cases where they reported sexual abuse by an adult they knew, only 31.0% of girls and no boys reported this to the police. Young males especially declined to report, across all categories of abuse.
Recommendations
From a policy perspective, South Africa should move towards the formulation of a much-needed, and regulated, child protection protocol for the management of sexual offences for both state and non-government child protection service providers – a protocol which should be both supported and reinforced by the existing legal framework and concomitant legislative regulations and departmental policies – as well as for research evidence. This should focus on making it more feasible and safer for young people to make reports, and improve the speed at which medical attention is received when the first report is made, and the speed at which the justice system processes cases.
Given the strong associations between sexual abuse and all other forms of maltreatment and victimisation, those taking a report of sexual abuse or dealing with a young victim should be alert to the likelihood that the child has also experienced one or more other victimisations. These should be explored in counselling, and appropriate support provided.
Good parent-teen relationships – where parents have warm, caring relationships with their children, where there is good communication between parents and child, and where parents monitor their children’s activities – play a role in preventing child sexual abuse. Programmes that promote better parent-teen relationships should be made widely available.
Since parental substance misuse is associated with sexual abuse of children, one key preventive strategy is to make substance abuse treatment programmes more widely available and accessible than they are at present.
Schools have a particularly important role to play in addressing the levels of sexual violence that are evident both within the school environment, and within households. In the longer term, the normative attitudes of violence that still exist in many classrooms, evidenced by the ongoing use of corporal punishment, and the acceptance by educators of various forms of violence, including bullying and sexual harassment, must be shifted in order to ensure that schools are safe places for children where learning can occur. This can be achieved through the integration of school safety into teacher training, as well as the integration of evidence-based life skills curricula the directly target issues relating to sex, gender and violence, into schools.
Given the experience of sexual violence of boys highlighted in the study, particular focus should be provided on building the capacity of educators to recognize and respond to all forms of sexual violence in the classroom and the school environment, with a particular focus on shifting current perceptions that all or most sexual violence is experienced only by girls, and rather recognizing that boys also experience various forms of sexual violence.
Ref: Child Trauma Centre - 23/6/2016, Natasha Botha
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