"Child sexual abuse calls into question the possibility of the world being a refuge"

Pepa Oven

There is a children's story by Bel Olid, Crida ben fort, Estela. Estela, the protagonist of the book, suffers the sexual abuse of an uncle. At the end of the book he draws a deep shout, a powerful “no” that leads the whole family to help her (mother and father, grandparents, Aunt Maria, Uncle Joaquim and even cousin Miriam), and surrounds her and protects her from her mother’s arms. Fortunately, that's where the abuses for Estela end. The story wants to teach boys to say no, and to boys and girls, the importance of asking for help, not to shut up, not to keep, to be able to talk about what happens to them.

But all too often, reality is much more turbid, complex and sad than in stories, and children don't have the strength to ask for help. However, when they ask, the family and society do not help them. The numbers tell us that 90 percent of children who are abused will not count in childhood. To a large extent, this silence is related to the malignant mechanism of sexual abuse over childhood. Not only because it is an aggression against the sexual and psychological intangibility of a child, but because the perpetrator of the crime is, above all, an adult person who surrounds the child. That is, a trusted person who should take care of and protect: father, uncle, brother, friend, professor, coach, leisure monitor... For example, out of every ten reported abuses, two are committed by their parents to their daughters. They are the most traumatic for the victims, both because of the figure that should be supported and because of the betrayal and dissolution of the most basic family ties. In some cases, the aggressor is the woman, but, as things are, the patriarchal tradition in the veins of our society does not leave much room: according to research, in 90-95% of cases, criminals are men.

The victim therefore faces a trusted adult and, probably, someone he loves or has loved. Not only that, the child, in order to explain what happens to him, he first has to understand what happens to him. And this thing that seems so easy to say is not an easy task. We must understand, for example, that sexual abuse is gradually taking place, that it starts with caresses, and that, of course, it will mix them with manifestations of affection. Later on, when the victim begins to feel uncomfortable in the face of these caresses, it will be difficult to think that this adult, in many cases their relative or caregiver, wants to hurt him or her. What is more, he is going to blame himself for the situation. Many victims recognize that, looking back, they shut up for fear. The victims fear that they will be believed, that they will be blamed for the situation, that they will destroy their families if they are told what happens to them… And they fear the aggressor, who uses emotional blackmail and coercion to keep the victim quiet.

If, finally, after all the obstacles, the child or adolescent manages to get informed of the abuse, the environment, often, will not help. The adult world holds back credibility to the child's testimony. Surely, as Pepa Oven explains in her book Honor her pain: the monitoring of victims of child sexual abuse throughout their lives, child sexual abuse questions the appearance of the world as a protective place. The solidity of beliefs of people who have suffered skin abuse and those around them is broken, especially in cases of sexual abuse by family referents. That is why people around them will always have a tendency to protect themselves, to maintain their own sense of security. Denying abuse or removing importance is the easiest solution.

Neither the family, nor the school, nor the judicial area are responding. In the school environment, according to the Ojos report that they do not want to see published by the Save The Children association, it is estimated that only one in four teachers who has been aware of a case of child sexual victimization has reported it: for lack of training, for fear, for prejudice or for lack of knowledge of how to act… In cases where notification is made, action protocols – not only sexual abuse – are left as bureaucratic,

As for the judicial process, once the facts have been reported, the victim will have to repeat his declaration four times – only in one out of three cases is the proof previously constituted admissible. The trial can be lengthened for three years, and out of every ten complaints, seven will not be brought to trial for lack of evidence. One of the most common consequences of this process is the regression and revictimization of the victims.

But not everything is bad news. On June 25, the Organic Law for the Integral Protection of Childhood and Adolescence against Violence entered into force in the Spanish State. With the will to protect the rights of children and adolescents, more and more cities are betting on the Barnahus model or Children's Houses. Its main objective is to have specialized and coordinated professionals who concentrate in the same space all the resources involved in cases of child sexual abuse in order to reduce secondary victimization of children and their families. In one way or another, today, more than ever, child sexual abuse takes its place in public debate, and it is increasingly difficult to look away at this shameful reality.

Let us hope that it is on the right track to protect the rights of children and that one day, not too far away, we do not need 19 November (International Day for the Prevention of Sexual Abuse and Child Abuse, organized by the Council of Europe). In the meantime, let us scream for all the victims who still cannot and let us protect as necessary if the case comes. We have a collective responsibility. Because reality isn't written just in the papers, in the high instances, we all build reality in our daily lives.