Preventing child sexual abuse in school communities

Secrecy is the cornerstone of sexual abuse.

Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, The Perversion of Power. Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

Defining

Preventing child sexual abuse is a challenge as complex as it is necessary, in every context, and especially in school communities. It is not only a matter of preventing (avoiding or reducing the chances that a violation occurs), but of creating preventive contexts or cultures in which people are also trained to detect threatening situations early and, where necessary, to intervene in an appropriate, ethical and timely way. School communities must know how to act when a child or adolescent suffers a violation, or is at serious risk, not only within the community but also at home, in the street or anywhere else. We adults are always the guarantors of children’s rights.

Every prevention strategy requires an understanding of the phenomenon and a contextual ethical approach. The definition we will use comes both from theoretical work and from practical intervention with thousands of victims of child sexual abuse throughout the existence of the Fundación para la Confianza.

It is a comprehensive (not restrictive) definition: it goes beyond merely legal and punitive categories. It includes elements that help build a preventive and alert context, as well as support for people who have been victims in their therapeutic process. It focuses on asymmetrical relationships, as are all family, educational and social spaces where there are adults and children, whose meaning and calling is care and whose pathological manifestation is the abuse of power and, with it, sexual abuse.

This definition recognises, first, that abuse cannot be reduced to a single act but is a process of acts, and that this process begins long before a sexualised interaction and also ends after it. It begins with the phase of seduction, the shifting of the limits of trust, emotional or bodily limits, often until the victim is cornered in a place from which they cannot escape without giving in to the perpetrator.

1. BeforeSeduction and shifting of the limits of trust, emotional or bodily limits
2. DuringSexualised interaction, with no possible consent
3. AfterSilencing of the victim and of those around them

A second element in understanding the structure of sexual abuse is the asymmetry of power. An asymmetry that is clearly not limited to physical force, but that eliminates any possibility of consent. It is important to establish the absence of consent within the structure of sexual abuse because, in the perverse logic of the perpetrator, the cornered victim consents, because perhaps that is what they say, or because they do not refuse or resist, and in that logic this would not be considered a violation. But from a comprehensive approach, which includes the phenomenology of abuse and the processes of seduction, grooming or recruitment, it becomes clear that in such an asymmetry of power no real consent is possible. This is evident when there is an adult–child asymmetry, but it does not exclude other kinds of asymmetry: hierarchical, spiritual, gender, contextual, work-related and even cultural relationships, when they create clear differences of power. Abuse thus eliminates consent through strategies of subjugation, ranging from physical force to the abuse of trust or of the fragility in which another person finds themselves. Indeed, there is rape not only when there is physical force, intimidation or unconsciousness, but also when there is manipulation in an asymmetrical relationship that makes consent impossible.

Prevalence

How large, then, is the problem of child sexual abuse? According to various studies, including those carried out by the Fundación para la Confianza and the Centre for Research on Abuse and Early Adversity (CUIDA UC), around 25% of people over 18 report having been victims of some form of sexual violation before turning 18.

Sexual abuse could be described as a pandemic problem, given the effects it causes and the high prevalence of this violation across the population. Although specific research on sexual abuse as a pandemic problem is needed, taking into account its characteristics, effects, transgenerational nature and spread, we can consider it as such.

Legal considerations for prevention

The adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989 and its ratification by Chile in 1990 is a milestone for the protection of children’s rights. The Convention establishes a new legal, political and cultural framework for the States parties, which undertook to have laws and systems of protection and guarantees to strengthen the principles and rights it recognises. It took Chile more than 30 years just to begin adapting its legal system to the terms of the CRC, and only in 2022 did it enact Law 21.430 on Guarantees and Comprehensive Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents (Ministry of Social Development and Family, 2022). This law establishes the duty of schools to have protocols not only for responding to cases of child sexual abuse, but also for prevention. It is still a lukewarm prevention policy and needs greater precision, support and incentives for creating protocols, real and serious consequences when they are missing, and a minimum quality standard so that these protocols are effective and considered acceptable.

