These videos will break the silence and send shivers down your back.
An ad campaign by Mexican non-profit organization Dif Zapopan — which promotes social and human development — lays bare the problem of child abuse in a recently released series of powerful videos.
The videos unravel the disturbing truth of family-related sexual abuse, that often goes unreported. The people in the videos are left faceless, in fact invisible, showing the underlying fact that it could anybody. The terrified silhouettes of the child trying to move away from the larger ones fade as image turns to message.
Although Dif Zapopan is headquartered in Mexico, the message is not a far cry from issues here in Canada, with one in three Canadian adults reporting that they had suffered from childhood abuse, according to a 2014 study.
The Canadian government’s most recent report, from 2008, showed there were an estimated 215,878 investigations of child abuse and neglect that year, almost double the number from 1998. According to Stats Canada, 75 per cent of the perpetrators in youth sexual abuse investigations were known to the victims, which included family members, friends or acquaintances.
As the Ontario government plans to implement a new sex-ed curriculum that will include information about sexual abuse — a change that has long been recommended by sexual abuse investigators, as the Toronto Star reports — this topic is particularly relevant.
Other ways to help include places like Kids Help Phone, which says it is important for parents to educate children about sexual abuse, and provide them with resources like the Kids Help Phone hotline to provide help for those who need it most.
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