The Council of Europe announced the launch of a video aimed at children on Wednesday. They are encouraged by the video to speak to someone they trust if they suffer sexual abuse.
The cartoon was made public for the very first “European Action Day against sexual abuse of children”, and shows a little girl and her brother who are sexually abused by a family friend. The girl eventually tells her schoolteacher.
“The video is meant to reassure children and to tell them: ‘This is not your fault, and if it happens to you or to another child, you must always tell someone you trust’,” adds the pan-European organisation.
One in five European children under 18 suffers sexual abuse, reckon sources mentioned by the Council of Europe. In 70 to 80% of cases the perpetrator of the sexual abuse is someone the child knows and often someone he or she ‘trusts’. As a result, most children are too frightened to speak up and tend to suffer in silence, meaning 90% of sexual abuse cases do not get reported to the police.
(Source: Belga)
