CHILD TELLS, DO LISTEN: PREVENT ABUSE!
JOINT ACTION WITH ŞİŞLİ MUNICIPALITY‘Child Tells, Do Listen: Prevent Abuse’ is a protective-preventive campaign that aims to emphasize the responsibilities of adults in struggling against sexual violence. Within the scope of the campaign, of which the Family Health and Planning Foundation of Turkey is also a partner, Association for Struggle Against Sexual Violence has organized various seminars and workshops for the Şişli Municipality staff.
Two seminars have been organized within the campaign; one for the Directorate of Health staff and the other for the Municipality staff. In our seminars, we provided information about children’s bodily autonomy, perception of the child in society, the definition of sexual abuse and its various types, false facts, and the responsibilities of professionals and adults in the struggle against abuse.
Following the seminars, 4 different full-day workshops have been conducted for the swimming pool and gym instructors, the staff of community centers that report to the Directorate of Youth and Health, as well as the DayCare workers and Bilim Evi (Science House) teachers. In these full-day training series, there have been sessions entitled ‘Rights-Based Approach While Working with Children’, ‘False Facts about Sexual Abuse’, ‘Society’s Perception of Sexual Abuse’, ‘Types of Sexual Abuse’, ‘Noticing Sexual Abuse and Intervention’, ‘Protective Work That Can Be Conducted with Children and The Concept of Consent for Children’.
At the Association for Struggle Against Sexual Violence, we use every opportunity to emphasize that we see sexual abuse as a preventable problem and that we are all responsible for struggling against abuse. For this matter, it is necessary to work with the adults first, before working with children. An educational approach that only focuses on the child, without talking about these issues with the parents, teachers, and adults from every aspect of society will fall short of protection or prevention. As long as there is such an obvious power relation between the child and the adult; as long as it is always the adult who has a say; as long as children are not seen as individuals in the society; saying “You can say no, nobody can violate your boundaries” to children is a big contradiction. The truth is that children already define and express their boundaries at an early age. However, the adult world keeps constantly violating children’s boundaries whenever it feels like it: It touches children the way it wants, if the child doesn’t let it kiss/fondle them, then it gets offended, even punishes and makes disturbing jokes. In short, the adult world forgets that children also have a private sphere and boundaries. Moreover, the same society expects children to unconditionally respect adults and obey them. It is quite confusing when those same adults go to the child and say “You can say no.” So what needs to change first is the adults’ perception of a child and how they relate with the child.
Children do not keep silent; they do tell. But it is the power and authority held by the adult world that does not hear, pay attention to, or silences them by intimidation. Children keep silent and do not speak up if they fear that nobody will believe them, that they will be judged, or they will be punished. This is why adults should first accept that children have the right to express themselves and to determine their boundaries and then, they should tell this right to children.
We consider our campaign “Child Tells, Do Listen: Prevent Abuse!”, our cooperation with Şişli Municipality, significant and important because it focuses on adults. We are very pleased to be part of this campaign.
You can find more about the details of the campaign and related publications on the Şişli Municipality website:
https://www.sisli.bel.tr/icerik/cocuk-anlatir-sen-dinle
