Sexual harassment of children
1–Its definition and meanings:
– Sexual exploitation: It is sexual intercourse between a child and an adult in order to satisfy the latter’s sexual desires using force and control over him.
– Sexual harassment: Any provocation to which a male or female child is intentionally exposed. Or other stimuli, such as pornographic pictures, movies, and stories. Harassment is broader than rape or exploitation, and includes the following forms:
– Exposing or touching the genitals.
– Remove the child’s clothes.
– Urging the child to physically touch or caress another person.
– Spying on the child.
– Teaching him bad habits such as masturbation.
– Exposing him to explicit pictures, films or clips.
-Forcing him to commit heinous acts or obscene words.
– Rape and sexual assault in its natural or abnormal forms (homosexuality and lesbianism).
2–Age of exposure:
It is divided into two parts from (2-5) years
The other is from (6-12) years old
Children at this age are often exposed to harassment while their parents are unaware, under threat or temptation, without them being aware of this, and the matter may be repeated several times.
3–Characteristics of the harasser (the wolf):
It is usually a person who is at least five years older than the victim.
He has a relationship of trust and closeness to the victim.
Some studies indicate that 75% of the aggressors have a close relationship (brother, father, uncle, uncle, grandfather) or are known to the victim, including the maid and the driver.
4–Places of harassment:
From the age of (2-5) years, the perpetrator is usually someone who takes care of the child without supervision, such as the nanny, the driver, servants, teenagers in the family, neighbors, or relatives with whom the child is alone.
From the age of (5-12) years, anyone who mixes with them without supervision.
The most important of them are (television and the Internet).
5–Harassers’ tricks:
1- Temptation and enticement.
2- Violence and roughness (threat).
In most cases, the harasser is from within the family, and if he is from outside it, he seeks to establish a connection with the child’s mother or relative before assaulting him.
If the first assault attempt was made by a relative, he reassures the victim that there is nothing wrong with him, and here the victim responds to him again to the aggressor.
The assailant tempts the child with candy, toys, or anything the child likes.
He may threaten the child by exposing him or hitting him if he does not respond to his whims.
6–His legitimate rule:
There is no doubt about the prohibition and heinousness of this act, and its ruling is something no one is ignorant of, just as it is contrary to sound human nature. We will not discuss the Sharia ruling here because we assume that no one is ignorant of it. Every Muslim is supposed to know the rulings on covering one’s private parts and the etiquette of dealing with one another in living, sleeping, being alone, and being alone with one another. The failure of some families to adhere to these legal etiquettes may be the cause of many cases of harassment.
7–Symptoms of harassment (and its detection):
The most dangerous thing is that the child is unaware of what is happening to him, so he is repeatedly assaulted and responds in response to enticement or intimidation, and this continues without anyone around him discovering it.
Harassment has symptoms that may appear together, some of which may appear as follows:
1- Age before 3 years:
– Extreme fear and crying for no apparent reason.
– The child may vomit for no apparent organic reason and this happens repeatedly.
– He may exhibit symptoms of lack of control over excretion (urine and stool).
– He may have problems sleeping.
He may have problems with delayed physical growth and not gain weight.
2- From 3 to 9 years old:
– Fear of some people, places or activities for no apparent reason.
– The child may lag behind his normal stages of development or regress to an earlier stage.
– He may suffer from special problems related to sexual orientation, such as attempts to masturbate.
– He suffers from nightmares while sleeping.
– He fails to make any new friends and avoids people, both old and young.
– He suffers from problems with nutrition and appetite.
3- From the age of 9 years until after puberty:
– He suffers from depression.
– He suffers from disturbing dreams.
– He is clearly delayed in his academic progress.
– He suffers from the abuse of some prohibited drugs (such as drugs).
– He behaves violently with those around him without clear reasons.
– He might leave the house.
– He may show some symptoms in the previous stages.
There will also be other forms of displaying its harms.
8- Harassment damages:
It can be divided into (physical – behavioral – psychological)
1- Its physical harm:
– Diseases, pain in the reproductive areas, and infections.
– Difficulty walking or sitting.
– Head or pelvic pain.
2- Its behavioral harms:
– Not participating in various activities.
– Dropping out and escaping from school.
– Engaging in deviant behavior.
– Lack of confidence in oneself or others.
– Aggressiveness.
– Genital mutilation.
– Self-torture.
– Horror.
– Constant anxiety.
– The girl may engage in seductive and provocative behavior towards others.
3- Its psychological damage:
His biggest psychological problem is the feeling of guilt that may dominate the child (the victim) and his accusing himself of not resisting, and this feeling is the father of misfortunes, according to one of the psychiatrists who specializes in treatment.
