Many parents in the South East Asia are unaware of new child sexual abuse forms

Many adults and children in Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam have a limited understanding of the risks of sexual abuse, especially with the growth of the internet era.. The fact is revealed at a new report, Sex, Abuse and Childhood: A study about knowledge, attitudes and practices relating to child sexual abuse, including in travel and tourism, in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam.

The report also finds that children and their families had a limited understanding of what child sexual abuse was and how they could prevent it. The four-country report presents an overview of the findings of four separate surveys conducted in Thailand, Lao, Cambodia and Vietnam between 2011 and 2012. The report was officially launched on June 4, by Project Childhood Prevention Pillar, with funding from the Australian government and support from World Vision.

The report finds that of all the groups interviewed, parents had the lowest levels of understanding on the issue of child sexual abuse. Vietnamese parents even were unable to clearly verbalise behaviours or identify examples of child sexual abuse.

What’s more, children’s risk related to accessing the internet was highlighted. According to the Vietnamese survey, all of the interviewed students brought their cell phones to school. Every day, they texted between 50 and 200 messages, spent two to seven hours using the phone, and between one and four hours chatting online or playing video games.

One Vietnamese 16-year-old female high school student reported that 20 out of her 200 yahoo IDs on her contact list belonged to strangers whom she now considered as her friends. She gave her mobile phone numbers to five of those strangers, of whom four were male (page 37).

“Many children do not understand the risks of using the internet and are unaware that many sex offenders will try to lure children through chat sites. As a general rule, children should never chat to strangers online,” says Mr Nguyen Khanh Hoi, National Coordinator of Project Childhood Prevention Pillar of World Vision Vietnam.

The report indicates that the internet was also used by sex offenders to de-sensitise children to acts of abuse.
 
“There are new forms of child sexual abuse that have been appearing together with the boom of technology,” adds Mr Nguyen Khanh Hoi.
 
“Sexually abusive acts, such as uploading child abuse images via sex websites or sex chatting with children or forcing children to reveal their bodies via webcam, are not generally recognised as forms of sexual abuse. We found that children did not seem to be aware of the danger that strangers posed online”, he adds.

Of the total 600 people interviewed in the report, 275 people including156 children and 101 adults, were asked in Vietnam. The respondents consisted of school children, street and working children, parents and relatives, friends of children, duty bearers, hotel owners, orphaned and abandoned children and men pursuing girls for sex.
In Vietnam, the study took place in District 4 and 8 in Ho Chi Minh City and in Do Son and Thuy Nguyen districts in Hai Phong.

“Limited understanding of child sexual abuse by children and adults means that cases can go undetected,” says Aarti Kapoor, Regional Program Manager, Project Childhood.

The report recommends child sexual abuse prevention education, particularly for parents and carers, children and community members.

“We know from international experience that child sexual abuse prevention education is an effective preventative mechanism to build resilience against abuse in vulnerable communities”, says Aarti Kapoor, “Children and adults need the information, skills and strategies to protect children from all kinds of sexual abuse – whether committed by a stranger, foreigner, local person, friend or family member”.

“We cannot get sustainable success in child sexual abuse prevention and protection by raising awareness of only one separate targeted group. We also cannot impose or prohibit children from their desire of exploring the world by using internet and technology. Integrated education and communication for children, family and community members should be implemented”, adds Mr Hoi.

The report also indicates that children in difficult circumstances and in the indigenous places such as rural, mountainous areas or even orphanages tend to become the targeted destination of foreign child sex offenders.

Vietnam welcome 7.5 million foreign tourists in 2013 while the figure was 6 million each year between 2008 and 2012, according to the latest statistics reported by Vietnam Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism Vietnam. The number of cases of arrests related to child sexual abuse also grew considerably to1800 in 2013, up from 1000 in the past years.

The full report, Sex, Abuse and Childhood: A study about knowledge, attitudes and practices relating to child sexual abuse, including in travel and tourism, in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam, an Executive Summary and Key Findings snapshot are available at www.childsafetourism.org.

About Project Childhood

Project Childhood is a four-year Australian Government initiative to combat the sexual exploitation of children in tourism in the Mekong sub-region which is completing in June 2014. Project Childhood has built on Australia’s long-term support for programs that better protect children and prevent their abuse. Project Childhood brought together World Vision and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to address the serious issue of sexual exploitation of children in tourism. The project worked in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam and took a dual prevention and protection approach.

World Vision took a child safe tourism approach in working with governments and communities to prevent children from becoming victims of sexual exploitation in travel and tourism. Through the use of education and training, public campaigns, and strengthening of child helplines; governments, communities, and tourism industries are better aware of the vulnerabilities of at-risk children to sexual exploitation in travel and tourism and better equipped to build a protective environment. UNODC worked with law enforcement agencies to protect children through strengthening law enforcement responses. Through the increased knowledge of law enforcement and stronger regional and international cooperation, governments are better equipped to identify and counter child sexual exploitation.