Muna Said Alshekaili
NGHA, Oman
Title: Child sexual abuse: Journey from warning signs to recovery from the abuse
Biography
Biography: Muna Said Alshekaili
Abstract
When a child is forced or encouraged to be a part of sexual activity, this is called child sexual abuse. There are two different types of child sexual abuse which are the contact abuse and non-contact abuse. The contact abuse when it involve touching activities, where the perpetrator makes a physical contact with the child. The second type is when non touching sexual activities are involved like sexual grooming or even showing the child pornography. Many times the child will not be able to understand what is happening with them is wrong and they have to inform their parents or care giver and this activity can affect the child whole life. In our country there is 299 case of abuse reach to child protection team from different types of abuse and 72 case of sexual abuse and there is 118 cases of child sexual abuse reached to public persecution in 2016 from all different governorates in the Sultanate with variety of age, sex and nationalities which makes us reach to conclusion of every child at risk. Most of the researches worldwide give picture that abuser mainly from the people that the child know and trust unfortunately and its almost the same in our country as there was a 38% from the relative, 36% from care givers like housemaids, drivers, teachers and supervisors. From all the cases 42% were females. Many signs are considered to be a warning signs for sexual abuse like acting out in an inappropriate sexual way with toys or objects, nightmares, sleeping problems, becoming withdrawn or very clingy, becoming unusually secretive, sudden unexplained personality changes, mood swings and seeming insecure, regressing to younger behaviors, e.g. bedwetting and many more. In our clinic we have been dealing with many cases of sexual abuse with positive outcomes. We used to deal with those children by many different ways like play therapy and drawing. It is everybody’s responsibility to report and notice child sexual abuse as early as it can be to reduce the negative consequences of this abuse.