It is estimated that at least two out of every ten girls and one out of every ten boys are sexually abused by the end of their 13th year. To protect all children, we first need to learn the facts.

Learn the Facts
What exactly is child molestation? How many of our children are sexually abused? How seriously are they damaged? What are the characteristics of a child molester? What causes someone to sexually abuse a child? Which of our children are most at risk?

A child molester is any older child or adult who touches a child for his or her own sexual gratification.

Child molestation is the act of sexually touching a child.

A child is a girl or boy who is 13 years of age or younger.

What’s the age difference between a molester and a child? It is five years, so a 14-year-old “older child” sexually touching a nine-year-old is an example. This is the accepted medical definition.

Is child molestation a public health problem? It qualifies on two counts: damage to health and numbers of victims. Sexually abusing a child endangers that child’s physical and emotional health. And, unfortunately, the number of victimized children is in the millions.

Effects and Damages
Depending on the seriousness, the duration and the sort of abuse, some of those who were abused in their childhood, or recently retain certain problems due to this trauma. These can be divided into psychological, social, sexual and physical problems.

Psychological problems:
# Fears, panic attacks, sleeping problems, nightmares, irritability, outbursts of anger and sudden shock reactions when being touched.
# Little confidence, and self-respect and respect for one’s own body may change.
# Behavior that harms the body: addiction to alcohol and other substances, excessive work or sports, depression, self-destruction and prostitution.

Social problems:
# Have little confidence in other people.
# Fear of loss of control in relationships.

Sexual problem:
While making love problems often occur. The partner may be confused by a certain remark, touch or behavior that brings back memories of the abuse.

Physical complaints:
# Abdominal pain
# Pain while making love
# Menstrual pain
# Intestinal complaints, stomach ache
# Nausea, headache, back pain, painful shoulders

Reactions to trauma may appear immediately after the traumatic event or days or even weeks later. The symptoms of the traumatic reactions may be very individual and depend on the age of the child.

Very young children typically have a strong fear of being separated from their parents. They might show behaviours of earlier developmental stages (regressive behaviour) like thumb-sucking, bedwetting, or they cannot sleep alone in their beds anymore (fear of darkness)

Any change of social interaction to relatives or at kindergarten or school with withdrawal, disruptive behaviour or changes of the attentional functions (inability to pay attention) with additional sleeping problems or nightmares can be due to trauma. Some children only report somatic complaints or other bodily symptoms.

Older adolescents will describe flashbacks or dissociative symptoms. Social withdrawal and avoidance of any stimuli that are closely related to the trauma (traumatic trigger) are very typical for traumatic experiences. Some adolescents try to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs to compensate for flashbacks and major emotional disturbances.

Who Are These Molesters?
Did you know that most children who are sexually abused, are abused by a family member or close friend? Did you know that “stranger danger,” by comparison, is quite rare? Many children or adolescents are afraid to talk about their traumatic experiences, especially if close relatives are involved. They may even feel extreme guilt over their failure to prevent the traumatic event.

George’s Story
George was a typical teenager. In his twenties, George emerged from his shell, got married, and had two sons. His parents were proud of him, of the family he had established, of the values he taught his children.

During his thirties, he was promoted to a new position in his company every two or three years. More money, more responsibility, more travel, more stress.

One day when George was on the road, his wife got a call. Her husband was three states away. He’d been arrested in that state for child molestation. By now George was 43.

His wife remembers smiling into the phone. She had a flash image – her telling the story about this mistake. “Can you imagine? Poor George, – the most conservative man in the world.” – and how their friends would laugh. She repeated her husband’s name, including middle name. She spelled out the first, middle, and last name. His wife was sure it was somebody else with a similar name. After she was convinced that her husband was the George in custody, her next emotion was fury. Who would falsely accuse a fine man like her husband? Would the lawyer’s fees bankrupt them? What would his boss say? After 20 years of marriage she knew George, knew he was the last man in the world who would ever. . . .

