Some Telethon material ‘misleading’

Press, 1 July 1988, Page 2

Some Telethon material ‘misleading’

By

SARAH SANDS

Telethon publicity material about sexual abuse contained some errors of fact, says the deputy director of the Mental Health Foundation, Dr Hilary Haines.

“Creative mathematics” had meant that some of the figures on sexual abuse were “over the top,” she said. “While the estimate that one in four girls are sexually abused before the age of 18 is a good estimate, the suggestion that in half those cases the offender is the girl’s own father is quite wrong,” said Dr Haines.

“Furthermore, the advertisement that said that one in four of the babies shown will be scarred for life by sexual abuse is also misleading.” The one-in-four figure came from American surveys and had been supported by an informal New Zealand survey of Wellington sixth-formers and by the impressions of sexual abuse educators who had spoken to many different groups of women, she said. “It should be understood that the one-in-four figure includes such events as witnessing indecent exposure and warding off sexual advances,” said Dr Haines.

“Sexual abuse is a continuum ranging from these sorts of even.ts to the more serious forms such as child rape.” Many children would not be deeply affected by the more minor forms of abuse, she said. Some children were resilient and coped well with events that would be traumatic for other children. “That is why the suggestion that one-in-four babies will be scarred for life by sexual abuse is over the top.”

The error about the number of fathers involved in sexual abuse seemed to be a genuine mistake by the advertising agency, said Dr Haines. Telethon publicists had given the agency statistics on child abuse, including a figure that half the reported cases of incest identified the father as the perpetrator, she said. “With some creative mathematics, this figure was joined alongside the one-in-four figure and the distinction between incest and sexual abuse was overlooked.”

Between 40 and 50 per cent of abusers were relatives of the child but these included brothers, uncles, grandfathers and cousins, said Dr Haines. The term “father” in studies included stepfathers, who were far more likely to offend, she said.

The girls’ biological fathers were clearly responsible for only a minority of instances of sexual abuse, said Dr Haines.

“Some fathers apparently feel that publicity about sexual abuse casts aspersions on fathers generally and makes it difficult for them to be physically affectionate with their daughters. “However, mental health workers . strongly support close, nurturing, physically affectionate father-daughter relationships.” Research showed that fathers who were closely involved in the early care of their children were less likely to be abusers than distant or often absent fathers, she said.