TRANSCRIPT FROM 'EUPHORIA'
Yarra Valley FM
9th July '04

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
Graeme Dawson - Valley Care Counsellor with Glenda Riddell

GR: Welcome Graeme.
 

GD: Thanks Glenda, it's good to be here again.
 

GR: Today we're looking at child sexual abuse? 
 

GD: Yes we said we would and this topic often comes under the same category as domestic violence, which was our topic last time. We said that it's domestic violence when it's happening within the domicile - that is where the extended family normally lives. Of course it happens outside of that too, but sadly, most children are abused by someone known to them, and it's not necessarily 'strangers in the park' so to speak. 
 

GR: Isn't that sad.
 

GD: So I thought we'd clarify a few things first. 
The question comes up regularly as to whether there is more sexual abuse in our society today than there was twenty or thirty years ago. It is true that we hear of a lot of women coming out now in their thirties and forties and talking about having been sexually abused as children. But we're not sure whether that means that there is more or less these days because one of the factors involved is that girls, women and families, are encouraged to come out more readily and talk about it.
 

GR: So they're having more of a voice on the subject.
 

GD: Yes and we are encouraged to look for it too, so you could argue that there is more on that basis today than before but I'm not sure. Whatever the case, it is at an unacceptably high level today anyway. I'm not sure what it's saying about our society, but I know we still tend to be hiding this 'secret' thing. In the media recently we have seen and heard of allegations of police and politicians being involved with a child sexual abuse ring that's been going on for thirty years or so, they said from 1975 to 2000. How does this happen in secret for so long? 
Sadly, men are the greatest perpetrators of sexual abuse as they are of domestic violence. If we looked around our community at an average bunch of guys whom you would think wouldn't get involved in that sort of thing, there would have to be ten or twenty percent of those men who would be sexual abusers. That's a sobering thought.
 

GR: Would it be true to say that some of those men would not identify themselves as sexual abuses either, they would not see what they do as being sexual abuse? 
 

GD: One of the characteristics of domestic violence as we know it, is that men in anger or sexual abuse situations, minimize what happens. I said in my newspaper article on this topic that they say things like, 'I didn't really hit her I just pushed her', or 'I didn't really punch her I just slapped her' and in the case of sexual abuse, 'she loves me' or 'she really liked anyway'. 
The government have implemented a program in the media called, 'Australia says no'. They are reinforcing the fact that it is a crime to push past a point with mature women and totally inappropriate to perpetrate against innocent young children. 
Some men seem to be seeking love or fulfillment by doing this because they are unfulfilled in their own adult relationships. They tend to fantasize and do something with children or weaker women instead. I don't think it's a case of where they don't know what they are doing. 
 

GR: I guess I was thinking probably more in terms of abuse as a whole. I guess when we talk about the sexual issue, they'd have to know what's right and what's wrong. 
 

GD: You're right but unfortunately there are people who don't have full control of their minds and have mental illnesses or psychotic episodes from time to time. You could argue, at that point, they don't know what they are doing. If these people commit a crime, they are not so much exonerated, but hospitalized rather than imprisoned because they are not able to discern right from wrong at that particular point. 
However when you talk to women who have been abused in the past or girls in the present, it usually goes on unchecked because men tend to suggest to the girls 'that it's their little secret'. If the girl is young and gullible enough to go along with that, it works for men at that time, but once the girl starts to buck against it, or reach puberty, then normally there's some other pressure applied. Men may then say, 'don't tell anybody or else'. 'Or else' could range from, 'I won't like you any more', 'I won't love you any more', or 'your parents wouldn't believe you anyway if you told them', right through to, 'if you tell anybody I'll kill you'.
 

GR: So those boundaries can get very blurred, can't they - for the child.
 

GD: Well think about it - a child is brought up in say, a single parent family, the child really doesn't know any other way. They don't know what it's like to be brought up with a father so it's not as if they feel like they've missed out. Children can only work within the framework that they have and when they come to a life experience for the first time they face it for what it is. Unfortunately if a parent is brutal or an abuser, children develop a sense that there is something wrong, but it's all they know.
I was looking at an old Encounter magazine that I had in my file, from 1984, when I came across an article on child sexual abuse. I read a statistic there taken from a book entitled, 'My Secret' where they stated that in the USA at that time, 1in 4 girls had been sexually abused and 1 in 10 boys. Now that was in the USA in 1984 - What would Australian statistics look like today? 
 

