Significance of Knowledge in Children on Self-Protection of Sex-ual Abuse: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Sexual child abuse is a form of anti-social behavior with the children that cause potential harm to the health, development and dignity of the child. Knowledge of children about these issues can help to protect themselves against sexual abuse. This study aimed to review systematically available documents about the importance of knowledge on self-protection of sexual abuse in children.
 Methods: In this systematic review, “sexual abuse”, “self-protection” and “knowledge” were searched in Scopus, Google Scholar, Ovid, PubMed, and Science Direct as the search words, and after considering the inclusion criteria and excluding irrelevant articles, the relevant articles were included for data extraction. In the included studies, children were educated about sexual abuse, and questionnaires were designed to compare the impact of education and the level of knowledge in children before and after education.
 Results: Overall, 19 articles with overall 6582 children were found that were published from 1987-2020. The main awareness of children was from parents, educators and then the media. Age of the child, education level of family, good relationship between family members, adequate education by school teachers in the form of educational programs and even media play an important role in increasing knowledge of children about sexual abuse. Education to children, on average, led to 77.43% more awareness and as a results self-protection against sexual abuse and rape.
 Conclusion: Insufficient education or lack of knowledge about sexual abuse is a critical issue in children. Therefore, it is necessary to design educational programs to increase their knowledge about sexual abuse and strategies for self-protection in this age group.

Picture-Based Program for Raising Awareness of Preschool Children Regarding Self-Protection from Sexual Harassment

“…These findings are in agreement with the previous studies which indicated that teaching the children to identify possible situations of abuse and learning to use of self-protection skills against sexual harassment can help to raise their awareness and subsequently minimize these antisocial behaviors in a society. (26) (17) (10) (27) Furthermore, the current study multivariate analysis confirmed that the implementation of the program proved to be an independent positive predictor of the preschool children's awareness scores, which indicated the success of the program. This is certainly attributed to the appropriate design of the content and process of the program which was developed on a picture-based format to be applicable to and built upon the age and social circumstances that preschoolers would encounter in the real world, enhancing active participation and interactions of the children.…”

“…Likewise, Yu et al (23) , who emphasized that child's age is a significant factor in determining their knowledge of sexual issues and that older children have appropriate awareness and training on selfprotection strategies. As well, Rahimi Khalifeh Kandi et al (27) found that children between the ages of 9 and 11 had greater knowledge than children between the ages of 6 and 8, except when the child had learned the essential information from their parents. However, Tirtawinata (4) concluded that children can protect themselves from adult sexual harassment when they have proper knowledge and attitude towards sex organs in young age as early as three.…”

“…The present study multivariate analysis demonstrated that preschool children's gender was a statistically significant positive predictor of their awareness score. However, Rahimi Khalifeh Kandi et al (27) found that there is no significant difference between the boys and girls in ability to identify unreasonable sexual contact. Boys and girls showed significantly different levels of resistance to inappropriate sexual demands, with girls showing a higher rate of resistance, but boys showing more awareness of sexual abuse and self-protection strategies.…”

“…Similarly the Turkish study of Citak Tunc et al (28) showed that the body safety training program increase the child sexual abuse prevention and skills of self-protection in Turkish preschool children. Likewise, Rahimi Khalifeh Kandi et al (27) demonstrated that educational programs implemented to teach children how to defend themselves against sexual abuse can significantly lower the rate of harassment and abuse among children. Also, in agreement with the aforementioned study results, Gubbels et al (29) revealed that educating and training children to be aware of sexual abuse can lessen the incidence of abuse in children, which may subsequently reduce the risk of emotional and psychological disorders later in life.…”

Child sexual abuse prevention: A qualitative study of teachers’ educational needs

“…Despite being the closest adults to children aside from parents, teachers are crucial professionals for providing students with CSA information (Jin et al, 2017 ). Children’s knowledge of CSA can be enhanced by receiving comprehensive education from teachers through educational programs (Kandi et al, 2022 ).…”