2006 05: Good touch, bad touch

The Star online. Education. Sunday May 21, 2006

WHAT is an “OK” touch? What makes a touch “not OK” ?

In the three drama clips entitled Maimunah Bertindak Berani, Suara Hati Aini and Si Din Serba Salah, three children face different dilemmas where they have to decide if they are under threat from an overfriendly adult or if they are safe.

The clips from Ok Tak Ok Series Two effectively relay the message of the dangers of sexual violence on children.

This is a change from the OK Tak OK Series One which features a theatre group from Universiti Sains Malaysia demonstrating in the form of skits the various forms of feelings associated with ''good'' and ''bad'' touch.

Other than the new VCD, the kit includes the two regular manuals Mengajar Kanak-Kanak Langkah-Langkah Keselamatan (Teaching Children To Be Safe) and a picture book for kids, Me and My Little Voice.

The teaching manual is divided into three sections. The introduction covers the hard facts of child sexual abuse, including ways of recognising abused children and advice on handling the matter.

The second part is the teaching guide, which provides the information to be imparted to children from teaching tips, discussion points to application recommendations for its materials.

The best thing about the manual is its open approach where instead of preaching, it tries to draw the teacher into the sensitive and difficult issues.

More importantly, it refrains from being judgmental of the victim. As advised in the manual, criticising the child and putting everything on the children's shoulders is a mistake. There are other more effective ways of helping these children. There are no correct “moral codes” for children, the kit stresses.

The last section provides ideas, games, role play and fun activities which build up children's self-esteem while exposing them to the issues and training them in essential safety skills, such as speaking out and handling sticky situations.

The guidebook is easy to read with drawings and tables for illustration.

The picture book, Me and My Little Voice, is colourful while providing the essential information to empower children to trust their feelings and instincts. Its approach is refreshing and friendly and works towards building up children's self-esteem and confidence.

This is the most comprehensive teaching toolkit available in Malaysia now dealing with sexual abuse. All schools should have a copy.

WCC provides basic training on how to conduct the OK TAK OK programme, which is targeted at children between the ages of 10 and 12. For those who are unable to attend training, the kit is available at RM25 (postage included) from WCC.

The kit is not available at major bookstores but can be obtained by mail from the Penang Women's Centre for Change. For details, visit http://www.wccpenang.org/, call 04-228 0342 or e-mail: wcc@wccpenang.org

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OK to speak up
The Star online. Education. Sunday May 21, 2006

BY HARIATI AZIZAN
Teaching children about sexual abuse can be done effectively now in a fun and creative way. The Women's Centre for Change's newly-updated kit uses real life stories in the most effective way to teach children about sexual abuse writes HARIATI AZIZAN.

MAIMUNAH, 12, is lucky to stay with her sister and brother-in-law in the city where she goes to school. It doesn’t take her long to settle in with her loving brother-in-law who treats her like his own sister, until one day, he physically shows her how much he loves her.

It’s the same for 12-year-old Aini who has just moved from Perlis to Penang with her family. With her mother working night shift at the factory, Aini has to stay alone at home with her stepfather every night. As their bond grows, so does Aini's trust in him. That is when he starts forcing himself on her.

Both Maimunah and Aini want to confide in their close relatives about what had happened, but are too scared to “stir trouble”.

The two real cases are part of a new video resource of Penang Women’s Centre for Change’s (WCC) education package entitled Bijak itu Selamat (Be Smart, Be Safe). It is used for WCC's Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse programme for primary schools.

Along with the VCD, which is tagged as OK Tak OK (OK or Not OK) Series Two, the package includes a teacher's manual on child sexual abuse, a guidebook, a cartoon booklet and pamphlet.
A child who has been sexually abused is usually ashamed or afraid to confide in anyone about the incident. Speaking up is hard to do, as they fear that no one will believe them, or worse, that they will be blamed for it. In some cases, racked with guilt and confusion, they may even blame themselves.

WCC aims to change all that with its newly-updated VCD.

Not OK to stay silent

Says WCC executive director Loh Cheng Kooi: “Getting the child to voice out is the most important thing, especially if the perpetrator is a family member. “

The audiovisual kit is both comprehensive and child-friendly – using cartoons, dance and music – to teach children between the ages of 10 and 12 to speak up about their abuse and speak out against their abusers.

