I come from a silence

Perhaps it would have been good to be able to celebrate today... Not because I particularly like those days, because I don't like them. If mine was a different story -- I would have a father, and not a man who had sexually abused me as a child, rather than representing my father's role. This is the first time I have explained it in public, but I have also decided not to do so. My silence is so old, so long, so painful, that you have to proclaim it to the four winds to find the reward.

Little by little, the reality of child sexual abuse emerges from the dark well of oblivions, the invisible, the silent. If this reality is revealed, the silence imposed on them is, in essence, thanks to the victims who have decided to break. And the reality is that one in five children has suffered or will suffer sexual abuse before they turn 16. Or, if you like, 20 percent of the child and adolescent population. In most cases, sexual abuse that occurs in public or private institutions, especially religious ones, has a higher incidence in the press. But many of these abuses have taken place and are taking place in the space that should give a child more security: at home.

I, like most children, was warned against forest wolves, and nobody explained to me that wolves live too often inside the house. However, the figures reveal collective shame and state that between 80 and 85 per cent of sexual abuse occurs in family and trust environments. According to the American sociologist David Finkelhor, based on the experiences of clients attending psychotherapy and in centres specializing in the treatment of victims of sexual abuse, many clinicians and social workers have come to the conclusion that the incest of the father and daughter is growing and reaching epidemic proportions. Thus, the family environment becomes a high-risk environment, which generates serious physical and emotional consequences in the child. But, since recognizing this point is questioning the sacrosanct institution of the family, we prefer to look elsewhere.

A few years ago, the feminist movement broke the idea that violence against women was a private issue. And he put on the table a big problem, which required the whole of society to face it. He had to break with the millennial thinking of the patriarchal family. Women are the property of the pater family. Today, again, we have to shake our thoughts, because children are not the property of parents. Parents have the right and the duty to provide their children with well-being, love, care, protection, education, culture... But under no circumstances are they entitled to abandon protection, abuse or sexual abuse. And when this happens, when any member of a family exceeds the limits of respect for the rights of children, the whole community, the whole society, must activate the mechanisms necessary to protect this child, which has become a problem of public responsibility and an attack on the right of the child.

In this sense, psychologist Noemi Pereda Beltrán has pointed out that child sexual abuse is a serious public health problem that, in most cases, hinders the proper development of the victim and negatively affects their physical and psychological state. The expert adds that the psychological consequences of the experience of sexual abuse are common and varied, both during childhood and adulthood. From experience I can assure you that this is the case: victims of sexual violence in childhood have multiple, profound and long-term victims.

Only 10% of children and adolescents present abuse before adulthood and, when they do, find a comprehensive protection system that is wobbling. This process can cause the victim equal to or greater harm than those caused by the abuse. This is called revictimization or secondary victimization. Families who are unprepared to help children, especially when the abuse is intrafamily and the report of abuse falls like a bomb in the center of the family dining room, which do not have help or accompaniment. Schools that do not report abuse. Thus, according to Save The Children's Eyes report, in the Spanish state as a whole, only 15% of the centres where the victim explained the abuses have been notified to the authorities. Professionals in psychology and social services without specific training. The judicial system imposes a real hell on the victims, forcing them to declare an average of four times in a system that condemns their story. Etc.

If the health and ethics of a society are measured according to the conditions in which the most vulnerable people live, develop and attend, and in particular the underage, we must conclude that we are in the ICU phase. Urgent action must be taken to reverse this situation. Public institutions should create spaces for the coordination of professionals from different fields (education, psychology, justice, social services) for the protection of children. At the same time, there is a need to provide care, support and advice to victims, families and professionals working with victims. Likewise, public or private entities working with children should provide, know and implement protocols for prevention and action against child abuse and abuse, as well as incorporate adequately trained professionals to the front line.

I would like to add my word to the testimony of all the victims to proclaim the truth of those who have ceased to silence before me. And as his voice put words to my silence, now that it is mine that speaker for victims who still cannot speak and who suffer sexual abuse in intimacy. I would like all of us, who are a river of voice that no longer has, to illuminate and agitate our sleeping consciences. Above all, people who, by virtue of their social and political position, have the capacity and the duty to take measures for a healthy and protected childhood.