Education & Awareness

Educating organisations, churches and communities about the issue.

Overview

ESCAP Sexually Abused and Sexually Exploited Children and Youth in the Greater Mekong Subregion (pdf) is a good overview of issues and possible directions for interventions or for awareness raising.

World Vision’s Crying Out - Children and Communities speak on Child Abuse and Neglect (pdf) sets out both overview of the issues from parents, children and the community’s perspective, as well as suggests a participatory framework for child protection.

Plan International's Hear My Voice (pdf) is a media program report on various activities done by children in promoting awareness in the developing world. A good model to follow or participate in, with ideas to "kick-start" child participation.

The Asha Forum’s Church Mobilization Model (html) offers a multiphase outline for helping churches progress from awareness to action internally, locally and internationally.

The Asha Forum's Protecting Your Church (pdf) is a model focusing on equipping a small team to begin addressing child sexual abuse, and its affects, within your local church.

UNICEF's Facts for Life (pdf) aims to provide parents and other caregivers with the information they need to save and improve children’s lives. The challenge is to ensure that everyone knows and understands these facts and is motivated to put them into practice.

Confronting Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy in Ireland (pdf) reports on what was done to address the problem after evidence was clear that abuse had occured.

Another article Pastors, Fathers and Shepherds (pdf) by Glenn Miles encourages churches to look at child abuse in general from a Biblical perspective.

Understanding God’s Heart for Children (pdf) facilitators pack by Paul Stockley describes a number of exercises churches can explore what the bible says and then do something about it.

What Everyone Can Do – Community Resource Pack (pdf) is produced by the US Government, which encourages everyone to do their part and not leave it all to 'professionals'.

Case studies

Education and awareness raising lies always in the larger matrix of National activities and actions taken towards a holistic protective framework for the child. This brief document Establishing a child-sensitive juvenile justice system in Indonesia (pdf) is an illustration.

In Rescue and Rehabilitation Of Sexually Exploited Minors From Trafficking (pdf), Odanadi, an organization located in Mysore, India sets out its experience in advocacy and education awareness among women and children.

The Junior Council of the United Republic of Tanzania: a lesson in capacity development (pdf) is an example of child participation at rasing legal awareness.

Local-level Initiatives to Combating Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation in Bangladesh (pdf) reports on the effectiveness of awareness-raising projects in Bangladesh.

Toolkits

Plan International information sheets on various topics provide ample material for raising awareness. The topics are:
1. Teens and Crime and Punishment (pdf)
2. Teens and Conflict (pdf)
3. Teens and Teen Labour (pdf)
4. Teens and Substance Abuse (pdf)
5. Teens and Violence (pdf)
6. Additional reading list references (pdf)

Plan International has a downloadable copy of Passport (pdf) to use as participatory material, together with their Universal Birth Registration (pdf) in awareness raising on Birth Registration issues.

ECPAT Setting Up A Campaign (pdf) provides guidelines to help you create the right conditions to start addressing the issue of child sex tourism in your country and to integrate it in your general activities.

Good Touch (pdf) is an activity sheet for children learning personal safety for prevention of child sexual abuse.

Best Practice

Neighbourhood Care Points: An Advocacy and Action Strategy for Realizing the Rights of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (Swaziland 2003) (pdf) is a good practice document that shows how the church can be relevant to children at risk in the community.

CCPCR Cambodia village Awareness (pdf) is an example of good practice of raising awareness at village level.

Good Practice in Asia-Pac to combat CSEC (pdf) gives more secular case studies from the Asia Pacific Region.

Websites

The International Federation of Journalists has a Campaign Against Sexual Exploitation of Children. An outline of this campaign can be found at http://www.ifj.org (web).

http://www.plan-international.org/action/protection/ (web) has resources on child protection.

http://www.plan-international.org/action/teenagers/ (web) has youth-relevant material for child participation activities as well as an interactive website they can log on to. There are downloadable sheets for peer-to peer awareness activities.

http://www.keepingchildrensafe.org.uk/ (web) is an excellent website for interactive participation of children in "at risk" issues. It has downloadable material for child-to-child awareness activities.

More information on international and local forms of advocacy against child sexual exploitation can be obtained from ECPAT www.ecpat.net (web)