1. 1989The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Rights of the Child
2. 1990Chile ratifies it
3. 2022Law 21.430: schools must have prevention protocols, not only response protocols

There are currently no official standards guaranteeing the content of prevention protocols, nor the adequate preparation of the teams responsible for activating, carrying out and following up those protocols and policies. In this context, the Fundación para la Confianza runs the Alianzas para la Confianza (Alliances for Trust) project, which supports a school community through the creation and validation of its policy and protocol for prevention and intervention in cases of child sexual abuse. For more than a decade, the Fundación para la Confianza has carried out actions to strengthen the rights of children, such as awareness talks, professional development courses, diploma programmes, support in creating protocols, certification of these protocols, review of physical spaces to prevent violations of rights, workshops for children, and so on. The theoretical basis of the Foundation’s prevention and education project, at all its levels, is lucid trust, the rights-based approach and the ethics of care.

Lucid trust

The lucid trust approach emerged within the Fundación para la Confianza and coincides with the public outbreak of cases of child sexual abuse in various institutions in Chile and around the world, such as churches, SENAME (Chile’s former child protection service) and schools, especially from the 1990s and 2000s to the present. The first social and institutional reaction was disbelief or denial, even the blaming of victims and of those who reported. We call that stage and approach, which we gradually identified as a category in different communities and institutions, blind trust. It also coincides with a period in which the scientific, political and legal worlds systematically denied that this constitutes a violation of rights and a trauma (Ambroise-Rendu, 2014). Second, we also identified a category apparently opposed to blind trust: total distrust. In these institutions and communities the reaction is not denial but amplification to the point of hysteria or paranoia, where everyone is considered a possible abuser, even children. In these contexts it is very difficult to establish prevention policies, because where everything is interpreted as a threat, it is not possible to distinguish the real risks or the protective factors and resources. Faced with this apparent dilemma, the Foundation built a third way, that of lucid trust, as both a theoretical and a practical approach (Murillo, 2012).

Blind trust

Disbelief and denial. Victims and those who report are blamed.

Lucid trust

Mutual recognition and rights. Justice, clarity, recognition, care and courage.

Total distrust

Hysteria or paranoia. Everyone is a suspect and real risks are not distinguished.

Part of the lucidity of trust lies in creating spaces of mutual recognition and of reflection on human rights, especially on the basis of the CRC. The rights recognised and guaranteed by the State are the new lucidity needed for trust to become a reality (Ambroise-Rendu, 2014). Some elements of lucid trust are precisely justice, clarity, recognition, care and courage (Fundación para la Confianza, 2021).

The geometry of abuse

Preventing sexual abuse in educational settings requires a view that understands the role of the key actors in cases of abuse. We have called it the geometry of abuse, and it arises from diagrams that analyse social relationships of violence. The theory of the triangle breaks with the views that see abuse as a problem between two actors, a perpetrator and a victim, in which the perpetrator takes advantage of their asymmetrical position of power in family, educational, religious or other contexts (figure 1).

Although this is what happens, it is incomplete, because the asymmetry is not simply a given, something natural, but is generally the product of a cultural, symbolic situation. The asymmetry comes from a symbolically structured space, especially in education (Bourdieu), which distributes roles of power and asymmetry, of command and obedience, of strength and vulnerability. Those who have more power have it on the basis of a cultural context whose meaning is care, not abuse. Indeed, abuse is a pathology of power, not its natural manifestation. Thus, in an asymmetrical context, whoever has more power is the guarantor (like the State) or co-guarantor (like the family or the school) of the care of those under their responsibility. In this way, if someone commits an abuse of power, such as sexual abuse, they do so by taking advantage of the asymmetry that the context they are in gives them. So it is not only that he commits the abuse, but that he takes advantage of the asymmetry, with the approval, indifference or complicity of others who are also in an asymmetrical position, or of the context itself. Moreover, when there are other actors who learn of the abuse being committed, whether as direct or indirect witnesses, and these actors are able to act, then they are third parties. In practically every case of abuse there is, then, in addition to the perpetrator and the victim, a symbolic context and third parties. These third parties can act and intervene in different ways. They can be active or passive accomplices, silencing the victim and supporting the perpetrator (figure 2). The perpetrator counts not only on the silence of the victim, but also on the silence of third parties. What is more, he counts on these third parties, supporting him for different reasons, to silence the victim.

