Pubdate: Wed, 05 Oct 2005
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://www.herald.ns.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Sue Bailey, Canadian Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

EXPOSURE URGED OF LINK BETWEEN SEXUAL, SUBSTANCE ABUSE

OTTAWA - Public Health Minister Carolyn Bennett says governments must 
openly confront links between drug and alcohol addiction and the sexual 
abuse of children.

"We cannot deal with things that we're afraid to talk about," Bennett told 
a news conference Tuesday as a national study was released on child abuse 
and neglect.

"We actually have to begin to take on the links that we know of between 
incest and alcohol and drug abuse. This is huge."

The Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect says 
confirmed sexual abuse cases dropped in 2003 to 2,935 from 4,322 in 1998.

But Bennett says there's concern that the drop may only illustrate 
increasing reluctance to report sexual abuse.

Hard-line treatment of child molestation as a police matter could be 
scaring victims into silence because they are often abused by someone they 
know and love, experts say.

Results were culled from reports filed over three months by 63 child 
welfare agencies - excluding Quebec, where data was compiled differently.

Lead researcher Nico Trocme says results of the $800,000 project, mostly 
funded by the federal Public Health Department, are inconclusive.

"It could be very good news or it could mean that we need to soften our 
approach.

"We need to do more research."

Eighteen-year-olds should be surveyed to gauge the rate at which they're 
reporting or covering up abuse, Trocme suggested in an interview.

Bennett stressed that sex abuse has major repercussions on a child's 
development and the likelihood they'll turn to drugs and alcohol later on.

"Of particular concern, as we know, aboriginal children are 
disproportionately represented among the victims of child maltreatment 
known to child welfare services."

Childhood sexual abuse is a common trait shared by hundreds of native 
women, many of them drug-addicted, who have been murdered or gone missing 
across Canada since 1985.

Many native communities are still suffering the fallout from more than 
three generations of physical and sexual abuse suffered in federal 
residential schools. Ottawa acknowledged in 1998 that abuse in the 
church-run schools was rampant.

A federal researcher who specializes in aboriginal issues says child 
welfare workers on reserves are chronically over-stretched.

Many staff must double as addictions counsellors as they juggle 
disproportionate numbers of single-parent cases, said the source who asked 
not to be identified.

"They're under-funded and overworked."

Rosalind Prober, president of the independent children's-rights group 
Beyond Borders, is skeptical of any suggestion that sexual abuse is on the 
decline.

"There's a great silencing about this crime that we have not overcome as a 
society," she said from Toronto where she was attending an international 
police conference on sex offences.

"Children are still silent, they are not believed."

The report released Tuesday shows that the incidence of all forms of 
reported child abuse and neglect in Canada in 2003 was up 125 per cent from 
1998, the last time it was measured.

Trocme cautions that the jump in cases isn't necessarily because more 
children are being maltreated, but because of increased reporting.
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