According the Lifesite, you'd think that a charity had written a piece of explicit erotica for children:
WORTHING, UK, May 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A prominent UK charity has been implicated in the production and distribution of a sexually explicit “educational” pamphlet aimed at children as young as seven. The booklet has been removed from one school in West Surrey after complaints from parents, but the charity responsible, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), has defended the material, saying the sexual material is already covered by the national sex education curriculum.
The charity, ChildLine, a branch of the NSPCC, produced a 20-page illustrated booklet in order to help children identify and report instances of abuse, including sexual abuse. ChildLine operates a children’s abuse telephone and internet hotline and helps connect children and families to social services. The NSPCC is the foremost UK charity working in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to, and abuse of, children.
The booklet, titled “In the Know, Keeping Safe and Strong”, includes a quiz in which children are to identify the abusive situation among three scenarios that include “a goodnight cuddle from mum” and a visit to the doctor. The third says, “Your uncle promises you a new MP3 player if you take your knickers off and sit on his lap.”
At first glance, you might think that's a bit over the top, until you take the time to read the actual pamphlet, and you realize that the pamphlet is purposefully direct in its wording throughout. There's good reason for this - it is meant to give children the vocabulary needed to say that something is wrong when it happens - and abuse happens to children of all ages - regardless of their vocabulary.
Contrary to what the wingnuts seem to think, where matters of abuse are concerned, childhood is not a moment of idyllic purity for the abused child. If they have the vocabulary to say what is being done to them that is abusive, then they stand a much better chance of successfully dealing with what has happened to them than if it waits until they are in their adult years.
This is one of those cases where being a little blunt about something has more long term benefit than it does harm. Do I like the fact that such pamphlets are necessary? Not particularly; but I think we are far better off putting things in the open rather than allowing the abusers to get away with it on the trust that children naturally place in the adults in their lives.
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