Do you give a blog about sexual violence? Marcella Chester from Abyss2hope does and she is coordinating a Blog Against Sexual Violence event. The goal is to get as many bloggers as possible to participate. If you're a blogger and you give a blog, then that means you.



This is the perfect opportunity for bloggers to come together as a united community: to have a single voice in saying that sexual violence will not be tolerated. For too long victims have been blamed, maligned and ostracised. No more! Rape and sexual violence is the responsibility of the perpetrator, NEVER the victim. Bloggers scream with opinion and consciousness raising. Bloggers are the social marketers of the here, now and future. Make your voice count. Join the Blog Against Sexual Violence event to be held on April 5, 2007

The 2007 Sexual Assault Awareness Month (United States) campaign national slogan for this April is: Prevent Sexual Violence…in our communities. As a community of bloggers we can raise the banner and demand zero tolerance of sexual violence in our on-line community and real time communities world wide.

Not one to be left out of any initiatives involving protection of children, particularly child sexual abuse, I will be waving my flag and focusing on placing blame where it belongs: on the sexual predators that troll the paths our children tred. While one, five or twelve people can make a difference, the combined cry of protecting all people is strengthened by numbers. I invite you to join the Blog Against Sexual Violence and do your bit for making the world a safer and more equitable place for men, women and children. All you have to do is wave the banner and write a post about ending sexual violence.

Can you afford not to be seen participating in this sexual violence prevention initiative? Often the silent majority is taken to be supporting the status quo. Given the high numbers of sexual violence there is no way I would ever want to be mistaken as not caring about, or supporting entrenched sub cultures of sexual violence. If you are thinking the same way, visit Abyss2hope and grab the html code to place the Blog Against Sexual Violence banner on your site. Be seen as against obscene: visually display your commitment to creating a world free of sexual abuse. Individual, business or corporate entity, here is your opportunity to silently speak up without it costing you a cent.

Yet another Australian politician falls from grace because he was caught engaging in unwanted sexualized behaviour toward a young person (alleged sexually harassing text messages to an 18-year-old female). It bothers me greatly that our taxes are not only paying the wages of these perpetrating people, but also that while they engage in unacceptable behaviours, they are tasked with being representative of their electorates or portfolios.

Does being representative of an electorate or portfolio mean that the majority of people in Australia also engage in sexually exploitative or abusive behaviours? On the face of it, it would appear so. The recent and all too regular media surrounding unacceptable sexualized behaviour from politicians makes it sound as though far too many top shelf Australian Civil Servants engage in sexually abusive behaviour. There have been so many public figures under scrutiny for perpetrating a range of personal abuses against others, if they are representative of us, what is happening in non public life?

These perpetrating people have come under the media spot light only because they have been caught. Some have been caught through extensive investigations and some have been caught and found guilty following a single disclosure from a person affected. Although we could argue that it is happening too frequently and that non public life reflects public office, we could also consider that more people than ever before are finally speaking out against abuse perpetrated by a few.

If victims are speaking out now, it is about time. No longer are people disempowered and scared of abusers, threats or deviant behaviours perpetrated by people in positions of authority. No longer will men, women or children be sucked into the rotting hole of blackness that some public figures attempt to keep their victims in. Ordinary people are speaking up, ordinary people are recognizing their own power, their own worth and their own value to our society. Ordinary people are saying: NO way. WE will not tolerate abuse.

Transparency in governance has long been called for. If you do the wrong thing in office, you will be called to task publicly. Whereas once it was referred to as airing dirty laundry in public, it now appears to have become accepted practice that to kill the bugs that breed in dirty laundry, bright sunlight and winds of change are mandatory and sanctioned. What a wonderful sea change to be a part of and thank you to those in office that have fought hard for it.

If Government is for the people, by the people, then our Australian people are speaking against the abuse perpetrated on our children and young people by people in civil positions of authority.

While not all politicians act in such devious or perverted ways, if you are a politician who is hiding your sexually exploitative behaviour, I’d be worried. It would seem the Australian public has had enough and that the power of the media is on their side.

If you have even been abused by a politician or anyone else, please, report it. End sexual abuse: talk about it and take the power away from the perpetrators.

Our neighbors had a prowler last night. The mother of the female only household caught the prowler peering through the bedroom window of the teenage daughter. Mother yelled at him and sang out for the help of her neighbors. The prowler stayed. It took several attempts at calling for someone to ring the police before prowler got the hint that his behaviour was unacceptable.

Peeping Tom behavior is voyeurism. It is against the law. It is a form of sexual assault. Sexual abuse occurs on a continuum ranging from non-contact behaviors at one end (voyeurism, showing children pornography, and sexual comments) through to penetration by use of a penis, fingers or an object at the other end.

Many sexual predators escalate in their behaviors. Their excitement increases and their ability to delay their own twisted sexual gratification of a need for power decreases. Let us make no mistake here though. Sexual assault is not about sex. It is about power.

That the prowler was unaffected by being seen last night is a warning bell to me. Is his behavior at point of escalation? Has he been peering through that young girl’s window previously? Is he so unbothered by the threat of Police that he waits until last moment of departure? I do not know; I am not a sexual predator.

