SINGAPORE - “Someone touched me, and it made me feel scared. What should I do?”
Should I: A) Scare the person, B) Ignore it, I’ll feel better later or C) Tell someone I trust straightaway?
A new video about body safety, among other resources to help children protect themselves against sexual abuse from an early age, hopes to provide those as young as four with the right response to such questions.
Targeted at children aged four to nine, the resources include a mobile game, an e-learning course and videos to equip young children, parents, educators with knowledge on body safety and protective behaviours.
The Garden of Safety Resource Kit was launched by family violence specialist centre Pave together with its community partners at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) on Oct 16.
The resources will be rolled out to schools, pre-school centres and children’s homes in Singapore.
Dr Sudha Nair, executive director of Pave, said: “In close collaboration with our community and education partners, we hope to create a movement in Singapore where knowledge is a powerful tool in preventing any forms of abuse.”
An inaugural report on domestic violence trends by the Ministry of Social and Family Development in September showed that the number of new Tier 1 child abuse cases, defined as those with low to moderate safety and risk concerns, rose 17 per cent from 2,377 cases in 2021 to 2,787 cases in 2023.
Meanwhile, the number of new Tier 2 child abuse cases, where children may have severe injuries such as burns or fractures inflicted on them, fell slightly from 2,141 cases in 2021 to 2,011 cases in 2023.
A recent study published in January found that younger victims of sexual abuse are more likely to take a longer time to report what happened to them, compared with those who are older. This was based on 252 cases that were referred to MSF from 2017 to 2021.
The study found that it took an average of about 32 months – or two years and eight months – between the first occasion of abuse and when the authorities were first alerted.
The resource kit by Pave includes an e-learning module with six lessons on topics such as being and feeling safe, early warning signs and respecting boundaries.
Designed for preschool educators, parents and caregivers of young children, the three-hour course includes...