Evident revised and refreshed Child Australia’s innovative training curriculum for young people, parents and child protection professionals. The new toolkits refreshed and updated materials for young people and parents, and created a new package for child protection professionals. Our team consulted draft materials with staff in four country offices, and coordinated the translation, contextualization and professional layouts of all materials. Further information about ChildFund Swipe Safe can be found here.
Category: Uncategorized
Do Laws about Age of Sexual Consent Protect or Penalise Children?
Evident collaborated with the Safer Young Lives Centre and Tulir India to explore laws establishing minimum age of consent to sexual activities. In a webinar in December, Mark Kavenagh presented about the ways in which these laws can protect young people from sexual abuse by adults but that unintended consequences can also result if not treated with nuance – with young people potentially being punished for consensual sexual contact between same-aged peers. You can find the webinar recording here.
Technology facilitated sexual violence against children
Dr Mark Kavenagh joined the Sexual Violence Research Institute podcast to discuss the real-world impacts of technology facilitated violence against children, the research that is happening in this area and what tech platforms and governments can do to counter this threat. During the discussion he considered the links between online and offline experiences of violence and the specific impact on child survivors. You can hear the podcast here.
Writing Online Safety Training Curriculum for Southeast Asia
Mark joined Alan Collins from Hugh James Law Firm in the UK to talk about Evident’s work re-writing online safety curriculum for ChildFund Australia. The ‘Swipe Safe’ training course includes components for young people, parents and for frontline professionals and will be delivered to more than 20,000 people in Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Vietnam and Cambodia starting in early 2023. You can listen to the podcast here.
Self-generated sexual content involving young people
Young people creating sexual images and videos raises complexities and questions for helping professionals. Is this sometimes just evolving sexual behaviour? What if it is coerced? What should be treated as problematic or criminal? Mark Kavenagh and Julia Durska co-authored this blog for the WeProtect Global Alliance exploring the problem and offering advice on some solutions.
Online child sexual exploitation in Uganda
Our Director took part in a podcast where he spoke to Alan Collins from the British Law firm – Hugh James Solicitors about the sexual abuse and exploitation of children in Uganda. Mark and Hugh discussed the findings for Uganda from the Disrupting Harm research project that took place in 13 countries. While some structural change is occurring in East Africa, the research highlights that very few children subjected to abuse access justice. Many children do disclose to peers or trusted adults, but these people are not always well prepared to connect them to professional supports. We need to talk publicly and honestly about sexual abuse so that children feel safe and comfortable to come forward. You can listen to the podcast here.