In light of the recent arrests by the NCA and the fact I had recently listened to the Jackson Katz talk on ted.com again, made me want to introduce a discussion on Who’s Issue Is It? As always it makes us in the office aware of how we need to shift the perceptions around gender violence and how we need to see adults as taking responsibility for their own actions in our society today.

 

All too often I hear statements from practitioners about young men being ‘street wise’, ‘criminals’ or ‘confused about their sexuality’ or young women who choose to ‘go back’ to their abuser, or are ‘asking for it’ when inappropriately dressed, without any exploration about what the drivers to such behaviour are.

 

In our society of growing understanding about the victims experiences of sexual violence, both today and historically through inquiries, reviews and research publicised by commercial broadcasting, social media, professional publications and of course the internet, has the time come when we need to refocus attention on those who are perpetrators, in addition to thinking about how we will protect victims and hear them when they come forward?

 

Of course we should listen to young people when they disclose their abuse, of course we should protect our young people, but do we somehow allow the focus in this area of work to take precedent rather than to talk about adults, both male and female being responsible for their own actions. Without this we will continue to have a conveyor belt of victims, perpetrators moving from child to child, as protecting factors are put into place around individual children.

 

What we have seen is the confusion around the perception that young people have given consent to take part in sexual activity, but fail to recognise the consequences those same young people might face when saying no. Many face violence, blackmail, threats, physical force, coercion and other forms of control not obvious to those living or working with them.

 

It may be that a young person is seen to be inappropriately dressed, or confused about their sexuality, consenting to sexual activity or ‘predatory’ amongst other inappropriate statements, but does this mean we can then take advantage of that? Because a young person has experienced a situation that has made them vulnerable, what right does it give any adult to sexually take advantage of that?

 

Surely the adults responsibility is to perhaps comment it if the situation is right to do so, or make the call to child protection services; at no point does this give anyone the right to sexually touch, instigate sexual activity or rape a child. The adult task and responsibility in our society is to protect the young and vulnerable.

 

We recently came across a few cases where it was stated children have been ‘offering themselves’ to men for sex on the street, so therefore because she ‘offered herself’ it is ‘OK’ for the adult to take her up on her offer, shouldn’t the adult be responsible and show some restraint, make a call to the appropriate child protection services and behave in a responsible manner?

 

We need to understand what we all can do to prevent sexual exploitation and to ‘Say Something If We See Something’. Only with a zero tolerance attitude generated in society will we start to see the impact of reducing sexual violence against our boys and girls.

 

By Sheila Taylor CEO NWG Network

 

 

https://nwgnetwork.org/resources/resourcespublic?cat=74