“It’s a creative tool especially when you are dealing with children and pre-teens. For the VCD, we approached the Welfare Ministry for real life stories and rewrote them to suit the production,” adds Loh.

Although WCC has been conducting its programme on prevention of child sexual abuse since 1997, they only launched the Be Smart Be Safe educational package in 2001 in Penang. The kit was introduced in Kedah in 2002, Perlis in 2003 and Kelantan in 2004.

However, feedback revealed that the original video material, OK Tak OK Series One, was not comprehensive enough for teachers.

“When we took it to schools, we got a muted response from teachers. The original video had straightforward discussions and role-playing skits, which required teachers to not only to do research before using it, but also explain everything to the pupils.

“As a result we could not get teachers to run the programme by themselves. We kept getting requests from teachers to conduct workshops in schools, which defeated the purpose of the kit – to empower teachers,” says Loh.

The OK Tak Ok Series Two has a “teacher” host who takes children step by step through the issues as well as “drama clips” of real life experiences for class discussions.

WCC training consultant Dr Prema Devaraj says: “The kit is the same. What is different is the VCD. The second VCD (OK Tak Ok Series Two) is more user-friendly, visually more attractive and creative.”

The new OK Tak Ok Series Two was launched in Penang in August last year and in December, the new video material won the HURIGHTS OSKA Award 2005 for international human rights educational material.

Finding the right touch
To introduce the kit in schools and get teachers familiarised with the issue, WCC has been conducting workshops to provide basic training for teachers in the northern states since 2001. So far, 860 primary school teachers have been introduced to the kit.

Dr Prema says: “WCC recognises that the topic of child sexual abuse is not one which teachers are readily equipped to handle or may want to openly discuss with children.

“The OK Tak OK programme deals with the issue in a very creative and sensitive manner. We would encourage teachers who are interested, to take the time to familiarise themselves with the programme which can be conducted for a class of Year Five or Year Six children in less than an hour. Once teachers are comfortable with the programme, they can conduct it regularly with the children.

“Teachers need to be aware that a child may disclose an incident of sexual abuse during the sessions, and it is vital that teachers know how to handle the disclosure and what steps to take to report the abuse. This information is available in the Teacher’s Manual in the kit.”

Hence, state agencies are involved in the programmes run by WCC to give teachers an idea of who to call and what to do when faced by this predicament.

Echoing Dr Prema, Loh notes that teachers who understand the issue are often apprehensive of their school heads’ stand on the issue.

“Most teachers are worried that their headmaster or headmistress would not want them to publicise the issue. More importantly, teachers themselves need to look at it as a serious issue and want to help abused children.”

According to Dr Prema, official statistics comprise only the reported cases.

“This is the only the tip of the iceberg. It is such a silent crime. We want to remind people that it happens to young boys, too. Although most of the victims are girls, statistics indicate that seven to eight per cent of victims are boys.”

A scenario entitled Si Din Serba Salah (which can be loosely translated as Confused Din) is thus included in the kit. It tells of two best friends Din and Hamzah who compete to be the captain of their school’s badminton team until their coach Razak shows “preference” for Din. Confused, Din does not know how to tell his best friend what the captaincy is costing him.

Dr Prema stresses the need to conduct personal safety workshops in all schools regularly, as well as with disabled children as they are more at risk because of their disability.

Over the last five years, 2,055 primary school students have undergone the OK Tak OK preventive programme while a three-year plan has been initiated for work with children with disabilities and their carers to ensure that personal safety is also introduced to them.

“There is now more media exposure on the issue and people are more willing to discuss the issue.

“However, there is still a lot to be done. The lack of reporting of cases is a problem, lack of support for abused children and their families as well as a shortage of child psychologists and counsellors,” says Dr Prema.

WCC hopes to launch its kit to the other states. Recently, they received funding from the Ford Motor Company to translate the VCD into Mandarin and run the project in Chinese primary schools.

“Unfortunately, we cannot afford to go to all the schools to conduct training for teachers. We are looking for funds to provide training for those concerned and would like to do something about it and to get children to be aware of their environment,” says Loh.

She adds that it is crucial to relate to the children and tailor the information to their level.

“It does not take more than one period to run this programme, but teachers are always complaining that their hands are tied.”

“Now, with the ministry's plan to introduce sexuality education in schools, Loh believes that the programme can complement the new syllabus. We hope that the ministry can integrate the programme into their curriculum.”