To know about the general public’s take on Child Sexual Abuse, I conducted a online google survey.
Target Audience of Survey: Parents, adults, people who have direct and most influence on children.
The survey had 30 responses, and within the 30, 6 are parents.
From this survey, I had the purpose of wanting to gather more information regarding 2 topics.
- Parents educating children on sexual abuse now
- Receiving education on sexual abuse when the respondents were growing up
Here’s the link to the survey: bit.ly/ADMCSA
In my survey, I categorized my questions into a few sections.
How do parents educate their children on sexual abuse
It seems that most parents do educate their children, but they face the same challenge / issue when educating. They have to explain to their kids in simple terms, in case they do not understand. When educating, examples always aid them. Even if they do not educate, they are open to trying ways to educate if there are options available.
Adult’s knowledge of sexual abuse as a child
Majority learn about child sexual abuse at the age of 10 – 14 years old (preteen), mainly finding out via the Internet or word-of-mouth. Many agree that aged 10 is a good time to start educating children, but if possible, we should try and start from a young age, when they are able to understand already, such as 5 – 6 years old. There’s a mix between whom to educate, between parents and teachers, as they are both suitable candidates, being close to the child.
Adults current knowledge & TAKE about child sexual abuse
On educating children, there are some suggestions of having a talk session, playing of videos, visual guidance and games.
Unanimously, all the surveyors agreed that such incidents occur due to the pedophiles and the potential gradual increase in them.
All of them believe that sexual abuse on children can be, at least minimized.
All of the respondents do not know of any current implementations for educating child sexual abuse, and majority do not know who to contact when such cases arises.
I posed a question on whom they think are the main offenders of such act, and there is a tie between “strangers, relatives and step-parents”. Based on research data, step-parents are the most common offenders, and not much of strangers.
Out of the 30 respondents, 6 of them know of people whom experienced sexual abuse as a child, and only 1 seeked help.
Those that did not seek help are afraid that no one will believe their words or are simply too scared to sound out.
I also asked my respondents on their opinion of adults not believing it when children sound out about being sexually abused, and why they think so, and if they agree that there are side effects on victims who do not sound out.
Cause I’m concerned with: Lack of education methods for child sexual abuse, to children.
Issues surrounding it: Parents themselves are unsure about the topic (not knowledgeable), do not know how to approach the issue, unsure how to make sure that their children understands the issue.
Based on my findings:
- 60% of parents feel that their children are only a little informed about sexual abuse.
- 50% discover about the term sexual abuse at aged 10 – 14.
- Parents are unsure of how to give their children the proper education child sexual abuse.
- Education on sexual abuse is important for children, as it can help lower the cases occurring, and raise awareness amongst kids.
- Sexual abuse cases occurs more than what is shown on the news, and they are not known because the victims are afraid of the consequences, fear of the offender and do not know who to trust to sound out.
- Children’s words might not get taken seriously by adults (it’s a bad thing!!! children are actually more truthful than adults are, personal pov)
- It’s agreeable that it’s important to speak up if one has experienced such incident, as there are side effects that affects the society when they grow up.
Target Audience: (Can I have more than 1 target audience?)
Initial target audience was children, to educate them on sexual abuse. However I feel that there is a need to educate parents first on child sexual abuse, before they can educate their children.
OBJECTIVE 1: educating on SEXUAL ABUSE
Adults have the strongest influence on children, especially parents, teachers or adults whom they have close relations with. They should also receive education and basic knowledge about sexual abuse, knowing that even a close relative can be an offender, and make sure that their children know what’s their personal physical limit.
Children needs to be educated on sexual abuse, as it might happen to them without them realising, and they might shake it off if the offender is someone close to them.
OBJECTIVE 2: EDUCATING on REACTING TO ISSUE
If adults were to educate children on sexual abuse, naturally, children will confide in them if they were to experience this issue.
Before educating children, we should educate adults on child sexual abuse, what consequences / side effects will be faced, and how they should treat children when faced with this issue. They should also know the importance of trust, and not diss them off the matter. If the child were to confide once and get dissed off, they will never bother trying again, and close themselves off.
If faced with this issue, children should be encouraged to speak up and inform an adult (parent or a teacher), even if they are scared of the offender.
Based on all these information I’ve collected, I’ll proceed to work draft on my data visualisation infographic.
Till then,
Flazéda!
jamz
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