Stairway Staff:
What if an adult, a complete stranger approaches you, and tells you he
wants to touch your private body parts, what would you do?
Street child:
I
would say No! That's wrong!
Stairway Staff:
What if he offers you 500 pesos in exchange for that one little touch?
What then would you do?
Street child:
(Child sits silently, thinks for 10 seconds, then answers) Uhmm..I guess
it would be ok. I really need the money, and besides, it's just one little
touch..
Such a scenario is all
too common with street children. They are presented with a situation which
would require them to decide and letting in other factors such as money,
would confuse the child into entering into actions that would compromise
their personal safety. Child Sexual Abuse is very common in the streets,
and with the lure of money, most often than not, they are forced/tricked
into sexual abuse.
Last March to May, in
partnership with Child Hope Philippines, Stairway decided to try and
"measure" the effects of our animation with street children in terms of
gained knowledge and changed attitude when it comes to Child Sexual Abuse
and Personal Safety. A group of 50 street children from different areas of
Metro Manila, (divided into 5 groups at around 10 children per area) was
targeted. The said research was divided into basically three phases; phase
1 which was done March, involved getting baselines of children’s level of
knowledge on the concept of Child Sexual Abuse, and attitudes regarding
personal safety. This was done thru informal focus group discussions,
using mainly "what if" scenarios like the one written at the start of this
article. Phase 2 which was done April, involved actual viewing of the
animations with processing done by the Street Educators of Child Hope
Philippines using their Mobile Education Van. Phase 3 which was done May,
involved repeating the focus group discussions done during phase 1 in
order to gauge change in the areas of knowledge on the issue of CSA and
attitudes on Personal Safety.
Children's concept
of CSA and attitude on personal safety before animation viewing
It was discovered during
the baseline gathering phase, that a large majority of the target street
children had little or no concept of child sexual abuse and personal
safety skill whatsoever. And that when objects like the offering of toys,
food, or money was brought in, they would concede readily to the abuse. We
can generalize, to a certain point based on the research that the target
group of street children, from the little concept of what they believe is
sexual abuse, changes totally, when the provision of material exchange
comes in. We can see this point based on one of the statements of the
children from the target group:
"Its not a big deal, once, I even went with this man to a hotel, he gave
me 300 pesos, he just kissed my penis, that's all. After that, I had money
to buy me food."
The animations as
tools for increasing awareness and changing attitude
After getting the
baselines, and letting the children watch and process the animations, it
was then time to measure the results. The post Focus Group Discussion, was
done at least a week later after the animation viewing in order also to
measure the recall value of the two animations. Group after group, at the
first instance wherein the Stairway Staff would show the Manuals of
Daughter and A Good Boy, all of the children would erupt in a frenzied
state of recalling the two animations scene by scene, with even a few of
them, reciting the dialogues of the main characters.
In order to gauge change,
we had to measure the same areas (level of knowledge regarding CSA and
attitude on personal safety). Using the same "what if" scenario as
discussed on the initial Focus Group Discussion, the children were
presented with a certain situation wherein would be considered as CSA, and
asked what they would have done. A very large majority answered that they
would resist and tell trusted adults about what have happened. Scenario 2
involved the same thing, but with the offer of money, food or toys in
exchange, and a very large majority answered assertively that they would
still resist and tell trusted adults.
Asked what brought this
change in attitude, the children said that they have learned from Jason
and Daughter (referring to our two animations). Validating this claim, the
street educators said that during the animation viewing, the discussion on
CSA and personal safety seemed effortless as the children themselves
readily asked questions. It even came to a point that some of them
disclosed experiences of abuse through identifying themselves with
daughter or Jason.
It is quite encouraging
to get such results, it really validates that the strategies we are
pursuing, has positive effects on children. It is experiences such as
these which give us the inspiration to move forward with this endeavour.
Prepared by
Ace Diloy
Program Coordinator, SFI
