Guarding the vulnerable(2)

LEARN ABOUT YOUR BODY: A volunteer teacher of the Protecting Girls program gives a class at a primary school in Beijing on October 20, 2014 (COURTESY OF THE PROTECTING GIRLS PROGRAM)

Lack of education

The frequent exposure of child sexual abuse cases underscores the lack of sex education in China.

"We seldom tell our children what things nobody can ever ask of them, as a result, many children who have become victims of sexual abuse have no idea that they have been abused. We seldom tell our children that they can say no to teachers if they ask them to do something that makes them uncomfortable," Li Bin, a professor of sociology with the Central South University in Changsha, central China's Hunan province, told Xinhua in July 2014.

According to a survey of 235 boys and 219 girls conducted by the Protecting Girls program, only 17.58 percent of children know what sex education is, 60.88 percent have no idea of this concept and 21.54 percent know a little about it.

Of the 902 parents surveyed, only 35.92 percent have given their children some form of sex education. However, many parents have never taught their children about how to prevent sexual abuse.

"In China, few parents have recognized the importance of sex education, and often wait until their children are 14 or 15 years old, " Hong Daode, a law professor at China University of Political Science and Law, told China Daily in June 2014.

"Schools only offer physical health classes rather than opening sex education courses, and most victims lacked awareness of how to protect themselves," he added.

Rise to action

The high incidence of sexual assault cases has caught the attention of the government. On September 24, 2013, four institutions, including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Security, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the All-China Women's Federation, issued a notice, demanding local educational departments carry out sexual abuse prevention classes by giving courses and compiling and giving out pamphlets.

Social organizations are also taking actions to combat child sexual abuse. The Protecting Girls program represents one such initiative.

The program was launched by 100 female journalists from across the country in June 2013 following a string of sexual abuse cases which broke out that year. The program is aimed at popularizing knowledge about how to avoid sexual abuse and raising children's awareness of self-protection against such an offense.

"However, the biggest challenge is to give the lessons in rural areas where there are a large number of left-behind children. However, so far few local governments in such places have contacted us. Another problem is that there are not enough volunteer teachers," said Sun Xuemei, one of the initiators of the program.

The program has compiled their own teaching materials which have been modified over 40 times by more than 20 experts on child protection. By July 23, 2014, the program had trained nearly 1,000 volunteer teachers and had given lessons to over 100,000 children in more than 20 provinces including Shandong, Zhejiang, and Yunnan. It had also given out over 120,000 pamphlets on preventing sexual abuse.

Many local government departments are also inviting our teachers to their schools. "Some places find it difficult to compile their own textbooks, so they asked us to give classes there," Sun added.