Health Alert

Abuse and neglect of children has been on the go for hundreds of years. There are over 3 million reports of abuse on children every year in the US alone.

It is time to take a stand in protecting our children. Talking about it does not help. It does not end the violence. Action is needed to protect our children against the abusers and peodophiles in the world. Our children’s safety is our responsibility. Our children are our future. A damaged child grows into a damaged adult.

More than 75% of adults today live challenging lives after being abused as children, with very few being able to live a stable life. Sexually abused children are 25 per cent more likely to experience teenage pregnancies and are less likely to practice safe sex. They are 3.8 times more likely to become drug addicts and 2.5 times more likely to abuse alcohol with approximately two thirds of people treated for drug abuse who have been abused as children.

Reports of child abuse are made every ten seconds with five children dying everyday as a result of abuse. More than three out of four are under the age of four.

90 per cent of child victims know their sexual abuser with 68 per cent being a family member. Child sexual abuse occurs at every social economic level across the world and at all levels of education. Around 30 per cent of abused and neglected children will go on to abuse their own child and over 60 per cent of people in drug rehabilitation centers have suffered abuse as a child.

Children who have been abused sexually are programmed to keep their abuse a secret by threats and intimidation by their abuser. Victims who in the past have tried to expose their sexual abuser have often been labeled as persistent liars, attention seekers and worse. The victims are convinced that the abuse was of their own doing because they are bad and if they breathed a word no one would believe them and their punishment would get worse. The victims are intimidated by the abusers position and are helpless and vulnerable without power or voice.

Abuse victims learn from an early age that they are alone with their secrets and it is these secrets that will eventually push the victim over the top with many ending their lives through suicide.

There are many adults who sexually abuse children in one way or another and are protected by their profession or employment. Society can draw up instructions of how to wash one hands’ in a correct manner or how not to hurt your back when moving heavy objects, but they cannot find a way to put a stop to child abuse.

Adults need to take responsibility for actions of abuse against minors and abusers must be held accountable for the damage they done and the crimes they have committed against their victims. They must be made to pay for the victims medical fees and their therapy, not just thrown in jail only to go back out into the world to re offend.

The amount of damage inflicted on a child depends on the age and size and the degree of force used. Internal lacerations and bleeding may be caused through sexual abuse, where in many cases the young victim may die due to damage to internal organs.

Between 1985 and 1994, in the US, there were 6 definite cases of deaths recorded, caused by trauma to the genitalia or rectum and sexual mutilation and 6 probable cases. The victims ranged from the ages of 2 months to 10 years old.

Child sexual abuse was made a public issue in the 1970s and 1980s. Prior to this, sexual abuse remained secretive and socially unheard of. Studies on child abuse were nonexistent until the 1920s when the first national estimate of the number of child sexual abuse cases was published in 1948. By 1968, 44 of the 50 U.S. states had put in place mandatory laws that required doctors to report cases of suspected child abuse.

Childhood Sexual abuse

Many more children have and are being sexually abused today then is ever reported to authorities.

The statistics below will give you a very low number while most of these types of abuses are never reported.

The statistics below were borrowed from:

http://www.fsacc.ca/content/45357

How Often Does Sexual Assault Occur?

* 1, 397 sexual assaults occur in Canada every day.

*Once every minute a woman or child in Canada is sexually assaulted (forced sexual touching)

*A woman is raped (forced to have sexual intercourse) every 17 minutes in Canada

Who Are The Victims Of Sexual Assault?

* 82% of sexual assault victims are women or girls

* 15% of sexual assault victims are boys under 17

* 3% of sexual assault victims are men over 17

* 56% of female victims are under 18 years of age

* 25% of female victims are under 12 years of age

* 44% of female victims are over 18 year of age

* 77% of stalking victims are women

Runaway children

*86% of runaway girls and 50% of runaway boys have experienced sexual abuse.

(If a child was not sexually abused before they run away they will be within 72 hours of being on the Streets!)

This year (2010) we have been witnessing a huge rise in the statistics regarding Child Sexual Abuse in the media reports regarding the Catholic Church and Priest, School Teachers, Sports Coaches and many others abusing or sexually abusing children.

