SEXUAL ABUSE--PART 2 (Parent's Warning)

In Part Two the parents have a talk with their two older children. They work out a plan for keeping Naomi safe. Their strongest weapons will be to work together and share information. Father and Mother now make sure that the kids know what is going on, and they discuss who else needs to know—the principal, Naomi’s friend Charity and others. Then they figure out what everyone will do.

Working together and sharing information are two things which are painfully absent in most African societies. Because of taboos, rape is not talked about and everyone hopes it will just go away.

The general thinking seems to be, that if you plan ahead for something, it will happen. I've seen this reaction played out in many areas. If you travel with tools in your vehicle, then it is obvious that you are planning on breaking down and you may even be causing that to happen. If you wear a seat belt you are getting ready to crash!

There are studies that have been done that indicate that people believe that the Community Health Workers who come and teach about HIV/AIDS are actually causing people to get it. Why would you teach about something if you didn't have the ability to cause it? *

In the issue of sexual abuse the assumption is that speaking about it means you have caused it or will cause it to happen. I want to make the case that it is the refusal to acknowledge it that fosters and festers it.

In this drama, the parents learn that an uncle is also a child molester. So a family member as well as a teacher are the perpetrators. Statistically this is true in real life. Now the family must deal with another aspect of sexual abuse. It is tough days for this family.

I have this in French for your listening critique.

*For a paper about this go to: afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/108/432/353.abstract (‘Condoms Cause Aids’: Poison, Prevention and Denial in Venda, South Africa by Fraser G. McNeill)