What I do know is that I am wild that people do these horrible things to children. Child safety is of the utmost importance to our sustainable future. Every thing that happens to our children affects our collective global future. If threats to child safety are on the rise then we are going to have a next generation of adults who make reactive choices based on their own childhood traumas.

Together we can end the sexual exploitation of our children. Ensuring our own children’s safety is paramount, to reach out and ensure the safety of a least one other child is a humane and socially responsible action. To care costs nothing. To not act protectively will cost us misery in our old age as we watch the unthinking decisions our once children make because they did not live in a world that valued them or their safety.

I will be wandering over to our neighbor today. I will let them know that we will be watching out for them. I will let them know that we care. I will let the girls know that we are a safe house and that if ever they need to run to us that they are not to hesitate. I will not whinge about how our community is not safe. I will instead be proactive in ensuring that other children in our neighborhood know that there are people willing to stand up for their basic human right to live a life free of abuse – including being safe from peeping Toms.

Child protection: serious business. What would you do if you caught someone looking into your daughter's bedroom window?

A colleague asked me to provide a list of famous and high profile people who are survivors of sexual abuse. The idea is to help remove the toxic shame that a group of Australian Indigenous young women are living with because of what a sexual perpetrator had done to them. By providing newsworthy people as examples, my colleague aims to lessen the isolation and empower her young clients to move on with their lives.

My list contained only a handful of several high profile women and no men:

Oprah Winfrey (the Queen herself).

Maya Angelou (poet extraordinaire).

Kelli McGillis (Top Gun, Witness).

Terry Hatcher (Desperate Housewives).

Debra Byrne (Australian Singer, Young Talent Time).

A Google search did little to assist. Do you know of anyone else? The secrecy and shame of sexual assault needs to be broken. Children are growing up thinking there is something wrong with them. There is no shame in being a survivor. There is, however, shame in being a sexual predator. The more we talk and share, the greater the light will shine on the amazing successes of people affected by sexual abuse and the greater the shadow cast on those who dare to use sex as a tactic of power and control.

If you know of any high profile men or women who have lived with rape or sexual abuse, please leave their name, and a link, so I can pass it to my colleague.

There's no such thing as a good secret. Surprises are the best because secrets can only make you all scrambled up inside your head. Why would you want to know something that nobody else can know?

Too many sexual predators tell children to keep the little love games a secret. Confused, and fooled by the romantic notions of secrecy (Christmas, birthdays, etc) that we innocently fill our children's head with, children are often unable to tell a trusting adult the horrible secret inside their head.

Many people use the distinction of good secrets and bad secrets. This is a difficult concept for young children to grasp. Until a child’s level of moral development rises to a stage where they can developmentally grasp the difference between abstract concepts, children will keep secrets.

Just like the rubbish, throw the word “secret” out of your vocabulary. Replace it with “surprise”. A surprise can he held in brain trust for a particular period. The surprise ends on a particular date and at a particular time. Everyone is happy and talks excitedly about the surprise.

Change “secret” to “surprise” by playing the following game and letting children know that it is never okay to keep secrets because when they stay in your head they make you feel all jumbled up. They get more scary and confused and we feel awful. Secrets must be broken. Telling someone, aloud, is the best way to stop secrets.

Play Surprises: this is similar to the old Chinese Whispers game (also called “secrets”); a game of messages that change, distort and sound nothing like the first message. You need a group of children. A positive message (e.g., I love chocolate fairy cakes) is whispered into the first child’s ear. That child then whispers the message into the next child’s ear and this continues passing to each child until the message is back to the beginning person. The first child then states, aloud, the message they have just received. It is generally quite different to the way it started. Say SURPRISE, SURPRISE. If a child asks to play the secret game again (as they do), correct them by saying, “It’s called surprises because you must never keep secrets.”

Playing this game prepares a child’s mind for changing the word “secrets” to “surprises” and assists children to remember to tell about bad secrets.

What are you going to do to help rid your family of the word “secret”? Make it your business, your priority, to encourage transparancy. It makes good business sense. Kids are our business platform and I want my business to have a solid foundation, not a secret, cannot share, shaky one.

Hello. Come on in and have a virtual coffee with us.

Imaginif is a privately owned Protective Behavior company that aims not only to protect children from abuse but also to give a voice to those who have survived child abuse.

There are three of us posting blogs around the business of protective behaviors: Megan Bayliss, Paul Martin and Jade Pinto. We each have a different area of professional expertise in the area of preventing child abuse and we each have an active part to play in making child protection important business.

Talking about child abuse is scary. The topic remains hidden under the covers and many parents prefer not to raise it with their children because of a fear they will damage their children’s innocence.

We want YOU. We want parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, the business sector, and the survivors to help give a global voice to ending child abuse.

Child abuse is BIG business and big business needs big leaders willing to make child abuse prevention a BIG priority. YOU are that big leader.

Join us daily for a coffee and a chat. Share you stories, your ideas, your passion and most importantly, your POWER. Help us positively market the strength and vision that many survivors of child abuse have as their gift.

Blow the cover on child abuse. Talk, talk, talk and show the business community how beneficial it will be for them to support ending child abuse.

Imaginif means business. Protecting against child abuse is our business.