The document discusses child defilement, defining it as sexual intercourse with individuals under 18, regardless of consent, and identifies several contributing factors such as poverty, absence of parental care, and cultural beliefs. It outlines the symptoms of abuse in children and presents the role of community mental health nurses in supporting victims, providing care, and advocating for prevention measures. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for stronger legal frameworks and community involvement in protecting children from sexual exploitation and promoting awareness.

1. CHILD DEFILEMENT
ALITILI B.M.

2. • Defilement is having sexual intercourse with a
person (this includes both boys and girls)
under the age of 18 years.
• It doesn’t matter whether the person has
given consent or not. The major determinant
in defilement is age.

3. Factors that could contribute to defilement
cases in the community.
• Indecent dressing and inappropriate behaviour. E.g.
small girls patronizing clubs and taverns and drinking
alcohol while implicitly dressed could be the main
reasons why you find even big men are being
tempted to have carnal knowledge with small girls.
• Sex boosters or Libido enhancers: Traditional
medicines and concoctions sold by traditional healers
to men, especially to have their private parts
enlarged and libido enhancers.

4. • Sexual perversity. This is a situation where those that
are involved have no control over their sexual desires
and therefore, take advantage of young children left
in their care.
• Lack of adequate institutional day care centres for
children and the prohibitive fees tend to create a
situation where children, especially those with
working mothers are left in the care of relatives or
others who tend to abuse them.

5. • Psychiatric disorders: Some perpetrators are known
to be “paedophiles” which is sexual perversion in
which children are the preferred sexual objects for
reasons they may not even comprehend.

6. • Beliefs that having sex with a minor can cure
HIV/AIDS. Witchdoctors were wrongfully advising
HIV and AIDS patients to sleep with minors in order
to be cured, the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, there
are superstitions and beliefs that sex with a child
cures HIV and AIDS, boosts business potential,
increases chances of promotions at places of work,
or enhances other powers such as witchcraft. This is
usually done on advice of witchdoctors and
traditional healers.

7. • Lack of parental care. It is argued that the inability of most
parents to provide adequately for their children due to poverty
forces girls into sexual relations with taxi-drivers, bus drivers
and others so that they raise some money to afford them to eat
something or go to school. Parental support is thus, lacking in
many households today where it is found that parents spend
less time with their families. Some parents leave home early,
leaving their children asleep and come back very late when the
children have already gone to bed. It is true that lack of
parental care and poverty can actually motivate some children
to engage into child prostitution in order to make ends meet
and thereby escalate incidences of child defilement.

8. • Inadequacy in housing could also cause a volatile situation that is
likely to promote strange behavioral patterns among members of a
particular household. (Those mainly of extended family setups) to
live together in a house which does not have enough or adequate
space. For example, a family of eight or so members could be
housed in a one bed roomed house. The husband and wife who
are the owners of the house could occupy the one bedroom, the
rest of the family share different corners, and may be the boys in
one corner and the girls in the other. This creates a vulnerable
state. Sometimes, it has been taken for granted that a youngster of
3 years or so can sleep with the elderly believing that nothing
would happen to the child since s/he is in the care of the elderly
person.

9. • Watching pornographic videos: Child defilement cases
could also be escalated if watching of pornographic
videos in the home is allowed. With the coming of the
internet, pornography is more common than it used to
be. These depict scenes of heterosexual, rape, oral, anal
and group sex, incest, bestiality and other loathsome out
pouring of perversions. Repeated use of pornography
can interfere with the ability to enjoy and participate in
normal marital intimacy, a specialist in treating sex
addiction, states that what starts as casual viewing of
pornography can eventually lead to deviant sexual acts.

10. • Traditional and customary practices like
initiation ceremonies and early marriages
perpetuate defilement of the girl-child. The
lessons given during initiation ceremonies
include seductive scenes which the girl has to
imitate and she can later put these lessons
into practice by engaging in sexual
relationships

11. • Variation of culture to culture.
In Zambia because of the popular belief that
children are ‘safe’ HIV-free partners. Child sexual
cleansing in a case where a widow or widower has
sex with a child to obtain cleansing and wade off
the ghost of the deceased spouse from causing
trouble.

12. • Quest for wealth: there is this belief that sex with
children can bring about success in business,
• Girls are defiled and sexually exploited just
because they are girls-selling produce on the
streets, walking to school in rural areas and
working as house servants.
• Customary marriages were the girls are married
off at a tender age due to poverty or certain
traditional belief or lack of education

13. SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS THAT YOU COULD
OBSERVE IN A CHILD THAT HAS BEEN DEFILED.
• Though children may not speak about abuse,
they may nevertheless communicate that
something significant and disturbing has
happened to them in a non-verbal manner.

