The Victoria Child Sexual Abuse Society (VCSAS) issued a warning which prompted the entire article. VCSAS Director Peggy Mahony said, "With a small group of children, the behaviors are becoming more severe and more hurtful. It ranges from four- to six-year olds using coercion on younger children to have oral sex, to 11-year olds, raping seven-year olds."

She says sexually abusing children fall into two groups:

The first group may have been `over-sexually stimulated' by watching their parents have sex or peeking at their pornographic videos, or sometimes merely by the increasingly overt sexuality of commonplace TV fare like soap operas. `Even some of the daytime programming is stimulating for kids,' Ms. Mahoney cautions. Children who subsequently act out the behaviors they have seen often have not been otherwise molested, which hitherto has been regarded as the chief predisposing factor for sexually abusive youth.

"The second group of young abusers  usually boys  are predatory and tend to commit much more serious assaults, like rape, on other children. Even in this group, only about 60% have been molested. However, Ms. Mahoney says, `the vast majority come from violent homes."

The article continues: "That some agencies report an increase in child-perpetrated sexual abuse does not surprise family advocates. Like other indices of social breakdown, the phenomenon reflects an underlying moral decline, they argue. `It's a consequence of the lack of mores and taboos,' comments Laurie Greschke, the western vice-president of REAL Women of Canada. 'It goes hand in hand with the availability of pornography and the strength and deviancy of it. You can now get more than thirty kinds of pornography magazines at any corner store.'

"The increased sexualization of young people and the unconcern of many parents, reflects society's diminished respect for the sanctity of life, adds Mrs. Greschke. 'Children are not viewed as special and precious gifts, so it doesn't matter what we do them,' she says. The modem evolutionary conception of existence, which posits that human beings are not created by God but rather developed without purpose, breeds such attitudes. `People are of no value and can be treated that way. There's been a weakening of basic moral values."'

Further, mentioning a book some may be interested in finding:

"Maggie Gallagher, an American social commentator and author of the book, The Enemies of Ems, assigns much of the blame to family breakdown. While she says there is a shortage of `solid research' specifically targeted at child sexual abusers, `there is considerable evidence that children who are not growing up with both biological parents are at greater risk of being abused.' Ms. Gallagher reports that one Canadian study found that a child's chances of being sexually abused were 40 times as great when a parent was absent. `There may be many different causes,' she allows, `but it's certainly plausible that the number of children not living with their parents are at much higher risk, both of being abused and of abusing others' (Alberta Report, 23, article by Tom McFeely).

Guardian of Truth XLI: 18 p. 19
September 18, 1997