Ignorance underlies sex abuse(2)

In one of the lectures he gives, he tries to break silence around this taboo subject.

"I ask my male students to write down every synonym of penis. Surprisingly there are usually enough to fill up a whole black board," he said.

The number of euphemisms shows how ashamed they are to say the word.

To overcome this shame, Zong asks the students to shout the word. "Students ask me to close the windows and doors before they agree," he said.

One time, after the male students repeatedly chanted the word, the president of the school came, and kindly warned the students not to say the word after class.

But a week later, Zong ran into the president, who happily reported the students lost interest in the word penis.

Protecting kids

Zong's center has advice for protecting children beyond basic education. Xu Jiannong, the center's deputy director, says parents and teachers should learn how to detect signs that show children are being sexually abused, so that further abuse might be avoided.

That ability to detect sex abuse is apparently shockingly lacking right now. According to a review of 40 cases of child sex abuse conducted by the Beijing Youth Legal Aid and Research Center and the Legal Mirror newspaper, more than half the cases were not discovered until at least a year after the incident. About 17 of the cases were discovered at least one year after the abuse, and 5 were found after 10 years.

The center found in 15 cases, the victims lived in single-parent families and also lacked love from parents. Some parents were not aware of the situation, even after their children tried to talk to them.

Xu says children should be told not to let others touch the private parts of their body, the parts that are covered with clothes.

Also, children should be taught to take precautions, not just with strangers, but also their acquaintances who know them well.

For now, Zong continues to lecture in schools and speak on television to educate kids about sex and healthy sexuality.

But he also thinks parents need to step up and do their part.

He considers the ignorance of children surrounding sexual health a result of "the dereliction of duty of their parents."