14. • Significant or sudden changes in mood or
behavior may indicate a problem. Changes in
mood may include signs of depression:
sadness, tearfulness, lethargy, anger, or mood
swings

15. • Children may also begin isolating themselves,
withdrawing from family or friends, spending
all of their time outside the home,
experimenting with alcohol or drugs when this
was not the case in the past, or start acting
out at home or at school. Conversely,
promiscuity or sexually suggestive behavior
when this was not characteristic of the child in
the past.

16. • Sometimes victims of sexual abuse or assault
will change their appearance and try to
become less attractive: wearing baggy,
unattractive clothing, avoiding cosmetics, or
failing to style their hair. Or, youth may adopt
a more seductive and sexualized manner of
dress.

17. • Other behavioral changes which may indicate
abuse include: significant changes in sleeping
patterns and habits, significant or sudden changes
in appetite and eating patterns, or significant
weight gain or loss. A heightened sense of
vigilance, vulnerability and fearfulness, possibly
combined with a new sensitivity to startle, and a
desire to withdraw socially may indicate the
presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

18. • When children have been sexually assaulted
(raped) they may show medical signs of their
attack including sexually transmitted infection,
urinary tract infection and other hard-to-
explain injuries.

19. • Some abused youth will act out their inner
pain by self-harming; often by cutting
themselves with a blade in an effort to distract
from emotional pain. Such as intentional
cutting is easy to confuse with a suicide
attempt though it is almost never that.

20. Role of a community mental health nurse
• Consultative role – Giving advice to other
professionals in the community about the type
and level of nursing care required for given
client groups who has been defiled or children
who have suffered defilement.
• Clinical role – Providing direct nursing care to
the patients in the community through home
visits to the parents who have their child
defiled.

21. • Therapeutic role – Employing
psychotherapeutic and behavioral methods
for management of defiled patients.
• Assessor / Researcher – The nurse may assess
the care given to clients and may also assess
the outcome of ongoing care programs in
prevention of defilement cases.

22. • Educator – Creating awareness in the community
about mental health and mental illness with special
focus on vulnerable groups and how to prevent the
vice of defilement in the community.
• Trainer / facilitator – Training of other professional
community leaders, school teachers and other care
giving professionals in the community in various
prevention programs and awareness in the
community and what to do in case of child
defilement.

23. • Manager/Administration – Manager of the resources,
planning and co-ordination of programs to do with
prevention of defilements in the communities
• Advocacy – Nurses speak out for the rights and
interests of clients in the community by raising
awareness of clients’ needs in places of employment,
school and markets. This they do by sensitizing the
public, NGOs, policy makers and service providers on
the plight of clients who have suffered defilement.

24. • Law Enforcer: A nurse may be the health-care
professional who must document these activities
as they are related to her by the patient or take
photographs of injuries. In rape cases, the nurse
may be a member of the Sexual Abuse Response
Team, or SART, who is charged with collecting
and preserving evidence. In many countries,
nurses are mandated reporters for domestic
violence, child abuse and elder abuse.

25. • Maintenance of Ethics: Victims of abuse have
been violated in physical, sexual or emotional
ways; nurses are expected to deliver care no
matter how difficult or ugly the situation may
be. Nurses have an ethical expectation to be
advocates for their patients, which includes
acting to protect them or support them in
situations of abuse.

26. • Physical Care: sexually Abuse victims often require
physical nursing care. In the emergency room, this
may include cleaning wounds or applying a dressing.
If injuries are severe, the patient may need surgery
and nursing care during the convalescent period.
The nurse might provide medications for pain or
help the patient learn to walk with crutches. In
addition, victims of abuse may need education for
self-management if they have injuries that will take
some time to heal, such as broken bones.

27. • Emotional Support: The empathetic nurse can
help provide emotional support by listening
and allowing patients to express whatever they
feel. Nurses offer an opportunity to talk about
feelings and may also be able to suggest a
referral to a counselor who is experienced in
dealing with abuse victims. The nurse may also
be the first person to recognize symptoms of
depression or suicidal intent in an abuse victim.

28. • Preventive roles: the uses primary, secondary
and tertiary levels in identifying and
prevention of defilement cases in the
community.