Conversely, third parties can intervene by reversing the roles, that is, by supporting the victim and neutralising the perpetrator (figure 3). This neutralisation can take place through a report, or by asking other authorities or adults for support in the case of children and adolescents or of those in a position of less power. However, if a person is also a victim of the same perpetrator (for example, a classmate, brother, relative or the mother), then they are not a third party who can act, and the analysis will have to turn to a wider level to find a third party who is not a victim: a teacher, a psychologist, a school inspector, a neighbour, the police. Someone who can break the logic of silencing and turn support away from the perpetrator and towards the victim. And in this way, also, return the asymmetrical context that guarantees rights to its original meaning of care.

Silence and abuse

A recurring question about sexual abuse is why it is not reported immediately, as soon as the victim suffers the assault. If the victim reported it, the perpetrator could be stopped quickly and further problems avoided. However, both the literature and the Foundation’s experience show that a report can take years. In 50% of cases a victim will never tell anyone that they suffered abuse. Less than 10% of the cases recorded in the various prevalence surveys are reported to the authorities. And among those who report, only 20% do so within the first 6 months. On average, it takes 10 years before a report can be made. From a victimological perspective, there appear to be more reasons not to report than to report. And those reasons lie not only in the victim but also in the context and in the very structure of the violation that abuse involves. This is why, at the Foundation, we speak of the silencing of sexual abuse, especially when it occurs in childhood, and not of a free decision to remain silent. The perpetrator silences; those around the victim often do too; trauma and its effects silence victims. The justice system can silence victims with its threatening processes of expert assessments and questioning, and with the apathy of exhausted, poorly trained or indifferent staff. Many countries, including Chile, have sought to improve their justice systems when the victims of sexual abuse are children or adolescents: the law on video-recorded interviews, the removal of the statute of limitations and, above all, the law guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents.

• 50%never tell anyone
• < 10%are reported to the authorities
• 20%of those who report do so within the first 6 months
• 10 yearsis the average time before a report can be made

But none of these measures can, on its own, overcome the forces of silencing. What is needed is a commitment from the whole community to support victims in breaking this cycle, which only produces impunity, repetition and a deep injustice for victims in their process of recovery.

Among the many causes of the silencing of victims are fear, guilt, shame, distrust, dependence, pressure from those around them and traumatic amnesia.

• Fear
• Guilt
• Shame
• Distrust
• Dependence
• Secrecy
• Accommodation
• Traumatic amnesia

Fear is, first of all, fear of the threats the perpetrator may have made. Direct threats to harm the victim or their family. But also fear that everything will change, fear of the police, of the justice system, fear of leaving the state of silencing and numbness in which the victim finds themselves.

Guilt is also a very common cause of silencing. There is a process of transferring guilt from the perpetrator to the victim (blame shifting) that occurs in cases of symbolic violence (where there is no physical force). The perpetrator makes the victim feel guilty for what they were a victim of, until impunity is achieved. It is very common in religious and conservative environments, as Ferenczi was already denouncing in the 1930s (Ferenczi, 1932). But the environment too, the immediate context, sometimes the family, the school, the parish or the Church, can make the victim feel guilty for having suffered what they suffered. As if the victim were responsible for having brought it about, as an accomplice, or as if, for not having resisted, avoided or refused it, they were as guilty as the perpetrator or even more so. That guilt becomes an almost inescapable force of silencing.

Shame is often linked to the transfer of guilt, and settles in the feeling of exposure involved in disclosing the violation of intimacy one has suffered. Victims of different kinds of harm share this feeling of shame at having been violated, from rape to fraud, thinking that telling others they have been victims leaves them more exposed or weaker, and that it is better to keep it to themselves, to stay silent. In cases of sexual abuse, the shame is heightened because it is a violation in the sphere of intimacy, of something that is not talked about or is talked about little, something that is hidden. The victim carries the feeling of having suffered something shameful, unsayable, unspeakable, especially in the case of children, who are taught that their private parts, their “shameful parts”, are not to be talked about.