Let us note that society and the family may contribute to causing this harm when it blames the child because he did not protect himself, as if he were complicit and participating in the crime.
Covering up the assault also increases the problem, especially if the aggressor is not held accountable.
All of this makes the child lose confidence in himself, his family, and his community, as he was unable to protect himself, nor did those around him provide him with protection and do not do justice to him – psychological injustices – one on top of the other.
Do not ask after that about a child who grew up in such a psychological atmosphere and with this shaky and defeated psychology.
Staying silent about the crime and covering it up greatly harms the victim and casts a shadow over him throughout his life, and may result in one of these possibilities:
A- The victim unites with the aggressor: he becomes like him (an aggressor wolf), as if he is avenging himself on society.
B- The victim may become passive and submissive to anyone who attacks him in any way. He lives his life in this role, and he may even enjoy others’ aggression against him and take pleasure in it.
C- The victim may be accompanied by constant states of anxiety and fear that accompany him throughout his life, which qualifies him to be a psychological patient in the future.
D- The victim continues to engage in homosexuality and addiction.
E- A girl may develop a pathological fear of men without clear reasons, and even after her marriage, she is afraid of her emotional relationship with her husband.
F- A girl may become afflicted with homosexuality and hate men and tend toward girls of her own gender, as she feels safe with them. How will a family be built on such a mother, who did not eradicate from deep within herself the roots of the bad experience she was exposed to in her childhood?
G- Some children (victims) may experience premature sexual liberation, which is any excessive sexual activity that is not appropriate for their age. This does not mean attempts to identify his body parts, as happens naturally in all children. Rather, it is something behind that that goes beyond what is normal, and an astute mother can clearly notice the difference.
9–Prevention:
An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, and parents spending hours training their children to protect themselves and other hours monitoring them is better than spending many years treating the negative effects of attempts to assault and harass their children.
It is better for children to learn to protect themselves from the abundance of surveillance surrounding them.
All of this must be done in a calm and natural way, just as they teach them the etiquette of eating, dressing, and sleeping, and they learn it just as they learn any manners or skill of their daily life, so that the issue does not become an obsession that spoils their lives.
Prevention steps can be summarized as follows:
1-For the child to learn the etiquette of private parts and covering them.
2-For the child to learn that there are parts of his body that no one has the right to see or touch. It is preferable that this be related to health prevention from diseases and care, in addition to hygiene and health safety, so that the child’s thinking does not turn to what we do not want to be honest with him about.
3-The child should be monitored by the parents, especially in places where they fear for him. Let this be done without disturbing him and without him realizing it.
4-To train the child to differentiate between a tender touch and a harassing touch.
5-To train the child to differentiate between a caring look and a harassing look.
6-To teach the child that the best way when he is exposed to harassment is to scream loudly, take three steps back, then immediately flee the site and take refuge in nearby public places or the house.
7-The child must be accustomed to telling his mother all his diaries and what happens to him. The mother must always maintain her calm and do not scold him or rebuke him when he tells her what bothers her, especially cases of harassment. The mother must play with him the role of a friend who listens well to her child.
8-The family must always take care of prevention, avoid leniency and negligence, and not depend on others to care for their children or care for their young ones.
10- The shock of discovery:
The shock of discovering cases of harassment. How should the family deal with it?
Failure to deal with the matter in a correct manner may result in major negative consequences that may amount to “killing the soul” of the victim, as the child’s life will be completely destroyed unless the matter is dealt with properly.
There are things that must be taken into account when dealing with a problem when it is discovered – may God protect us and you – the most important of which are:
The reaction of adults when hearing such news may be characterized by contempt and insult to the child: while the child was waiting for them to help him, he is surprised that in their view he is accused, that he is weak, and that he is the one who prepared others to attack him.
The victim may develop a feeling of guilt and begin to hold himself responsible for what happened. He sees that he is the reason for the anger of the father, mother, and those around him. Then he begins to blame himself for this, and this continues, and may reach the point of psychological illness due to the guilt complex.
– The child’s fear of the aggressor who threatens him if he tells his parents. We must strive to put an end to this so that the child is safe for himself. This must never be delayed.
The child’s fear of the parents’ reaction makes him prefer the rule of silence, which exposes him to the risk of repeated attacks and further complicates the problem.
These are the first things that must be paid attention to and not fall into in order to limit the development of negative effects on the life of the child and those around him.
Dealing with the shock of discovery:
Then there are steps that parents should take when they discover attempts to assault their child, as follows:
1-Parents and family should not give in to self-reproach and blame the victim because that will make them forget to pursue the real aggressor who should be punished.
We must also know that concealing and covering up the problem helps the criminal repeat his crimes with others.
