CHILD ABUSE-SIGNS OF SEXUAL ABUSE ON A CHILD AND WHAT PARENTS SHOULD KNOW

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What if the child is not telling? Most times those who abuse children are members of the family. This makes it difficult for the child to spill. Sometimes the child may be torn between the love he feels for the abuser and the fear that the abuse could hurt him afterwards. If this is the case, the child is being abused right under your nose. How would you tell?

What Is Child Abuse?
This is a situation where an adult, be it a parent or any other person inflict physical or emotional pain or harm to a child.
It is of different types:
(i) Sexual abuse
(ii) Physical abuse
(iii) Verbal abuse
(iv) Psychological abuse
(v) Neglect
(vi) Abandonment
For the purpose of this post, we are going to concentrate on sexual abuse.

SEXUAL ABUSE
This happens when an adult forces a child to have sex with him or her.
It has other forms such as:
(i) Stroking or caressing the private part of a child or an adult asking a child to do that
(ii) Making a child watch pornographic images
(iii) Using a child for sex with other adults(to get paid)
(iv) Forcing a child to appear nude
If all these or any of these has happened to a child you know, that child has been abused sexually.
But how would you tell if the child didn’t hint you or report what he/she has experienced or is experiencing?

SIGNS TO WATCH OUT FOR

1. Withdrawal—The child seem so withdrawn and unhappy. He/she keeps to him/her self and sometimes lost in thought.

2. Paranoid---Abuse make the child believe he/she cant trust any one or feel they want to harm him or her.

3. Relationship problem--- An abused child will never want to have any dealing with the abuser. If your child is comfortable with a family member or friend and suddenly does not want to have go near him/her or refrains from that person, do not sweep it under the rug. Find out why.

Although children exhibit the above behaviours when going through ’something’, you know if a father beats and kicks a mother out of the house and brings in another woman, very likely the kids will exhibit the above characteristics. This is why having a good communication with your kid is important. Let your kid see you as a friend , ready to listen any time. Then it will be easy warming up to you to tell in case of any abuse.

“Do not wash your dirty linen outside” says one idiom, however, if there is concrete evidence to show that your child has been molested or abuse, take action and deal with it. Do not conceal or say its a family thing. If not revolved and stopped, it could cause a child to lose joy in life, never ready to trust any one again and continue to feel worthless.The child on the other hand develops confidence in you that he/she had such a problem and you helped out.

See this case:
A woman left her two year old girl for a bole seller (unripe plantain) to look after while she rushes to the market. At a time the bole seller needed her 10 year old daughter to go home and get something. But the two year old baby started crying, you know wanting to follow the girl home. The bole seller asked her daughter to take the little girl with her and come back fast.

Some minutes after they left for home, the mother of the two year old girl came back from the market and demanded for her child. She was told that the child went home (to the compound of the bole seller with the woman’s child). She decided to meet them up and pick her child from there.

Behold she got there and found the 10year old girl replacing her child's diaper properly. The woman asked why and she gave unnecessary excuse. Did you know that much later at home, when it was time for the woman to bathe her child, she found blood stains in her child’s diaper? Together with her husband, they ran to that woman to show her what they saw, they asked the girl and she confessed inserting her fingers into the small girl’s private part.

She did that forcefully several times until the girl started bleeding. She confessed. Do you know that the case ended like that? With just pleading that the 10 year old is ignorant of what she has done and sorry? The case just closed up like that. How would the child feel when she grows up to hear the story?

I happen to know this cos i was waiting to buy bole that evening (which was still on fire) when the parents of the girl rushed in to meet the madam about what the daughter had done. She asked me too to join in begging the family. It is a crazy experience.
Kids need to be protect and helped.

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DO NOT FORGET
(i) Child abusers are people you know. They live in the same compound, are relatives, child’s parent, sibling, teacher etc
(ii) These people get too nice and give favors to the child they want to molest
(iii) They make the child feel free with them and when they began to touch the child, the child will never feel abuse if in the offing or becomes desensitized.
(iv) They manipulate the kids and tell them no one is going to believe them if they tell. Some make them feel they will be embarrassed in the process of telling

PARENTS PROTECT YOUR CHILD
Parents can protect their children by:
(i) Having a good communication with their children. Find out what happened in your absence
(ii) Equip them before hand. Let your girl child know that one no account should any one, male or female touch her breast, tap her at the buttock or tell immoral jokes around her.
(iii) Let your child learn how to say ‘i will tell on you’ to any one whom he/she finds doing what he feels is not right. It may be the best phrase ever learnt cos it will save them some day.

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MAY GOD HELP US ALL.DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FROM THIS POST?
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