The Protection of Children
Over many years, numerous attempts have been made to educate children concerning the risks to their physical and personal safety. Such educational campaigns variously address road safety, the ever-present problem of bullying, and the risks of physical and sexual abuse. The theme of this journal issue is children's knowledge and understanding of concepts that have particular relevance to their personal safety and protection from sexual abuse. The three main articles which follow raise questions about what children know, whether and how such knowledge can or should be taught, and whether improved safety awareness actually makes children safer in potentially abusive situations.
A child's precocious knowledge of sexual matters has sometimes been interpreted as a potential indicator of an abusive relationship. Such interpretations are weakened by our uncertainty over what constitutes age-appropriate or precocious knowledge of sexual matters. The first paper by Brilleslijper-Kater and Baartman commendably explores the important issue of delineating age appropriate knowledge over the age range 2-6 years, and reports no evidence of precocity amongst their sample of, they infer, non-abused children. The difficulty of both researchers and clinicians is that absence of precocity in a non-abused sample cannot be used to support the inference that precocity therefore indicates abuse. This paper highlights the problems of conducting research in this extremely delicate area, of obtaining representative samples, and of finding ways to elicit realistic empirical data.
The following two papers, both by Carr and his colleagues, respectively describe the implementation of an abuse prevention programme, and review the findings of, and general problems facing, evaluations of such programmes. These papers make many useful points. For example, with regard to implementation, the authors rightly stress the importance of multisystemic interventions involving the co-operation of parents, teachers and health care professionals, and the positive benefits for learning to be gained from role play and