André Viviers of UNICEF shared a copy of a report published by the NSVRC entitled “Child Sexual Abuse Prevention and Risk Reduction: Literature review for parents and guardians”.

The report explores whether child sexual abuse prevention efforts targeting parents result in (1) increased knowledge of child sexual abuse, (2) motivate parents to educate and protect their children from sexual abuse, and (3) result in lower rates of child sexual victimization.

The overall findings were that evidence is insufficient to conclusively find that prevention efforts increase parent’s knowledge of child sexual abuse or that they reduce the rate of sexual abuse. However, the available evidence does suggest that prevention efforts do motivate many parents to discuss child sexual abuse with their children. Some educational programmes have been shown to increase parents’ awareness of their own children’s vulnerability to sexual abuse and to promote positive communication about child sexual abuse within families. For example, parents who attended prevention workshops had a higher appraisal of their children’s’ risk to abuse than parents who had not attended similar workshops. In addition, parents who attended workshops reported more positive communication practices at home. The report does note, however, that further studies are required to provide further evidence in this regard.

Generally, the report notes that future studies are needed on all child sexual abuse prevention efforts targeting parents and caregivers to fill the evidentiary and information gaps.

South Africa is well placed to fill some of these gaps through careful monitoring and evaluation of the numerous prevention and early intervention programmes that are and will be run as required by the Children’s Act.

WEB LINKS FOR THIS ARTICLE

Click here to view the NSVRC report.