There are a great deal more but they are not always reported because our system does not really want his issue to come out into the open. As much as they say please report these issues, our authorities punish us for doing so. Even within our Hospital Systems abuse issues on Children are not being brought to light due to the degradation, threats of lawsuits and confrontations Doctors and Nurses will face if anything is said therefore once again the issues are hidden.

We see this in our Family Court System. We have been working with many parents who have been horridly abused by this system due to reporting sexual abuses to The Family Courts or The Children’s Aid Society. Canada Court Watch, LoveCry, Justice for Fathers and many other organizations working with our communities have hundreds of cases where parents have not been allowed to see their children for years because they tried to protect them from such abuses.

The Children’s Aid Society seems to believe that a parent who comes to them or the courts regarding their child being sexually abused should show no emotions at all. If a Children’s Aid Worker witnesses emotions shown on the part of the parent reporting these abuses, (pain, suffering, worry, tears, anger, frustration, which are all very normal reactions to finding out their child may have been abuse by anyone) that parent is then deemed unfit to be raising their child. With this even parents are terrified to report on the situation.

Many Lawyers will not take on cases of abuse on children because they will literally lose their careers and threats of lawsuits if they rock the boat. One of our clients has gone through five lawyers within ten years, trying to get his daughter proper help for sexual abuse. Family Court Lawyers seem to be very are afraid to push points on Sexual Abuse, in Family Court, if The Children’s Aid Society puts up any argument at all regarding that specific case.

Upon reporting Sexual abuses to the authorities we the people are being black balled in our communities, red tagged by Children’s Aid society, (many parents not been allowed to even see their children as the Aid does not wish to deal with these things), and told straight up that if we do not be quiet about these things we will suffer more discrimination.

Due to these hidden abuses we do not have the proper Therapies to deal with these abuses, and little real information on how to truly deal with any form of Child Abuse within our Health Care System therefore the help needed is just not there and is not covered by our Health Care system. Below are a few reasons we need to make radical changes in our Health Care system:

Please remember most abuses are NOT reported and the statistics are not as high as they really are.

Information below was borrowed from:

http://www.littlewarriors.ca/about_sexual_abuse/statistics.html#CAN

# Child victims of sexual abuse have been found to display a wide range of symptomology, such as: low self-esteem, guilt, self blame, social withdrawal, marital and family problems, depression, somatic complaints, and difficulties with sexuality, eroticized behavior and irrational fears.

Source: C. Cahill, S. Llewelyn & C. Pearson (1991). Longterm Effects of Sexual Abuse Which Occurred in Childhood: Review. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 30: 117-130

# There has been retrospective correlation of psychiatric disorders in adulthood with unwanted childhood sexual experiences.

Source: R.L. Palmer, D.A. Chaloner &R. Oppenheimer (1992). Childhood Sexual Experiences with Adults Reported by Female Psychiatric Outpatients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 160: 261-5.

# The long-term consequences of childhood sexual experiences with adults have been demonstrated to include, anxiety, deliberate self-harm, depression, difficulties in interpersonal relationships, eating disorders, poor self-esteem, prostitution, and sexual dysfunction.

Source: R.L. Palmer, D.A. Chaloner &R. Oppenheimer (1992). Childhood Sexual Experiences with Adults Reported by Female Psychiatric Outpatients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 160: 261-5.

We all need to push these issues into the forefront, in our communities and to our politicians to be dealt with, make proper changes in our Health Care system and in the meantime below is some information we as parents and communities should teach our children:

Information below borrowed from:

Preventing child sex abuse begins at home by Jerry DeMarco

The National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder pulls no punches:

"Tell the child that if someone tries to touch his or her body in their private areas or do things that make the child feel unsafe, he should say NO to the person. He needs to tell you or a trusted adult about it right away.

"Let children know that their bodies are private and that they have the right not to allow others to touch their bodies in an unsafe way. Let them know that they do not have to do EVERYTHING the babysitter, family member, or group leader tells them to do."

Some more suggestions for keeping your children safe:

Avoid public displaying your kid’s name in print on the outside of clothing or backpacks;

Make your own personal assessment of the “level of opportunity” a molester may have given the particular circumstances;

Monitor relationships your kid has with adolescents and adults;

Let your kid know that abusers troll the Internet -- then keep an eye out whenever your child is online;

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Provide a safe, caring setting so your kids feel comfortable enough to talk to you about sexual abuse.

… and know they love you.