Like most people, George’s wife, when she considered child molestation at all – thought about it only as a sin or a crime. Her husband was simply not a criminal. He had never even had a traffic ticket. He was a regular hardworking man with a great sense of responsibility. If anything, he was a law-and-order guy. He was, like many husbands, concerned for his family’s safety. He was their protector.

His religion was an important part of his life. Their religious beliefs were important to both of them and to their children.

And besides that George couldn’t be a child molester, she thought, because they had a vigorous and happy sex life.

Through the months that followed, George’s wife and his parents received several shocks. He confessed. Yes, he had sexually molested the 10-year-old girl who accused him, the daughter of a man who’d been his friend since high school. Then she found out there had been other victims. He had molested 23 little girls. The number included two nieces, one the daughter of his wife’s sister and, the other the daughter of his own sister. He had also molested several daughters of close friends. His two nieces he had molested over a period of years. Both nieces kept the secret from everybody in the family. In a further shock to his family, he also confessed that when he was 17 and she was in grade school, he had repeatedly molested his stepsister. She also never told.

George’s larger family is, of course, destroyed. Neither his sister nor his sister-in-law will ever forgive him for sexually abusing their daughters. They also shun his wife. No matter what she says about her innocence, they believe she knew all along and allowed him to molest. His parents are shocked. Both are devastated by their failure to protect George’s young stepsister and their grandchild.

Kids NEVER Tell!
Unfortunately, most of today’s children will never tell. They feel ashamed that this has happened to them. They are protecting their abuser because he or she is part of their family. They are protecting other members of their family – saving them from the pain of knowing. Those millions of children are a secret. They are the secret in family after family after family. Even adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse seldom tell. What we do know from studies of adult men and women is that the number is at least three million. At least three million children are molested before they finish their 13th year. In 1998, there were 103,000 reported and confirmed cases of child molestation. For comparison, at the height of the polio epidemic that struck children in the 1950s, there were 21,000 cases reported in a year. For rubella, there were 57,000 cases reported. For child molestation, those numbers of reported and confirmed molestations are only the tip of the iceberg. For every case reported there are at least two and maybe three more cases that never get reported.

We CAN Help!
In spite of the millions of victims in our families, many people stick to their mistaken belief that child molestation has nothing to do with them. This is, however, quite depressing. It shows how we’ve narrowed our thoughts and limited our communication with children. We don’t want to believe in harsh realities that could happen to anyone we care about. And believe it or not, we can actually do something about it!

Sometimes a listening family member or friend can be a great support. Most people can’t handle sexual abuse alone. They need help from therapists or fellow-sufferers. Professionals – physicians and therapists – can never put an end to sexual abuse; neither can the police or the courts. Why? Because they come on the scene too late. By the time they get there, the children have already been molested. Only you can get there in time.

There’s a bigger reason why the professionals and the courts can’t put an end to sexual abuse. They have no permission to talk to a child about sex – unless, of course, they talk to the child after the fact, after the child has already been sexually abused or has abused another child. Only you can talk to your children before anything happens, before any damage is done – to anyone.

Prohibited Activities
The activities identified as sexual abuse of a child varies between countries. In the United States, sexual activity of any kind is prohibited between an adult and a person under the age of consent. Examples of prohibited activities:# sexual intercourse (oral, anal or vaginal) with any person under the age of consent
# soliciting sexual activity from a child
# contact with a child’s genitals for the purpose of sexual gratification
# inducing a child to touch his/her genitals or another’s genitals
# acting as a pimp for prostituted child
# inducing a child to behave sexually in a performance, or to watch any kind of sexual behavior
# inducing a child to appear in child pornography
# lewd acts with children, including disseminating pornography to a minor

It is about time we step forward and stop child molestation in our society. As parents or relatives, we can be friends with our children , be open-minded to their thoughts and be understanding to their needs. We can reassure them that their secrets are absolutely safe with us and hence, identify perverts in our families and society.

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Sabhanaz Rashid Diya