Published in Philippine Daily Inquirer
YEAR in and year out, media reports in the broadsheets, on sexual abuse of children in the, Philippines often increase in the number of assailants’ relationship with the victims.
Quite often, the public is not informed of, say, the amnner in which these children were abused.
Understandably, one reason for th non-disclosure of such details may further traumatize the victim. Questions of taste are another reason, for the withheld details can prove too gross or lurid for readers.
Indeed, a Filipino psychiatrist, who helped conduct research on the subject for the United Nations Economic and Social commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap),described the characteristics of sexual abuse of children as alarming.
“Nakakasuka(You feel like throwwing up),” said Dr. Dinah Pacquing-Nadera of the Community and Family Service International (CFSI), which conducted the study last year.
The study will be used as a basis for a forthcoming global campaign to promote greater awareness of the extent of child abuse and the profound effects it has in the victims.
Cases
Zto come up with baseline data, the CFSI studied 708 cases from city and regional offices of theDepartment of Social Welfsre and Development (DSWD), the Department of Health(DOH), the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Exploitation Division (Acaded) pf the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and a number of regional trial courts.
The cases were those recorded in 11 cities: Metro Manila . Angeles, San Fernando and Baguio in Luzon; Bacolod, Tacloban, and Cebu in the Visayas; and Genral Santos, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Zamboanga in Mindanao.
The researchers’ findings show that rape was the most common form of sexual abuse.
Of the rape cases, handled by the DSWD, 66.9 percent involved minors forced to have intercourse with their assailants Similar cases made up 77.3 percent of the cases recorded in the PNP; 36.4 percent in the courts; and 27.3 percent in the DOH.
In 2.4 to 39.9 percent of the cases recorded by these agencies, the victims were kissed, licked, or fondled by their abusers. Some were asked by the abusers to masturbate them, while the others were forced to engage in oral or anal intercourse.
Nadera said it was also sickening to find out that “digital penetration” and “instrumentation” were, done on the child-victims. “Digital penetration” means inserting the abuser’s finger in the private part of the child, while “instrumentation” means inserting an object, like a beer bottle or cigarette, in a girl’s sex organ.
Victims
The victims, on the average, were 11 Years old and living with their families or surrogate families at the time of the abuse. Thirty-five percent of the victims were either street kids, working, prostitutes, runaway, neglected, abandoned, or in conflict with the law.
The psychiatrist said that although most victims were girls, there were also male victims who were “also quite so younger” The boys, she said, were “no less traumatized but often overlooked when it comes to case detection.”
She said the degree of abuse was determined by the “manner of abuse, number of abuse episodes, number ofabusers and relationship of the victims were abused several times by a single abuser.
It is important to establish the identity of the abuser because this “could sometimes be more significant than the act inflicted on the child,” the CFSI said. This is because “the identity of the abuser could significantly affect the way the chid copes with the abuse experience.”
Abusers
The abusers wee, on the average, 34 years old and in most instances (82.1 percent) known to the child. In the 96 cases , while the uncles figured in 49 percent of the cases.
More often than not, having relatives as perpetrators of the abuse discourages victims from reporting the incidents to the authorities, even to sicial workers. Twhis is mainly due to “shame, famliy or societal pressure not to report, and clutural and religious norms that discourage disclosure to others.”
In these finding the FCSI found “significant reason to believe that child sexual abuse is that underreported in the Philippines.
What is more unfortunate, the CFSI said, is that when the victims finally find the courage to go to law enforcement agencies for help, they are subjected to intensive questions by untrained investigators. Om the other hand, it said agencies like the health and social welfare departments fail to document fully the treatment and general assistance efforts.
During a visit to Manila last year, Laura Skolnik, Escap consultant, said the UN agency had “no time frame” for eliminating child abuse in Asian countries, including the Philippines.
We’re just working on it,” she said, through awareness, prevention and protection activities, for government and NGO workers here are being trained.
The important thing ,she said, is for the public “to adopt a mind framethat that’s possible – that it is, in fact, possible to eliminate child abuse.
BY MIRIAM GRACE A. GO
Pan-Philippines News and Information Network