I am sorry to address such a crude issue but we cannot and should not avoid it. Yesterday the Association for the Healing and Prevention of Sexual Abuse in Children (ASPASI) presented the data study on sexual abuse of minors carried out by the professor of Psychology Félix López and published in 1997.
The picture is shocking. Sexual abuse of minors is much more frequent than generally thought: one in four girls and one in seven boys suffer in Spain before they turn 17. The data indicate that more than 20,000 children are victims of abuse and exploitation in Spain.
The president of ASPASI, Margarita García Marqués, said that "the abuser's greatest ally is silence"and reported that 86% of cases are covered" because, for the most part, the person who abuses is close to the family environment".
A victim of sexual abuse in childhood, Joan Montañé, reported during the presentation her traumatic experience that has also been collected in the book "When We Were Dead" (New Writers) and that has been overcome thanks to the organizations that exist to help these people. One of them is the FADA Association for Counseling and Prevention of Sexual Abuse.
The president of ASPASI also stressed the importance "of teach children that the body is theirs and that no one can touch them without their permission".
I have 3 comments about all this data:
- The study is from 1997. It is indecent and serious that there are no further studies as well as reported by the associations
- ¿Are those figures true or exaggerated?? If true, that would mean that we all have in our environment a child who is suffering abuse
- ¿It is enough to teach children property and power over your body? Of course not.
This is not a problem of children who do not know how to set limits but of parents, relatives and society that has lost the north. And it is adults who need urgent lessons of patience, respect, understanding and love.
I don't know what the solution is but a country cannot be civilized with such a battered childhood. And this is only the data of visible violence, there are also those of the so-called invisible violence We will talk about in the future.
Spain will not be Thailand or Somalia but we have a long way to go to get a happy childhood and a better society.