GR: How amazing, 20 years ago. 
 

GD: I don't think our society has got any better. 
Sexual abuse is an insidious cancer in our community and I don't think we can call it a disease. But it's certainly a blight on our society. A blight that needs to be eradicated, but how?
 

GR: Graeme, let's go to a music break and look at that when we come back.
 
Music Track
 
GD: Before the break we were talking about the hidden secrets of child sexual abuse. Some of these secrets are made to last for a long time. A lady I encountered recently was telling me about her situation with a relative who had been sexually abused for eight years - from a six-year-old to a fourteen-year-old. We can only guess what was going through the child's mind during those transitional years until it finished at age fourteen. There must have been many times of trauma for the girl in those latter years as she started to realise that these practices weren't normal. Even the trauma of trying to deal with how she could actually stop what was happening would have been enough. Even to admit that she had been involved for eight years would have it's own personal stigma, to say little of coming to the place of telling her mother or the police. Her mother might not believe her and she might fear the police as both might ask how it was that she allowed it to keep going for all that time? The girl might have thought, 'I'm not sure whether I'm guilty or not'. There can be an implication that they are complicate which is what a lot of girls think, and that inhibits them from coming forward. The irony is that sexual feelings are naturally God given to satisfy. The problem is that if an abuser arouses a girl and she feels satisfaction, it only adds to her own internal feelings of being complicit in the act. One lady said that she took the sexual abuse issue to her mother who then proceeded to belt her and told her she was a sleazy little so and so and said, don't tell lies about your uncle or whoever it was.
 

GR: Unfortunately that happens far too often. 
 

GD: It does and that's part of the problem. An illustrative poser says that if your mother and your wife fell over board from a ship, whom would you save? This is what happens sometimes in sexual abuse situations where the wife has to make a choice as to whether she comes down on the side of the male family member or her daughter. This is made more difficult if the offender is her partner because it could mean the end of their relationship. Sadly a decision for the partner is what keeps the abuser out there to abuse again. The other thing that keeps the silence going is the shame, fear and the rejection - rejection by the perpetrator, rejection by their parents and rejection by their peers. When step fathers or fathers are involved they can manipulate the child to believe that they are 'pleasing daddy'. Most children want to please their parents and are not always aware that what he is doing is a sexually inappropriate act. What is being done to 'please' daddy is totally inappropriate. However a young child may not know how to deal with it other than to please daddy and be a good girl. 
 

GR: You can really see how so much confusion could be in a child's mind because the boundaries are so blurred - not a good situation. 
 

GD: We've got to try to rescue children who are being abused in this way and then we've got to look at how we can change things for the future. A question that comes up is, 'How can we tell if this is happening?' 
Well we've got to keep an open relationship with our children and without being paranoid, know what they're up to and know with whom they're spending time. If we notice that they are becoming withdrawn, if they're over fearful about things, bedwetting, or they're frightened to go places, our antennas should be up. Sexual abuse may be happening in a car so we might notice that they're scared to get in cars per-se or into a particular car. There might be some bruising or cigarette burns too, because sometimes these are used as a goad or threat to children who don't comply at a required level. There is a need to be vigilant in knowing where your child is sleeping, because a lot of sexual abuse happens among siblings and with relatives. Girls who have been sexually abused for years by their brothers are often sleeping in the one bedroom where there is more likelihood for something like that to happen. Of course if they're sleeping in the one bed there is a particular vulnerability. Many parents have their child in the bed with them on a regular basis. While they might have some good reasons for this, there may be a need to remove these temptation areas. When children go over night to stay at another child's place for a party etc, there is a need to be sure about the parenting there. We need to be sure about the safety of where they're going to sleep. The other thing to watch out for is a sign of familiarity. You might find a child is overly clingy and cuddly and almost unusually lip kissing or touching in inappropriate places which is sometimes a sign that they are doing these things with somebody else. 
 

GR: Affectionate? It's really about parents being more alert isn't it?
 