Distrust. In most cases sexual abuse is committed through an abuse of trust. In around 80% of cases the victim is known to the perpetrator, who takes advantage of this to abuse and impose silence. One of the most common consequences for victims of sexual abuse is the weakening of trust. That is why it is hard to expect a victim to confide what they suffered to someone, especially to an authority. To ask for help and to speak, one has to trust the person one is speaking to. As this capacity to trust has been damaged by the abuse itself, speaking becomes less likely.

Dependence. In some situations of abuse the victim depends emotionally or economically on the perpetrator. There may also be institutional dependence. This dependence makes it very difficult for the victim to break the silence, because they perceive that speaking would be a betrayal of the person or institution on which they depend. Sometimes, when there is a great deal of affection, victims feel that reporting would be like going against themselves.

Secrecy. Many victims have been abused in an asymmetrical relationship that is exploited by the person with more power, without the use of physical force. Secrecy is imposed on them, as if it were a relationship or something done by both of them, and not abuse.

Accommodation. In 1983 Dr Roland Summit (Summit, 1983) wrote an article presenting a syndrome: the accommodation of children who are victims of sexual abuse. Faced with the disbelief of adults, the helplessness of victims and their situation of subjugation, it becomes almost impossible for victims to report, and if they do, before a hostile audience, they tend to recant. In this way, in order to carry on with their lives, children who are victims of abuse “accommodate” to the abusive situation, which produces not only impunity for perpetrators but also great harm to their own physical and mental health.

Traumatic amnesia. Among the causes of silencing we can also identify what some have called, in victims of sexual abuse, traumatic amnesia or dissociative amnesia (Williams, 1994). This amnesia is a reaction of psychological and physical survival. Faced with a situation that causes more stress than a person is able to integrate, the amount of adrenaline and cortisol released could cause cardiac arrest. Unable to stop the situation causing the stress, a dissociation between the neocortex and the limbic brain arises as a neurological reaction. The dissociation can become structural, and the victim is unable to remember the events that caused the traumatic dissociation; however, they do retain the traumatic emotional effects. Dissociation, whose function at first is physical and psychological survival, becomes a permanent condition. The victim no longer has cognitive access to that memory in a clear way, as a sequence of describable events, even though the psychological suffering remains, as trauma. These two memories, the emotional and the cognitive, coexist in parallel, untouchable, until, for some people, a stressful situation can give rise to intrusive memories, flashbacks, and they begin to recover that memory in a fragmented and painful way. It is very hard for a victim to talk about something they barely remember, or of which they have fragmented, distant, disconnected memories. And yet the expectations of the justice system, the police, institutions and even families are those of a coherent account that provides enough certainty to overcome the presumption of innocence. This is why it is part of silencing.

Reporting

In asymmetrical contexts, as school communities especially are, it is not easy to make a report. These contexts are organised in such a way that power protects itself, even betraying its reason for being, which is the care of those under its responsibility. Especially in hierarchical or family contexts organised around blind trust, a possible report of sexual abuse is interpreted as a betrayal of the organisation or the family. At the same time, in contexts built around total distrust or paranoia, the report is made not to protect the victim but to protect the organisation. Certainty is not required in order to make a report: a reasonable suspicion is sufficient grounds to report and to bring to the attention of the relevant authorities a fact that may constitute an offence and that requires appropriate investigation and protection. However, the report must always be made taking into account the best interests of the child, particularly of the victim or possible victim. There are reports made only to protect the authorities or the institution, and because they do not take into account the good of the possible victim, they only cause harm, re-traumatise or treat as victims those who are not, breaking the duty of protection.

Certainty is not required in order to make a report: a reasonable suspicion is sufficient grounds.

