Cappeia
Child Abuse Protection Primary Education Initiative Aotearoa
At least get it better for the children of forever
(‘Memories of Home’- Common)
Cappeia is an initiative formed with the intention of reducing child sexual abuse (CSA) in Aotearoa New Zealand.
How can we achieve this?
By ensuring that our children are provided with CSA protection education,
Because prevention is better than cure
What is the call to action?
We must persuade our government that, firstly, reducing child sexual abuse is humane, and most importantly, that CSA protection education must be legislated for and not left up to chance.
How you can help: Please read and sign the petition below.
You may need more information before you feel ready to sign the petition. See below:
What is CSA?
CSA is any sexual activity perpetrated against a child.
- At age 16 years a young person in NZ can consent to sexual activity. Under 16 years a child or young person is considered a minor.
- Fifteen percent (or more) NZ children experience sexual abuse before age 16 (12% girls and 3% boys).
Who perpetrates CSA?
Child sexual abuse is profoundly gendered. International research indicates that 89-94% of offenders are male. NZ data indicates that almost 98% of the abuse of girls and 90% of abuse of boys is by males.
There are changes to be noted in the statistics over time:
- When a society becomes less homophobic, both legislatively and culturally the sexual abuse of boys trends down. This trend is not marked for girls.
For child sexual abuse to occur, only four circumstances are necessary:
- An adult or youth has an unment libido want;
- this person has a high sense of entitlement;
- and low empathy;
- this person has access to a child or young person under the age of consent (16 yrs).
NB: In New Zealand, adults are defined as 18 years and older. Young people (youth) are defined as those 14, 15, 16 and 17 years of age. Young people also sexually abuse children.
You’re scared and they’re starved
And their art is getting dark
(‘Goldwing’ – Billie Eilish)
Does CSA harm children? (read time – 2 minutes)
Yes, it is harmful to children to have adults (or anyone) use them sexually. Children will develop an interest in sex in their own time, in line with their stage of adolescence, and have the right to choose who they want to have sex with.
People readily understand that physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect of children is harmful. However, because powerful voices have often dominated the discourse around CSA, these voices have obfuscated CSA with disinformation and misinformation. This has contributed to less surety regarding the harm of CSA.
Should you encounter doubt regarding the harm of CSA, keep in mind that at the heart of the issue is the ability of children to give CONSENT and the SECRECY forced on to a child – which is in itself a heavy burden, a burden which typically causes trauma.
What’s a kid supposed to do?
When they goin’ through, what I was goin’ though,
Don’t know who to go to
You want to tell somebody
(‘Memories of Home’- Common)
The trauma associated with CSA can lead to lifelong detrimental impacts including:
- Lower lifetime earnings.
- Premature aging can occur (weathering) whereby biological age is older than chronological age.
- Poorer physical health includes a higher incidence of fibromyalgia, eating disorders, and IBS.
- Alcohol and drug dependency. Survivors of CSA may self-medicate for emotional pain.
- PTSD, Complex PTSD, depression and anxiety
- Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is statistically linked to CSA. BPD has a suicide rate of 10%.
- Survivors of CSA attempt suicide at three times the rate of the adult population who had safe ‘good enough’ childhoods.
Childhood trauma can cause brain damage. A child’s brain is developing and the experience of prolonged activation of a stress response with zero adult emotional support can alter the brain’s structure. This brain damage may be transferred to up to two subsequent generations (children and grandchildren) of the original victim through epigenetic inheritance.
Come into my world
Of loneliness
And wickedness…
Unsuffer me
Take away the pain
(‘Unsuffer Me’ – Lucinda Williams)
How can we ensure that our children have CSA protection education as a means of preventing the harm of child sexual abuse? (Read time – 2 minutes)
ALL primary schools (years 1-8) must provide CSA protection education.
Do our schools have access to an effective CSA protection programme?
Yes, NZ schools can access an excellent CSA prevention education programme via the health curriculum. This programme, known as Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS) has been available since 1987 at no cost to schools, and has been continuously updated and evaluated over this time.
Would all children have to attend the classes?
No. Parents may ‘opt out’ their children. Whilst this could be seen as a flaw in the model of delivery, it is the right of guardians to make this decision to ‘opt out’ their child. If attendance were mandatory it is likely a backlash could ensue.
Why not leave CSA prevention education to parents?
Parents may not have the requisite knowledge to do this well; some parents may also lack the will to impart these protective skills.
How does CSA prevention education work?
CSA prevention education equips children with personal safety skills to cope with situations that might involve sexual abuse.
For more information on our national programme, KOS, see below:
Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS)
Optimal delivery is the whole school, alternate years over two or three weeks. Whole school entails all year levels and not necessarily all children in that school.
Are our schools providing kids with CSA protection education?
Many are. But provision is random and as no data is collected by the Ministry of Education (MOE) it is unknown what the level of delivery is.
Are schools that do not provide KOS perhaps delivering a different programme?
There is scant evidence that other programmes are being delivered by the non-KOS schools. KOS is a logical choice as it is already located within the health curriculum.
How many children are missing out on CSA prevention education?
It is thought that 25% of our tamariki are missing out on CSA prevention education, which equates to 120,000 children annually.
I dont know how you were inverted
No one alerted you
(While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ – George Harrison)
Why focus only on CSA? What about physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect of kids?
KOS was developed to address CSA. However it has been tweaked over time to address the other types of child abuse. KOS would suffer if CSA content was reduced in order to include a lot of other material.
Does CSA prevention education work?
The evidence is clear – programmes do reduce CSA.
