How to Prevent Sexual Exploitation
In Families
- Know where your kids are at all times. Be familiar with their friends and daily activities.
- Be sensitive to changes in your kid's behavior; they are a signal that you should sit down and talk to them about what caused the changes.
- Be alert to a person who is paying an unusual amount of attention to your kids or giving them inappropriate or expensive gifts.
- Teach your kids to trust their own feelings and assure them that they have the right to say NO to what they sense is wrong.
- Listen carefully to your kid’s fears and be supportive in all your discussions with them.
- Teach your kids that no one should approach them or touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable. If someone does, they should tell their parents immediately.
- Be careful about babysitters and any other individuals who have custody and care of your children.
In Schools
- Make sure teachers, volunteers, and anyone else with access to children are properly screened and trained.
- Implement and enforce a policy for reporting child sexual exploitation and handling disclosures from children.
- Establish protocols and screening for school computer use. Provide training for students and teachers regarding the acceptable use of computers.
- Assess your environmental structure and take every possible step to make it safer for children. Make certain children are properly supervised both in the classroom and around the campus.
- Make certain campus security is in place so all visitors are screened through the office and unusual incidents/visitors are handled.
- Provide programs and roles for parents and guardians to make them part of their children’s safety and security at school and while going to and from school.
If A Child Discloses Sexual Exploitation
Support young people and their decision to tell their story. It is normal for kids to fear telling others -- especially parents.
Make it clear that telling you what happened was the right thing to do and that you will protect them from future harm.
Respect the child/youths privacy. Accompany the child/youth to a private place where they can relate the story. Be careful NOT to discuss the incident in front of people who do not need to know what happened.
Express your love and confidence with words and gestures.
Keep the communication open with young people. In the future it will be vitally important that the young person believe that you are sympathetic, understanding, supportive, and optimistic so that he or she will feel comfortable in making additional disclosures and in discussing feelings.
Often children DO NOT disclose about incident(s) of sexual exploitation. It is up to attentive adults to recognize the SIGNS OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION.
The Sexual Exploitation Toolkit from the Justice Institute of B.C. works on preventing sexual exploitation, an important goal that many services in BC work toward through education and action.
www.jibc.ca/seytoolkit/prev.htm
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child can be found at the following web address.
www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm
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