Reporting plays a key role in the protection and restoration of rights, as well as in the therapeutic process, in stopping repeat offenders and in stopping transgenerational abuse. Reporting is a way of shedding light on an abusive corner in order to stop and prevent abuse. Unfortunately, 90% of reports cannot continue to be investigated and are closed. Recantation, the difficulty victims and witnesses face in attending hearings, the lack of tools among police, prosecutors and judges, as well as the disbelief of those around them, form a mountain of obstacles to achieving justice. Even so, reporting remains necessary. Often the report alone brings a situation into focus and acts as a deterrent to the perpetrator. He will know that a person or a community is willing to report if he commits abuse, and that will make it harder for him to do so. It can alert those close to the victim and also to the perpetrator, breaking the force of secrecy and darkness, the basic materials of abusive dynamics. In cases of intergenerational abuse, when one person reports, the cycle is stopped and it becomes harder for perpetrators to continue the abusive dynamics. For the community, a report is a public statement whose content is that sexual abuse is unacceptable. In this way, the community takes a position on something that has often been minimised or normalised by authorities, organisations, families and communities in general. It recognises that the victim is in a position of less power and takes the victim’s side.

• It protects and restores rights, and supports the therapeutic process
• It deters: the person who abuses knows the community is willing to report
• It alerts those close to the victim and to the perpetrator
• It stops the cycle of intergenerational abuse
• It states publicly that sexual abuse is unacceptable

Is prevention possible?

Deciding to prevent child sexual abuse is not enough: it is necessary to choose and establish approaches with appropriate ethical and technical content, because not all of them are equally effective (Zeuthen and Hagelskjær, 2013). Unfortunately, most child sexual abuse prevention programmes do not seek to protect children, but the institution, so that no reports are made that could damage its image and its smooth internal functioning. Other programmes seek to relieve organisations of their role as guarantors of rights, placing on children the responsibility of saying no and of distinguishing good secrets from bad ones; some programmes even seek to teach 5- or 6-year-old children to hit a possible perpetrator. This is absurd and clearly does not protect. It is true that there are false accusations, irresponsible reports and unfounded persecutions. However, the only way to protect children and the institution at the same time is through effective programmes, with an ethical approach and professional procedures. Here are some tips for putting appropriate prevention policies in place in school communities.

Ten tips for preventing sexual abuse in your school or organisation

Build protective contexts

The first prevention action is to transform and strengthen the organisation into a protective context, healthy in its relationships, a context of care and mutual recognition. It is not possible to protect children and adolescents unless an environment of good treatment is built among them. And this does not happen naturally or automatically: it is an ongoing decision and action, through concrete and effective strategies to build, strengthen and defend contexts and forms of good treatment, of critical thinking, of unrestricted respect for human rights.

A protective context of good treatment among adults not only reduces the chances of abuse against children occurring, but, if it does occur, it will be detected and addressed more easily than in a mistreating or pathological context.

Develop and strengthen lucid trust

Some prevention strategies are based on children learning to say no to a possible abuser, or even to hit him. This would place the responsibility for prevention and intervention on children, which is a mistake from the point of view of adults as guarantors. But it also means that a child who was unable to avoid the abuse failed to prevent it, that it would be, at least in part, their fault, which is re-traumatising, false, and would only strengthen silencing and impunity. That is why the focus must be on children turning to responsible and trustworthy adults in situations of risk, fear or violation. A lucid trust that is strengthened through specialised training on the subject.

Children and adolescents have the right to an environment of trust in which they know whom to turn to when they have problems, are afraid or are confused. And we, as adults, have the duty to guarantee that context of lucid trust. If a child does not know whom to trust, they will blame themselves and live in distrust of themselves, weakening their integrity, identity, protection and even their capacity to learn. The second law of preventing child sexual abuse, then, consists in strengthening relationships of lucid trust in families and institutions, where children know whom they can turn to in case of need, doubt or danger.

Provide conceptual tools to name abuse and ask for help

When a child manages to ask for help, they manage to break the silence, and with it the force of the silence imposed by the abusive dynamic and by the abuser himself. For this, children deserve to have the trust they need that it is possible to speak, that they will be listened to and protected, not reproached. To break the silence, concepts and words are needed to name abuse and ask for help.

The duty of adults and of communities that guarantee rights does not consist in frightening children or forbidding them to be victims, but in giving them, in a context of trust, the concepts and tools they need to ask for help when they feel trapped. That they learn to name their intimate parts, that they know they have rights and that their body belongs only to them.