Why doesn’t the Ministry of Education (MOE) instruct all primary schools to deliver CSA prevention education? (read time – 1 minute)
The Ministry does not have the will or the mandate to tell schools what to do. Our MOE is a devolved ‘low leadership/high autonomy of schools’ model put in place in 1988.
Couldn’t the Minister of Education take the lead and direct schools to deliver CSA protection education, much as the government has done recently mandating that all schools must teach NZ history?
To date, the Minister of Education has not been convinced of the need for universal provision of CSA protection education. Whereas there was a ‘buy in’ by the then Prime Minister for universal NZ history education.
Why don’t you, see it?
Why don’t you, feel it?
I dont know
I dont know
(‘Mississippi Goddam’ – Nina Simone)
What is the Call to Action?
To reiterate we must persuade our government that, reducing child sexual abuse is humane, and most importantly, that CSA protection education must be legislated for and not left up to chance.
Why legislate for CSA protection education?
Legislation requires compliance, no excuses.
Without legislation, nothing will change. Fortunately, we have an ideal piece of legislation in The Children’s Act 2014.
There is a goodness of fit between mandating that schools provide CSA protection education and the goals of the Act.
As Wellington legal firm Jamieson Partners clarifies:
“Except to the extent that any enactment or the general law of New Zealand provides otherwise, a
school’s board has complete discretion to control the management of the school as it thinks fit”.
Cappeia needs your activism!! See below:
- If you have not already done so, please sign the petition.
- Ask friends and whanau to sign the petition.
- Do you have a child attending primary school?
If yes, ask your school if it delivers KOS. (Keep in mind that KOS is available in the health curriculum for delivery by teachers with support from Police Education Officers).
If your school does not provide KOS, ask why not?
If the reply from your BOT is that your school does not need CSA protection education please challenge that assertion. Logically no one can know the current or future circumstances of every child in a school.
- Write to one or all of the relevant Ministers.
- Approach your local Member of Parliament and raise the issue. Ensure that he or she knows you believe the current random provision of CSA protection education is inequitable.
Relevant Ministers:
Ministry for Children – Kelvin Davis
Kelvin.Davis@parliament.govt.nz
Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence – Marama Davidson
Marama.Davidson@parliament.govt.nz
Minister for Education- Jan Tinetti
Jan.Tinetti@parliament.govt.nz
Minister of Justice – Kiri Allan
Kiri.Allan@parliament.govt.nz
Minister of Health- Ayesha Verrall
Ayesha.Verrall@parliament.govt.nz
The postal address is:
Freepost Parliament
Private Bag 18 888
Parliament Buildings
Wellington 6160
Take your pick. Write to the Minister or Ministers you think might take the harm of CSA seriously.
Other Ministers that you can consider contacting are,
Minister for Māori Development, Minister of Police, Minister for ACC and the Minister for Youth
You got to, we got to.
Learn to connect and bring change
(‘Bring Change’ – Shapeshifter)
If a Minister fails to reply or their reply fails to address your request, then please go to the top and write to the Prime Minister, below;
The Right Honourable Chris Hipkins, Prime Minister of New Zealand
Chris.Hipkins@parliament.govt.nz or by post The Right Honourable Chris Hipkins
Prime Minister of New Zealand
Freepost Parliament
Private Bag 18 88
Wellington 6160
Further Questions Answered (read time – 3 minutes)
Why would a school not deliver KOS?
KOS is located in the health curriculum and as such is optional. Each school is required to build its health curriculum from the resources in the national curriculum. The BOT consults their ‘community’ aka parents/caregivers every two years regarding how to change it up or keep the status quo. In this way, each school is ideally a bespoke response to its community. The model envisages this exchange as seamless. What it fails to recognize is that problems in the community can be transposed into the school. If the ‘community’ ignores or is only dimly aware of CSA then that community is hardly equipped to advise their school.
A bias held by an influential member of the BOT may influence what is selected. A recent taskforce into NZ schools found that the Board of Trustees self-governing model is not working well and that decisions that impact significantly on children can be made without due process.
Why would a school principal resist KOS being taught in their school?
- The subject of CSA may discomfort them
- They may believe the parent population will not cope with protection education
- They may believe that children living in wealthy areas or attending a private school are never victims
- Occasionally, (fortunately rarely), a Principal or Deputy Principal may have a corrupt motive to withhold this education.
What responsibility does the Board of Trustees have regarding children’s health and safety?
The Children’s Act 2014 legislated for minimal standards providers of services for children (receiving government funding) must meet. All schools, public, integrated, and private receive government funding.
Schools must also work within the guidelines the MOE sets down. Under the National Administration Guideline for Boards of Trustees, Guideline Five, each board of trustees is required to provide a safe physical and emotional environment for students. They are also required to comply in full with any legislation currently in force or that may be developed to ensure the safety of students and employees.
Schools suffer no consequences when a child is sexually abused by a staff member. Board of Trustees could feel more confident that, in the unfortunate event they employ an unsafe person, the school’s children have learned protective skills.
NB: Currently the Crown is prosecuting numerous offenders employed by Dilworth School. It is unlikely any of the Dillworth offenders would have encouraged CSA protection education in ‘their’ school. There is obviously a conflict of interest.
Why prioritize child sexual abuse prevention education when schools have a multiplicity of program’s, all of which have advocates asserting their crucial importance?
It is unlikely that there is any other program with the ability to yield the health benefits that KOS does.
Surely every Board of Trustees would welcome a policy change that improves the safety of children at school?
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment
before starting to improve the world.
(Anne Frank)
CappeiA Founder: Vivienne Smith
BA. CSCL Auckland Uni
CappeiA is 100% focused on legislative change. This raison d’etre disqualifies CappeiA from having charity status. CappeiA is privately self-funded.