Philippine Journal of Child Sexual Abuse – Volume 9, 2019
Boys and sexual violence: A phenomenological study
Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse
Abstract
The 1996 World Report on Violence and Health published by the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that sexual violence against men and boys was a significant problem that has been neglected in research. Three major and seminal local studies support this statement for the Philippines. One, the Child Protection Unit of the Philippine General Hospital together with the Department of Health (Madrid, 2000) presented data that showed a significant difference between boys and girls who experienced forced sex, with boys’ experience as being higher than girls’ experience. Two, data collected by Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse (Lompero, 2012) showed that boys were more likely to experience neglect, pornography, sexual assault by a peer or a known adult, sexual exposure, exposure to war or ethnic conflict, physical abuse by a caregiver, witness murder or assault with or without a weapon, and be kidnapped and bullied. Third, the 2016 Philippine National Baseline Study on Violence against Children further validated the data that boys are more at-risk to be physically and sexually abused than girls. In order to build on these 3 research reports, Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse (CPTCSA) led a phenomenological study that listened to and documented the voices of Filipino boys, their parents, and their social workers. The purpose of the study was to increase our understanding of the socio-cultural variables related to the cause and effect of the sexual abuse of and by boys. The data from this study indicates a possible link between freedom and neglect of boys, the missing father, and the role that homosexuality plays in the development of boys. These findings would be the basis from which to design positive change on behalf of all children, with the focus to remember our boys.
Countering a culture of violent discipline with indigenous positive discipline practices of the ethnic Tboli of South Cotabato
Maria Josefa P. Petilla
Abstract
Prohibiting corporal punishment or the use of physical force to cause pain as a form of discipline has been a contentious issue in the Philippines in recent months with the President’s veto of the positive discipline bill both houses of Congress passed in late 2018. Advocates of positive discipline, a nonviolent approach to teaching, stress the adverse effects of violent discipline, specifically corporal punishment, and the benefits of positive discipline on children’s psychological, emotional, and social well being. This paper forms part of a study that attempted to explore the indigenous child protection system of the Tboli in Lake Sebu and Tboli in South Cotabato in the last quarter of 2017 to mid-2018. It examined the indigenous nonviolent discipline practices Tboli parents employed. With perspectives from a combined total of 426 female and male child and adult participants in surveys, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions, it reveals parents and children have similar notions and experiences regarding children and discipline; parents tend to exercise their personal agency to negate from the prevailing cultural norm of corporal punishment and employ nonviolent discipline practices based on their positive or negative childhood experiences with their own parents; and intergenerational transmission of discipline practices occurs as children learn, acquire, and manifest their parents’ notions, attitudes, and behaviors on the matter while growing up. Intergenerational transmission of indigenous nonviolent discipline practices may pave the way for the evolution of a new cultural norm of positive discipline among the Tboli with or without government legislation.