29. MEASURES THAT GOVERNMENT COULD
PUT TO PREVENT CHILD DEFILEMENT
• Establishment of stiffer punishments for the
perpetuators of child defilement.
• Government will continue working to ensure that the
message gets to all the people and that the law will
continue to take its course in many issues of
defilement. There is need to reinforce current
legislative laws to curb such vices across the country
by providing tougher punishments on culprits which
would send a strong signal to would-be offenders.

30. • Call upon all institutions, households and
individuals to uphold the highest standards of
• There is need to ensure that funding for
sensitization programs in communities is increased
to intensify on the programs to do with child
defilement.

31. • The Department of Child Welfare and
Protection must have adequate facilities
to house and protect victims of this
heinous form of violence against children.
• The police must investigate and act on all
child sexual abuse with the urgency it
deserves.
• The judiciary must expedite all sexual
gender based violence cases involving
children

32. • If it’s to do with fast healing from certain diseases then
there is need to sensitise traditional healers to start
advising their clients to do away with the vice of child
defilement adding that if it also has to do with release
from prison, there is equally need for more sensitisation.
A lot of parties are involved in dealing with cases of child
abuse, from medical specialists to youth care workers
and criminal justice authorities. The government wants
them to work together in response to cases of
(suspected) child abuse. This is referred to as a
multidisciplinary approach.

33. Stopping child defilement and minimizing the
harm to the child
• When it comes to child defilement, the main
objective is to stop it from happening in the
first place. When abuse does occur, it needs to
be identified at an early stage, so that it can be
stopped and the harm to the child can be
minimised.

34. • The ‘Signs of Safety’ method
• Professionals can use the Signs of Safety
method for families in which child defilement
occurs. Together, the social worker and the
family draw up a safety plan for the child. The
government is financing a research
programme entitled Effective working
methods in the youth sector to find out if this
method works.

35. •Child protection
• If a child’s development is in jeopardy and the
parent or parents are not open to assistance,
then child protection services may need to get
involved. The court may impose child
protection measures in order to stop child
defilement.

36. • Child abuse is a criminal offence
• The court may impose treatment on the
offender in order to prevent repeat of child
defilement. Government agencies are working
with the police, the Public Prosecution Service
and other parties to improve the investigation
and prosecution of offenders

37. • Support for victims of child abuse
• The Youth Care Office provides support to
victims of child abuse and their parents at
their request. Different therapies and
interventions are available.
• Legal Frameworks that Protect Children
under the Zambian Statutes In Zambia, laws
related to children are disseminated among
different statutes.

38. • Enforcing the children’s rights. Some children’s basic
rights, like the right to citizenship, the protection from
exploitation, the right to life of an unborn child, the right to
personal liberty of a minor, the right of young person’s not to
be exploited, etc. are entrenched in the Constitution (UN
Human Rights Committee, 2007).
• In addition to constitutional and statutory legislation,
customary law also exist to regulate matters concerning
children.

39. • The Victim Support Unit, the Child Justice Forum, the
National Youth Policy and the National Child Policy, and
ministries: mainly the Ministry of Gender and Child
Development, the Ministry of Community Development,
Mother and Child Health, the Ministry of Labour and Social
Security and the Ministry of Education
• “The State shall protect the child from all forms of
maltreatment by parents or others responsible for child care
and establish appropriate social programs for the prevention
of child abuse and treatment of victims,

40. • The State shall protect children from sexual exploitation,
prostitution and involvement in pornography and in particular
take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral
measures to prevent: a] The inducement or coercion of a child
to engage in any unlawful sexual activity; b] The exploitative
use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual
practices; c] The exploitative use of children in pornographic
performances and material. From the foregoing, one would
assume that the Republic of Zambia has enough and
adequate laws to protect its children.

41. Parents and Caregivers: Must ensure the environment in
and around the home is safe for their children.
Children: Must be given the confidence to report any
form of abuse they experience to parents, caregivers,
police, their teachers or even their neighbours. They
must be able to report in the knowledge that they will
be treated with dignity, sensitivity and confidence in all
cases.

42. Community members and local leaders:
• Continue raising awareness at household and community
level about the importance of protecting children from
sexual abuse. There is need to emphasize that No child
(below 18 years) can provide consent to sexual activities.
• Ensure that all child abuse cases are reported to
appropriate authorities including any incidents where
videos, photos or audio recordings of children being
abused.
• Community Child Welfare Committees must review their
child safeguarding and protection policies to ensure
children are safe.

43. THANK YOU
The End