Awareness....

Tired and drained mentally & physically was all I could say as I arrived home after work last night. However, as I arrived home, SLing informed me of a talk which was to be held in CCC Melaka. Despite the hectic schedule and physically drained day, we decided to attend the talk and I must say that it was good that we had decided to attend this talk. I was blessed by the talk. Most important of all, there seemed to be a breakthrough in the age of topic of sexual abuse.

Perhaps, I must first of all give thanks and credit to Pastor Joanne Lee of CCC Melaka for her good support and "bravery" in being the host for the ultra-sensitive topic  of the talk which is " Awareness & Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse". I daringly and openly say that sex had been a great taboo topic in our churches today that awareness is virtually none existence or simply brushed aside with comments like " your parents should teach you", evasive and avoidance of this topic or/and this topic is even skipped during church marriage counselling sessions! Tell me if I am wrong on this matter. I personally feel that the church community and parents alike had been "careless" in this topic that many young people had turn to electronic media as their parents/teachers when it comes to sexual education. This often led to a wrong idea of what sex and sexuality is all about. We can preached about sex and quoted from the 1001 scriptures available and speak till our mouths foamed but if it has not been explicitly and thoroughly explained, it is just another wasteful talk as far as I am concerned.  Let us not forget that pornography, illicit pictures and erotic stories and media are actually a click away and every-ready parents to our children . It is important for us , as parents and adults to teach our young ones the right meaning to sex and sexuality in our society today. I agree 100% with both Lai Cheng and Evelyn, the speakers from Save & Protect the Children Organisation on the need to educate our children well in knowing their body parts with firm, assertive and sure manner. They are right in saying that we, as adults, are to listen, believe, praise and protect these children when they tell us of such abuses and to respond calmly & effectively for these children. Gone are the days when we are shy to teach our children and name parts of our body with flowery fictitious names instead of the actual real body parts names. From their presentation of a short video which was wonderfully narrated by Jo Kukathas and testimonies from child sexual abuse survivors, one can only cringed and shake one's head on how such things could have happened. Molestation and sexual abuse since the age of 8 by grandfather, raped by two girls at the age of 12 and one man , in turn, became a sexual predator in his later years, sodomised by respected village head at 10 and molested by cousin during younger days are just some of the testimonies that were shared that night. I could see that a lot of heads were shaken in disgust and there were even gasped as the video clip was played. To me, these are real problems that plaque our society today. It is a vicious cycle that need a full-stop.  So-called trusted adults, people close to the family, sexual predators and sexual offender are real. We have to recognised the fact that these predators are planners and never co-incidences while they prey on weak and low self-esteemed children after gaining the trust of the people around the child and the child itself. Children sexual abuse is real and let us not kid ourselves by turning a blind eye to this. BTW, the definition of children are those below the age of 18 years of age. Make no mistake of the age! Yes, that includes our school going teenagers too and surprised not that sexual predators can come in the form of male (85%) or female (15%) of all ages, races, any level of the people's strata and group of people.

As adults, we have a compulsory duty to protect the children in our family and our society. Let us not kid ourselves by keeping our eyes shut on these matter. Even in prisons, I was informed, that adults or sexual offenders who rape or sexually abuse children are beaten half dead by the inmates.I have said it many times before and I will say it again that if as parents, we do not know the whereabouts our our children after 10pm, we are reckless and we are presenting our children freely to the hands of these sexual predators. We need to know where our children are, who are they mixing with and what are they doing. Communication is important and it will save lives. Trust me, our children always wants to be a grown-up so fast that they are actually not thinking straight and easily landing themselves at the clutches of these predators. Afterall, growing up as an adult comes with responsibilities and another factor is that we must always feel for our child and the child of our neighbour. I have seen enough to convince me that if we continue to chase our careers, fattened our bank accounts at all cost or simply ignoring the needs of our child, we are equally guilty of messing up our children's lives. Excuses that we are all doing this for our brighter future will proved futile and meaningless over the trauma our child would have to go through. There is just too many examples and experiences to share. Suffice to say that I have seen enough to stand up and support this worthy cause of Protect & Save the Children!