“Childhood is something like the sky,
It goes nowhere.”
– Edip Cansever
Child abuse is a social issue that affects all of us. In our country, in families, schools, health institutions, prisons; sexual abuse can be seen everywhere. Although the topic of child abuse has only come to the agenda recently, it exists in every period and is experienced more often than we think. What we see in the news is just the tip of the iceberg.
Even while we are working on this article, we encounter another news of abuse; attitudes, laws, regulations and discourses that justify the abusive man.
Nowadays, when the state institutions’ attitude towards child abuse is clearly in favour of the abuse, it becomes even more necessary to write about such an article and discuss what we can do about it. Because discussing child abuse also links with women and sexual violence; it means discussing issues ranging from body policies pursued by the government to all social problems such as education and health.
For this purpose, in this article, we will try to blend the current developments and historical processes and discuss the concept of childhood and child sexual abuse. We will discuss the approaches of the state, society and family to sexual abuse; put forward what should be done by families, communities and governmental institutions and offer solutions to protect children from sexual abuse.
Finally, we will discuss what a child can do to protect themselves.
Child Abuse in History
The earliest case of child abuse was discovered in Egypt. At first, glance, when the researchers removed the skeleton from the grave, which they named ‘Burial 519’, they didn’t observe anything unusual until they noticed the fractures on the arms. The boy lying in the burial called ‘Burial 519’ underwent various tests and analyses through x-rays. As a result of the examination, it was found that ‘Burial 519’ had made efforts to repair itself. The fact that the wounds were at different healing periods revealed repeated deliberate trauma.
Although child abuse has been a constant theme in every culture throughout the history of humanity and in various sources since the beginning of written history, humanity’s attention to the subject has only surfaced in the last century. For example, in Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens’ novels, child abuse is detailed multidimensional.
The first definition of child abuse in medical literature was made by Caffey Tardieu in 1860. Tardieu addressed the sexual and physical abuse of children for the first time at the Medical Academy of Paris in 1860. Caffey diagnosed children with bone fractures with ‘Caffey Syndrome’, and children with subdural hematoma as ‘Battered Child Syndrome’ in 1961. It is considered that the term ‘child abuse’ is also being used simultaneously.
However, in 1980, Garbarino and Gilliam stated that inappropriate and harmful behaviours should be determined by experts. Incest, a form of domestic abuse, has surfaced for thousands of years, and is drawn in many historical books and draws attention and curses perpetrators. Historically, in Peru; Egypt; and Japan, this path was legitimised to preserve the purity of the royal family. For example, Sophocles in King Oedipus’ Tragedy mentions that Oedipus involuntarily marries his mother after slaughtering his father, later he punishes himself by blinding himself after learning the truth.
In the United States, physical abuse (beating) of an eight-year-old girl by her stepmother was recorded in 1974 as the first child abuse case. Furthermore, the first child protection association was founded by the lawyer of this case, E.Gerry, eight months after the incident – which resulted in a one-year prison sentence for the stepmother who was brought to court and the perpetrator of the incident.
In Turkey, found in 1921, the Social Services and Child Protection Agency served as the first institution for the protection of children – originally formed to protect orphaned children in the war of liberation. In 1959, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Children was adopted unanimously at the United Nations General Assembly with the participation of 78 countries’ representatives. Turkey was one of the first signatories among countries to sign the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” in 1990. However, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey had only reviewed the convention in 1994; it was then published in the Official Gazette on January 27, 1995, and approved by the law no. 4058.
In 1991, medical doctors; pedagogues; psychologists; lawyers; and volunteers established the “Child Abuse Protection and Rehabilitation Association”, this being the first association established in Turkey.
Today, there are many non-governmental organisations working on the protection of children’s right. There are many valuable works of non-governmental organisations working with children directly or indirectly, especially the Agenda Children’s Association, which was recently closed. Bilgi University’s Child Studies Unit increases the awareness of children’s rights by directly contacting children. Although the work of non-governmental organisations stands in an important place, both to force the state to produce policies and to increase social sensitivity – the issue does not go beyond to reserve the discussions.
to be continued..
Sarya Gören