GD: We also need to make sure that a weekend away is supervised by trustworthy people. When children are a bit older they go to club weekends or camp away somewhere with groups, we need to be sure the leaders are correctly police checked etc. Spend some time checking out the camp and the rules. They should not be one on one in a cabin and should not be allowed to be alone with older boys and girls without supervision. 
 

GR: Parents need to be very vigilant and do their homework don't they.
 

GD: Yes, I guess it's pretty hard to know within a family, of course, how you watch out for this. Abusers can be uncles, brothers, fathers, stepfathers or grandfathers. 
 

GR: Sometimes those we least suspect. 
 

GD: Yes, well that was what I said right at the outset. The majority of sexual abuse is happening with people known to the child. 'Respected' people within the family. 
 

GR: You wonder how these things are allowed to get established.
 

GD: It's very hard to detect and to weed out.
 

GR: We might just have a break about now Graeme - a track from Elvis. 
 
Music Track
 
GD: We'll wrap up soon, but before we do, we'll give a few phone numbers now. 
 

GR: Okay.
 

GD: If listeners want to do something they could consult the 'Australia says no' - violence against women brochure or pamphlet that you got in your letterbox from the Federal Government. The sexual assault number for Victoria is 1800 806 292. 
If you happen to be a sexual predator or an abuser, and listening this afternoon and you're a man, there's a men's line number. You can get some help to set yourself free from this problem because I'm sure if you're involved in this it's got to be eating you up inside as well - it's 1300 78 99 78.
The Valley Care Counselling Service number if you want to put your toe in the water and at least get started very confidentially is 0409 517 273. 
Valley Care is local, economical and very confidential.
The last number I'll give you for young people is the 24 hours Kids Helpline 1800 551 800.
 

GR: Graeme, I was just thinking during the break about this issue. What would you say to children who perhaps, might be trying to handle this themselves? They know what's happening isn't right, they don't feel good about what's happening but they're kind of thinking, 'no I'll try and handle it myself'? Because there could be a situation where they're not sure how well mum or dad or their parental carer would handle the knowledge of what's happening to them. What would you actually say to a child like that?
 

GD: I think the first port of call is to try and think of somebody who you can really trust and they won't jump back at you. If that's mum, ok. However you might feel you could talk to her but not be confident to broach this particular subject. In this case you could contact the Valley Care Counselling Service to help arrange a time where mum can come in with you and you can sit and tell her in front of us so that gives you a little bit of space and a little bit of a buffer. Other the other hand you might have a favourite aunt or a grandma that you think would really believe you. You could go to someone outside the family, say, someone else's mother that you think you could talk. Or this person could be someone else you respect in the community. At Valley Care we have ladies and men who are counsellors and we are very empathetic. You can be assured that you will be made to feel as comfortable as possible. 
 

GR: Because the bottom line is that kids don't have to live with this kind of abuse. Maybe they're being hushed up and silenced and they may have been carrying this around for quite awhile within themselves. Sometimes when we carry things around in our heads it seems like it's so big a mountain. We think that maybe the world's going to fall apart, the family might break to pieces. These fears can get compounded as time goes on so I guess the message is for the kids just to find someone they can trust to have a talk to. 
 

GD: I think what one of the common problems in listening to children, and with people dealing with them is acknowledging the sense of responsibility the they take upon themselves. Even if sexual abuse is not involved, children tend to take a responsibility for a break in relationship between parents. They take a lot more ownership than they need to. Certainly they don't need to take any of it. Of course if the sexual abuse leads to a broken relationship then the child feels they are involved and partially responsible for it. That promo that Ian read before about guilt talks about the fact that we often carry guilt that is not ours, unnecessary guilt that belongs to someone but we adopt it for ourselves. 
We really need to stamp out sexual abuse at every level in our society. We need to stand up strongly and say 'this is not good',' 'this is not what we want', sadly when it comes to physical violence and sexual abuse we see it every night on television. So through that medium we are telling our children one thing by modelling it and by what we let them watch and saying something else with our mouths. 
You need to acknowledge the existence of sexual abuse, whether in your own family or in your own child or in your own life when you were a child. Acknowledge that it's happening or has happened, and don't try to sweep it away and think it will go away because it won't. 

 
GR: Thanks Graeme.