Talk about it

All abuse feeds on secrecy, silence and darkness. This silence can normalise very toxic behaviours and dynamics. That is why talking, calling things by their name, is like switching on the light and seeing those dynamics in all their toxicity, detecting them, preventing them and intervening in them. We can only defend ourselves against dark dynamics by switching on the light. There are places, families, communities, groups or work teams where talking about abuse seems more aggressive than abusing. In these environments there is often a prohibition on questioning, on setting limits, even on saying the word abuse. A prohibition that is not always explicit, but can be imposed indirectly, through irony, discomfort or other dynamics.

But talking is a way of fighting abuse, because there are abusive situations that, for children and for adults too, seem to have no name, and because they have no name they become naturalised, invisible, entrenched, and do a great deal of harm.

Not talking about abuse, as some people believe, does not keep it away or make it disappear. On the contrary, it strengthens it, makes it slippery and omnipresent. Refusing to talk about abuse makes children more vulnerable. Instead, words are a defence: naming something makes it possible to control it, identify it and keep it outside the relational limits of the context. Silence is the cornerstone of child sexual abuse, and to break that abusive silence we must begin to name it. Talking about abuse means knowing that it exists, recognising its early dynamics and intervening in a timely way. Talking among adults, but also, in an age-appropriate way, with children.

Understand the phenomenon of abuse

There are many myths about child sexual abuse, and they need to be confronted. Knowing the phenomenon, with scientific data grounded in reality, makes it possible not only to understand it more reliably, but also to prevent it, detect it and intervene in a more effective, appropriate, ethical and timely way. It also allows greater empathy and understanding towards people who, in childhood, adolescence or at any point in their lives, have been victims of some kind of violation in the sphere of sexuality. Knowing the statistics, the consequences and the risk factors is essential for prevention. For example:

• 10–25% of the population will be victims of some kind of violation in the sphere of sexuality before turning 18, according to various studies.
• 80% of victims are female.
• < 10% is reported to the authorities: it is among the least reported and recorded offences and violations.
• 1 in 2 victims at some point tell someone and ask for help; most suffer in silence.
• 95% of cases of child sexual abuse are committed by a man.
• 80% of reported cases are committed by someone known to the victim or from the victim’s family circle.
• 75% of cases are committed through manipulation, the imposition of secrecy or the abuse of a bond of trust in an asymmetrical relationship.

Be alert to indicators of abuse

Preventing child sexual abuse requires understanding its reality, dynamics and manifestations, especially at the outset. In many cases sexual abuse begins with small approaches, manipulation, demands to keep a secret, lack of respect or crossings of bodily limits that gradually become normalised.

Physical and behavioural indicators must be studied in context and explained by a professional who is an expert in children’s mental health, because most of them can be ambiguous and must be understood in context and weighed with due care. That is why our call is to seek specialised training on indicators and to pay attention not only to physical, psychological, sexual, social or behavioural indicators, but also to contextual ones. It is essential to be alert to abusive relational contexts or climates, where the imposition of authority or manipulation, lies or ambiguity in relationships, denigration, and the abuse of power and of conscience prevail. As a rule, the first manifestation of abuse lies in an environment that is or has become abusive. When a relationship, work team or family climate begins to grow murky, it is necessary to pay attention, intervene and ask for help.

Reduce opportunities for risk

Child sexual abuse has certain conditions under which it occurs. David Finkelhor, a sociologist and expert on child abuse, puts forward the theory of the preconditions of abuse (Finkelhor, 1984). According to him, the person who commits a sexual violation crosses a series of barriers, personal, social and contextual, until reaching the very moment of the transgression. Some of these early transgressions can be detected and addressed, and others cannot. The first precondition is the internal motivation that leads someone to want to sexually abuse. This element cannot be controlled by a community, because desire alone is not detectable by others. The second condition is the crossing of internal ethical barriers, that is, the firm decision to commit the abuse. This stage of abuse cannot be controlled either, since every decision lies in the internal sphere of the person who commits the offence. The next stage, by contrast, the crossing of social, external barriers, can be detected and controlled by the context in which the person is.

1. Internal motivationNot detectable by others.
2. Internal ethical barriersThe decision to abuse: this cannot be controlled from outside either.
3. External social barriersHere the community can detect and act.

