WHAT IS THE BEST KIND OF ACTION?
NO MEANS NO, YES MEANS YES
Children are fragile gifts from God that needs to be pampered and protected no matter the circumstances. It is quite unfortunate that in our world today, some parents and guardians have failed in their parental responsibilities to these children, which makes them experience unspeakable trauma resulting from inadequate care.
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Domestic abuse and sexual abuse are some of the experiences that young children are made to pass through and it is increasing rapidly. On so many occasions, you'd spot children hawking or begging for alms on the streets during school hours. This shows that there parents are not capable of performing their duties and responsibilities for the children. The exposure of these children leads to sexual abuse by men and women on the streets who derive pleasure in illicit affairs with underage.
Child sexual abuse is a criminal act whereby an adult or older adolescent forcefully uses a child for sexual pleasure. These child sexual abuse can be through engaging in sexual activities with the child by force, using a child to film pornography contents either video or audio, exposing the genitals, female nipples and other sensitive areas to a child etc.
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Children are targeted during the age that they are still innocent and may not be aware of what is being done to them. Mostly, the perpetrators of these evil acts are always close to the family of the child, such as neighbors, relatives, teachers, family friends. Girls are often the target of sexual abuse in the society than boys.
What action should be taken to curb this meance?
The first thing that should be done is to let everyone know that it is our responsibility to protect children from any form of harm especially the ones that have to do with child sexual abuse. The criminal act will reduce to a certain level when everyone is security conscious and raises alarm when a child is about to abused.
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Secondly, there is a mentality that we need to change in this part of the world - I'm not sure if it's the same in other parts of the world too. The victims are advised to keep mute about their experiences so that people would not judge them wrongly. It even gets to the point where the evil perpetrators will be pardoned by the parents or guardians because they do not want the security agencies to get involved. It is believed that the involvement of security agencies will make the issue become a topic of discussion in the dailies and by extension the child will begin to feel bad about herself.
We need to change this mentality. Any person that is involved in any form of abuse should face the wrath of the law. There will be fear in the minds of anyone who is planning to sexually abuse a child when he or she gets to know that the last person who did it has been sentenced to prison or maybe died due to people taking law into their hands. The police and other security agencies will not be aware of the situation if it is not reported in due time. So, in order to assist the security agencies in carrying out their duty of protecting life and property, we should provide them all the information necessary to give justice to victims of sexual abuse.