Why sex education is a must for children at early age — Otesile, children rights advocate

Ibukunoluwa Otesile, a graduate of Communication and Language Arts from University of Ibadan,Ibadan, Oyo State is a social entrepreneur, communication expert, licensed human resource practitioner, an author and the founder of Hope For Second Chance Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that responds to child sexual abuse and juvenile delinquency. In this interview by TAYO GESINDE, she talks about how parents predispose their children to sexual abuse and the need to look at proactive measures to put an end to it. Excerpts:

 

WHAT motivated you to go into advocacy?

It started with juvenile delinquency, teenagers who were deviant and their parents were having issues with them, some of them were suicidal and their parents would ask me to talk to them . I began to realise that there was a missing link somewhere and found out that some of them had been abused.  So I came to the conclusion that when a child had been sexually abused and he didn’t get the help he needed, that can cascade into delinquent behaviour. The child begins to go into crime, violence and all that. I also realised that a lot of parents were not as sensitive as they should be. Their negligence was staring me in the face so I made up my mind to sensitise parents on what is happening and how they can predispose their children to becoming sexually abused and to teach children themselves the need to know that there are things they should not do. We really need to take proactive measures to put an end to sexual abuse.

 

From your experience, why is sexual abuse on the increase?

A number of things, but central to this is what I will call proxy parenting.  A lot of our children now play the roles of their parents. There is no vacuum in life, once a child is abused, whether physically or sexually, it affects his or her psychology and perception  of life and in trying to understand, interprete, explain or try to cope with what has happened to him or her, the child begins to fill the vacuum with other things like alcohol, violence and so on. There are extremes to these things. When parents are not available, they predispose their children to sexual abuse. The second reason is the culture of silence. We bring up our children to be silent and when people cross their boundaries, they cannot say, no, you cannot do this to me. I met a girl who was raped by her father’s elder brother and when she told the mum, her mother told her not to speak evil of someone older than her father. The girl was shut up and she had to run away from the home. When we have a culture of silence that suppresses children from talking, then, we would continue to encourage abuse to thrive. The negative influence of the social media is another reason because abuse can happen from adult to a  child or between two children. Sex is everywhere, every corner you turn to, it is there, if a child is playing with a phone, phonographic content can just pop up. The image you see  forms in your head,  before you know it, they want to try it out and they try it out among themselves. That is why incest is on the rise.  Also, the myth that it is only the girl-child that can be abused makes us to protect only the girl while we leave the boy at the mercy of housemaids who abuse them. A question we need to ask is, why do we have the prevalence of men abusing young girls? Is that not to tell us that something went wrong when they were young? We don’t give our boys attention and that is why we are where we are today. Another thing I need to mention is the family system that has broken down. When there is dysfunction within a family, it predisposes a child to a lot of things. It affects the emotion of the child. There is something that paedophile do, they profile their victims and look for children that are withdrawn or whose parents are not readily available to prey on. Also, abuse thrives where there are no law or deterrents and where the available laws are not executed. Not having the right information is another factor. People don’t know where to go when there is abuse or what to do.

 

How can parents protect their children from abuse?

It is not a one-off activity, it is a journey. The responsibility of protecting our children against abuse is very daunting and a tasking one. All hands must be on deck. Paedophiles don’t write it on their head and the timing is usually very short. That is why you have to be a detective as a parent. I call myself mum cop. You must be able to look at two situations and add them together. You must be able to observe without being seen. To prevent your child from being sexually abused, you must be friends with your child. Parenting is synonymous with availability, you can’t be a parent if you are not available. In fact, if you are not available, you have no business being a parent. Yes, you have to work but in the midst of it you must have time for your children, talk to them. Don’t let others do for them things you can do for them or they can do themselves.  Parents too must not abuse their children sexually; a mother should not undress in the presence of her son. When you do you are exposing that child to sexual images .  Let us also teach our children the right family ties. Everybody is not a father. When you give the title of father to every elderly man, we confuse them and  when  such people begin to  cross their  boundaries, they will not talk because they are ‘daddy.’  Another way to protect them is to teach them body safety education. They need to know all these things, if you don’t teach them if somebody is crossing his boundaries they will not know. Let them know that their breasts, penis and vagina are their private parts which nobody should touch and please use the right words not kokoro or tontolis. Let them know that nobody should touch their private parts or make them to touch their own. Teach them not to stay in isolated places with people other than their parents because sexual abuse cannot happen in  public place but private. Teach them the no secret rule. Abuse thrives in secrecy. Teach them that if anyone tells them that I want to tell you a secret that you must not tell your parents, that is the sign to tell them. We need to teach them these things so that they can know that there are people that do bad things. It is age appropriate, so teach them based on their age. Above all, who are you leaving your child with?  Make sure you know the person and let your child know you trust them. Teach them safety code; a word known only by you and your children that they can use to tell you when someone is crossing their boundaries. Anytime your child uses that word you know that there is fire on the mountain. Finally, teach them to say No whenever anybody tries to cross the boundary irrespective of who that person is. Let them know anybody can abuse them including our religious leaders so that they  will not trust people blindly. Religious leaders are human and are prone to errors.

 

How can one give sex education to children between the ages of one and eight?

The way we were brought up is not the way we have to bring our children up because things are changing. That is why we call it age appropriate sex education but if you have issue with the word sex then, you can call it body safety education. There are things you can teach each age without giving them too much information.  Once your child can talk, teach her about her body, teach her about private part and that nobody must touch it. Teach her that nobody must kiss her on the lips. Parents should stop kissing their children on the lips. When you do they feel that is the only way to show affection, such that when the alarm bell should go off, it won’t. That is not too much information for children in ages one to six. When they reach  puberty, you can then talk to them about hormones, sexual intercourse, menstruation and so on. If you don’t teach them, their friends will or they will read it on the internet. You don’t have to go into details, tell them the basic. When you have the conversation with them, if they hear anything contrary to what you taught  them they can come to you for clarification.  If you were not the first to give them  the information, they won’t come to you to cross check it.

 

What should a parent do if she discovered her child had been abused?

Find out the timing of the abuse, was the abuse in the past or was it recent? If it is still going on, get your child medical help, make sure the perpetrator of the abuse is removed from that environment. If the perpetrator is a house help, get rid of him or her. If the abuse is fresh, the first thing to do is to make sure your child gets PEP (post exposure prophylasis) within 24-72 hours. Once the child gets that, it inhibits the virus from actually growing. Before you can get that you might have to get a report at the police station.  Don’t destroy the evidence so that the culprit can be prosecuted so go straight to the police station. You can go to the station with a child advocate. If you don’t know what to do, reach out to the Ministry of Women Affairs, they know what to do. After medical help, it is important for the child to get psycho-social support from a counseling psychologist.. The parent also need to be understanding, don’t ask questions that blame the child. Let her know it is not her fault that the abuse happened. Be loving and available to the child. You must also take responsibility for it because there is no abuse that happens that there won’t be certain degree of negligence on the part of the parent. So, apologise to your child for not being able to prevent it. That will help the healing process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How does handing the cases of abused children affect you?

There are times my sleep gets affected, there are times it gives me headache because it can be devastating  but as a counselor, I have to do what I have to do. I had to talk to a father who sexually abused his  child. I always tell myself it is in the interest of the child. However, it is a lot of emotional pressure so I take time off sometimes so I don’t become paranoid or go into depression.

 

How do you combine your career and advocacy with the home front?

It is a crazy world but I have learnt from women who are successful  that it is possible to achieve success across board. Behind all of that is the fact that I have an amazing husband that does daddy duties when I am not available.  His support has been my backbone for been able to balance all.