2-Parents and the family must remain calm and not get emotional, because in most cases the emotion in the beginning is directed towards the victim, and this makes him feel that he is the guilty party, while the criminal does not get any of that.
3-Listen in detail and calmly from the child and learn about the real situation, the number of times the assault or harassment occurred, how, where and when, and the reasons for the child’s silence.
When the child is allowed to express freely, this helps him get rid of the negative feelings that allow him to release and release, which reduces the impact of the problem on himself.
4-Use the child’s language and do not change his words, because the child’s comfort is the most important thing at this time.
5-Believe the child. He may not say everything, not because he is a liar, but because he is afraid. The stronger his confidence in those around him, the more accurate he will be in describing the incident.
6-The child must be carefully observed without him realizing it in order to protect him from exposure to stimuli and to record anything strange in his behavior and behavior.
Always distract him when you notice him wandering or distracted, and try to encourage him to be with the family and not leave him isolated.
7-Not placing responsibility on the child and making him understand that we understand what he was exposed to, that he was a victim, that we appreciate his feelings of fear and panic, and that we excuse him for not being able to inform us of the matter, and that he is the one who matters to us. We will punish whoever is exposed to him, and we will work to protect him while teaching him how to behave in the future.
Let us treat him as if he were someone who had stolen something valuable from him. We should not blame him, but rather help him recover what was stolen from him…
8-The best way for a child victim to be treated is to see the person who assaulted him arrested and punitive measures taken against him, such as trial, imprisonment, and punishment.
If the child could scream at him and declare his hatred for him, or allow him to hit his attacker, that would be better in treating the effects of the shock on him and so that he would know that he is not guilty, but that the guilty person is the aggressor.
9-The child must be taught how to deal with these situations courageously and without submitting to the aggressor.
10-Maintain psychological calm and provide safety. If the family is unable to do so, seek the help of a specialist from outside the family who will help them overcome the crisis.
11- Treatment and child containment procedures:
The child must be presented to a psychologist to treat what is called post-traumatic stress reaction and to overcome the feelings of fear and anxiety that the child experiences after being assaulted.
The child’s psychological rehabilitation is carried out by a specialist in psychotherapy, and we must remember that delaying the child’s treatment and psychological rehabilitation may harm him throughout his life…
The treatment steps will often go through the following stages:
1-The child should tell the therapist the painful incidents to which he was exposed, talk to him about his feelings and fears, and bring out everything he does not want to remember so that he does not keep them inside him and so that they do not appear in the form of nightmares and that he does not recall their images while awake.
2-The psychotherapist conducts behavioral therapy through the anxiety scale to return the child to his normal activities and gradually treat his fears.
3-The therapist periodically monitors the remaining effects of the accident on the child and deals with each problem in a manner appropriate to it, such as (bedwetting – nervous disorders such as nail biting – academic deterioration… etc.).
What if the assailant is a relative?
An important and dangerous question at the same time: What should be followed if the aggressor is a relative?
When the aggressor is the father or a relative, the relationship must be severed immediately and without any waiting. It is not possible for life to continue in the presence of a harasser and a predatory wolf, whether he is a father, mother, or relative, under any pretext, for the following reasons:
1-The child continues to feel threatened with harassment even if the matter is revealed, because failure to take action against the harasser tempts him to repeat the act and may put pressure on the child morally by depriving him of things or even showing his strength since the mother was unable to do anything for him, which ultimately makes the child submit to the harasser.
2-The child feels oppressed and unfair, and that there is no one to protect or defend him, and that the mother, who is the closest person and a reliable bulwark, has preferred her interest in continuing the marital relationship over protecting and defending him. This makes the child carry a high degree of hatred for both parties (the father and the mother): the father because he assaulted him and the mother because she did not protect him, and this hatred will extend to the entire society.
The child becomes aggressive and extremely delinquent. Or extremely negative and introverted, which may eventually predispose him to psychological and mental illness.
Here we repeat that if a child is exposed to harassment or assault from anyone, the child should see that protection is provided to him and he is provided with safety. He should see that the punishment falls on the aggressor, whoever he is (near or far from the family or from outside it), and that the relationship with the aggressor should be severed immediately.
The child is made to understand that the relationship was broken off for his sake and for his protection and safety.
Also, if the aggressor is punished with any type of punishment, then the child victim can be convinced that his right has not been wasted.
As for covering up the aggressor and not protecting the child, this is truly “killing the soul,” as some specialists have put it. How can the source of security (the family) be the cause of the greatest fears, and what will life be like in this child’s eyes, and how can he live when he has been robbed of the blessing of psychological security and reassurance… May God protect us, you, our children, and all children from this tragedy.