On this point the theory of lucid trust is very important. Blind trust leads us to normalise any abusive situation without realising the risks, violations and suffering it involves; total distrust, as a paranoid response to blind trust, can make us see everything as an assault, without distinguishing what really is a violation from what is not. Lucid trust, by contrast, consists in shedding light, naming and setting clear and validated limits in relationships, especially in asymmetrical relationships. Lucid trust also requires examining the conditions in which adults and children find themselves, in order to reduce the opportunities of greatest risk. These opportunities must be weighed in each organisation or school community, but some pointers to assess are: the isolation and vulnerability in which children may be left with an adult; the possibility of establishing methods of cross-checking; places with visibility where the word is shared; avoiding the monopoly of power of a single adult; ensuring that teachers, coaches, and musical or spiritual guides of any kind are not in charge of children or adolescents without external oversight or visibility, as this can be an opportunity for an abuser who has decided to commit the violation to gain access to a vulnerable moment without being overseen by anyone. It is preferable to have more cross-checking, where no one hides situations, than to have to regret an abusive situation. Prevention does not consist in creating panic, collective hysteria or paranoia, but in a space of light, of lucidity, of freedom and critical thinking, so that people can truly count on one another. That space of lucidity is a space of mutual care and commitment.

Create ongoing opportunities for raising awareness

Child sexual abuse easily falls into the normalising silence of families and institutions. Sometimes the fear of talking about abuse or confronting it is greater than the fear of it happening. In this way an underground collusion takes shape between those who seek to abuse and those who have the power to prevent or stop that abuse. Avoiding talking about abuse does not eliminate abuse; it only leaves us without the tools needed to prevent it, detect it and intervene. And this is not done once, with a talk, an article or a video: in addition to technical training, it is necessary to build sensitivity to the subject. Conversations from the perspective of children’s rights, trauma and, especially, resilience make it possible to raise awareness and, in this way, to engage people and communities in prevention. Raising awareness does not mean causing suffering in those who listen, but commitment based on empathy, not on pity or morbid curiosity. There are books and talks so descriptive that they only provoke rejection in those of us who listen. Raising awareness does not mean causing terror but creating consciousness. It should leave a mood of uneasy calm, the feeling of switching on the light to understand that abuse can begin with small transgressions, which must be named and given a limit immediately. One must fall neither into paranoia nor into blindness; neither into complicit silence nor into morbid curiosity. For awareness-raising to be effective, its points of reference must be the rights of children and adolescents, resilience and care. As practical advice, it is important to talk with experts in resilience and to read about children’s rights, because a family and a community that respect children’s rights are more likely to prevent, detect and intervene early and appropriately in a possible violation of those same rights. In schools and institutions, we advise organising talks and explicit conversations about abuse, with experts on the subject from a rights-based approach. This strengthens the community.

Know and create action networks

Child sexual abuse is a violation whose cornerstone is silence, secrecy and isolation. To prevent it and fight against it, it is essential to have people and organisations who know about the subject and who are actively involved in understanding it and acting on it. This means creating and strengthening networks that allow greater protection and greater well-being for children and adolescents. These networks act by building awareness, knowledge, and a willingness to help in the event of doubts or early suspicions. It is necessary to go beyond one’s own circle, family, work team, school or organisation, and to open up to creating spaces of mutual support, good treatment, respect and care. Get in touch with the children’s and adolescents’ organisations in the area, the municipality’s Children’s Rights Protection Offices (Oficinas de Protección de Derechos, OPD) and Local Children’s Offices (Oficinas Locales de la Niñez, OLN), but also with mental health and family health services, and networks of psychologists who can support work on childhood, attachment and play, to create spaces of good treatment based on the promotion of children’s rights. But also get to know the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Office of the Children’s Ombudsperson (Defensoría de la Niñez), the police units in charge of family matters and the sexual offences squad. This, as we have said before, is not meant to create alarm or panic in the community, in the family or among children, but quite the opposite: to create a climate of lucid trust towards children and families. Keeping in mind the places one can turn to in the event of a violation or a suspicion does not mean distrust or panic, but responsibility in care and awareness of vulnerability. Our Foundation’s advice is to seek out these networks of support, protection and specialised promotion of the rights of children and adolescents. If you cannot create them, count on us to help.

