A huge black-mark on the Childhood experience in NZ

It is always hard to say but , like many New Zealander’s of my time growing up – I was repeatedly sexually abused by a relative (an uncle). I was thirty-five years old before I came to the point that I could tell my parents. I told them over dinner and their response was, literally; “Can you pass the salt and what do you have on tomorrow?”

One of our problems is that we see that type of abuse as predominantly actions of the past. According to information below it has never been worse.

We are worried about feeding kids in NZ and all manner of people throw themselves into that argument. There is so much more to protecting children and ensuring their innocence lasts as long as it should.

I recently met with a person who is now researching and advocating in this area as well as working alongside amazing people in the field. I cannot name her but below is her summary of the situation (unedited by me).

The NZ child sexual abuse epidemic.

An ordinary person likely associates child sexual abuse (CSA) with stranger-danger or child trafficking that occurs elsewhere. Contrary to this, in NZ, in-person CSA:

• Mainly brews quietly in domestic (family and extended family) and high trust environments (friends, schools, youth clubs)
• 40%+ of CSA is incest
• 70% if not more of all reported sex crimes is CSA (children and youth under 16)

CSA as a topic that naturally produces cognitive dissonance “It can’t possibly happen, so it does not happen”. CSA exploits children’s natural trust of adults and thrives on this dissonance.  

Online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) including abuse live streaming is growing at an alarming rate and interacts with incest and other in-person offending A Sea of Red Dots: The Explosion in Online Child Sexual Abuse, with Elizabeth and Ted Cross and Stefan Turkheimer – One in Ten (oneintenpodcast.org)

New Zealand Police Statement on End-to-End Encryption

Online harm: ‘Children don’t know where to go for support’ | RNZ News

CSA thrives because it causes invisible to the naked eye damage to silent victims, who deteriorate gradually over time to the point of suicide.

CSA is a modern-day societal leprosy where crippled survivors are segregated in leper houses of life-long therapy.

A crisis of seeing sexual object in a child is a moral and behavioural one, a crisis of cultural ethics. CSA cases are not isolated incidents, they are symptoms of our society attitudes.

CSA atrocities are committed in peace time on our soil by members of our society.

The societal cost is compounded by life-long health impacts on victims, as well as the cost of government’s child protection and prosecution functions and legal aid assistance afforded to perpetrators.

CSA can be stopped tomorrow if we got serious about it. It’s on us to take the first step.

• We owe to our kids an honest conversation and an apology for how low we have fallen
• CSA must become shared responsibility of every adult
• We need to revise the role of children in society and the value we assign to them
• The ultimate indicator of societal prosperity should be the quality of childhood
• It’s time for a collective action, NZ’s social foundation depends on it.

Insightful articles:

Child Sexual Abuse: Private Trouble or Public Issue?
Regulating Bodies: Children and Sexual Violence (marquette.edu)

Statistics:

HELP (helpauckland.org.nz)
WellStop – Home
CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE – TOAH-NNEST
About the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse | New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse (nzfvc.org.nz)
Family violence & sexual violence work programme | New Zealand Ministry of Justice
Home – Safeguarding Children

Her final note was:

” [there is] the added problem of inhumanity of the current legal system towards child victims, which is well documented in this Chief victim advisor report. I do not understand why it is so hard to fast track judge only trials as was recommended in the 2015 system review, for at least under 12 years of age victims.”

PS (from me): It is easy to feel high and mighty (or self-righteous) on a topic like this. I posted this on Monday on substack the other day to set myself aside from that: https://alwynpoole.substack.com/p/i-have-been-thinking-a-lot-lately

Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/