• Children’s and adolescents’ organisations
• Children’s Rights Protection Offices (OPD) and Local Children’s Offices (OLN)
• Mental health and family health services
• Child psychologists
• Public Prosecutor’s Office
• Office of the Children’s Ombudsperson
• Family police units and sexual offences squad

Create and share prevention and intervention protocols

Preventing child sexual abuse requires organisations that work with children and adolescents to have timely and appropriate prevention and intervention protocols. If you belong to an organisation, make sure that a protocol exists, that it is up to date, that it involves the community in prevention activities and that it is known to the different actors. If your son or daughter goes to a school, a scout group, a parish or another institution, make sure they have protocols. Read them and discuss them. If they do not have them, it is not only your right but your ethical duty to demand that they create them and share them. What should a protocol include? Here we set out some points needed for a protocol that is genuinely useful and not a worthless document. First, it must have a clear ethical position, ideally from the perspective of the rights of children and adolescents. This approach should foster a climate of respect for these rights as a way of building prevention strategies. Next, it needs a definition of sexual abuse and of all the situations that will trigger the protocol. This definition must go beyond merely legal definitions, because it must cover those earlier, ambiguous circumstances that can open the way to abuse. However, it must also contain the legal definitions, because they show the legal and criminal responsibilities. In addition, it must include a flowchart of actions and of the people responsible, which are indispensable in a protocol. Without actions and people responsible, no one will act and everything will end in indifference and mutual blame. Knowing who must act and how gives the community peace of mind. A protocol must make visible the networks of public and private organisations that protect children and adolescents. Protocols must be updated every year, take on new forms of prevention and describe new forms of risk and abuse to be identified. Finally, we recommend that protocols not be drafted by lawyers or by companies that seek to protect schools from liability, but by the whole community committed to the well-being of children and adolescents.

A useful protocol has

• A clear ethical position, from the perspective of the rights of children and adolescents
• A definition of sexual abuse that goes beyond the legal one, and also includes the legal definitions
• A flowchart of actions and of the people responsible
• The networks of public and private organisations that protect children and adolescents
• An update every year, with new forms of prevention and of risk
• Drafting by the whole community, not only by lawyers or companies

Bibliography

• Ambroise-Rendu, A.-C. (2014). Histoire de la pédophilie, XIXe-XXIe siècle. Paris: Fayard.
• Ferenczi, S. (1932). “Confusión de lenguas entre los adultos y el niño”. In Obras completas, vol. 4. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1984.
• Finkelhor, D. (1984). Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research. New York: The Free Press.
• Fundación para la Confianza (2021). 10 años por un mundo sin abuso.
• Ministry of Social Development and Family (2022). Law 21.430 on Guarantees and Comprehensive Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents. bcn.cl/2yieq
• Murillo, J. A. (2012). Confianza lúcida. Santiago: Uqbar.
• Murillo, J. A. (2020). “Abuso sexual, de conciencia y de poder: hacia una nueva definición”. Estudios Eclesiásticos, 95(373), 415-440. doi.org/10.14422/ee.v95.i373.y2020.005
• Murillo, J. A., Mendiburo-Seguel, A., Santelices, M. P., Araya, P., Narváez, S., Piraino, C., Martínez, J. and Hamilton, J. (2021). “Abuso sexual temprano y su impacto en el bienestar actual del adulto”. Psicoperspectivas, 20(1). doi.org/10.5027/psicoperspectivas-vol20-issue1-fulltext-2043
• Summit, R. C. (1983). “The Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome”. Child Abuse and Neglect, 7, 177-193.
• Williams, L. M. (1994). “Recall of Childhood Trauma: A Prospective Study of Women’s Memories of Child Sexual Abuse”. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62(6), 1167-1176. doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.62.6.1167
• Zeuthen, K. and Hagelskjær, M. (2013). “Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse: Analysis and Discussion of the Field”. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 22, 742-760. doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2013.811136