ONE TALK A TIME: WHEN A CONVERSATION CAN PREVENT SEXUAL ABUSE
Australian National Office for Child Safety encourage parents to start their conversation with the children to build the early acknowledgement on body safety
Background situation:
Sexual abuse remains the key problems that the Australian society still tackle with. Even with the strong legal framework, there remains a significant portion of Australians facing the issue. According to Australian institute of Health and Welfare, 11% of women and 3.6% of men experienced sexual abuse causing by adult before the age of 15 in the 2021-22 period. The statistic further stressed the issue as many women (69%) and men (52%) had experienced more than one incident regarding the mentioned issue (ABS 2023).
The abuse also causes significant mental health issues to the victim. Statistics from the Royal Commission reported that 95% of survivors had mental health-related issues, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, despite the consequences, the key challenge to disclose is the feeling of fear, shame, embarrassment, distrust, concern and lack of awareness. This creates a further gap for the campaign to further advance.
The insight:
Perhaps the largest gap lies in the adult awareness of abusive behaviour. Under Australia Childhood Foundation research, their statistics indicated that trust issues are the key driver for this difficulty. The study further found that 1 in 3 respondents do not believe child abuse is a matter to be concerned while 67% of respondents believe that those story are being made up by children or are uncertain to whether should they trust on their disclosure on it.
Contributing to this distrust is also the media framing which has long believed that child abuse is always a part of human nature. Furthermore there is no solution at all to deal with the perpetrators even if the police can not deal with them. The results of this study clearly demonstrated that 9 out of 10 people acknowledge that in its effort to buffer the pain that children suffer. This further results in the community turning away and being ill-informed. Even with the acknowledgement on the child hardship, the survey recorded that 44% of respondents felt unease to converse about child abuse - 16% increase since their last study in 2010. This unease may contribute from the parent stigmatisation of sexual conversation in some cultures, which prevents the kids from having safe conversation on the topic.
The underlying sexual health awareness among migrants and refugees is also a problem to be tackled. Research on Migrants and refugee youth perspectives on sexual reproductive health in Australia shows that silence and shame are the common themes where these topics arise. This especially comes with the topic of sex, pregnancy, STIs, relationships and sexuality. Therefore, the research indicates shared ‘we don’t talk about sex’ expression among Vietnamese and youth from East and West African, Middle Eastern, East and Southeast Asian background
The research indicates the later identity crisis among the migrant and refugee youth communities. On one hand, they have to navigate their parents' original cultural expectation, which tells them as a child that ‘sex is an adult topic’ and believing that disclosure would encourage the action. A discussion of the topic to the parents will result in disappointment, judgement, unease and unresponsiveness due to its meaning as an admission for sexual activity. On the other hand, the mainstream Australian culture which has long encouraged openness and the rights to report is also hard for them to navigate due to the lack of legal knowledge by believing that reporting on such issues result in deportation.
Strategy:
As a National Office for Child Safety, these insights assist the department to build a more inclusive awareness campaign on sexual health issues to tackle the aftermath of the youth exposure. Understanding the sensitivity of the issue, the government only encourages the parents from different cultures in Australia to make “one” talk with their upbringing. This helps them eliminate the shame of sexual health topic while
Execution:
The campaign was executed among different channels including websites, video release, social media with the key is to encourage adults to converse with their child about the issue.
Creative idea:
One Talk a Time
Understanding the sensitivity of the topic, the campaign uses this message as an invitation to a conversation about a topic. “One” as a singular number is the government's attempt to invite adults to spend at least a single moment to disclose sexual health awareness. “Talk” within the campaign tagline aims as a guide for adults to bring this topic openly without shame or a lecturer that their younger ones do not want to hear. And lastly, “a Time” means a single time when they can spend on this topic.
Website:
The Australian government creates a separate website for the campaign. It is also advantaged for its transparency on the medium and process of strategy to execution. This increases the public trust over the governmental initiative.
Content Video:
The releasing videos are conducted in various languages. The strategy of using foreign languages is also a useful way to approach the issue. This is because it makes a clear distinction that a talk about this conversation did not only represent the Western culture but it is a child development issue that people from different regions should learn to help with.
PR:
The campaign also have the clear PR strategy with the government directly distributing their message in the media platform
Result:
Over 73 million views were reached through earlier advertising on television, radio, in cinema and online.
Broader public attention with 18 distributed languages
Conclusion:
Sexual abuse is a senstive issue that Australia has long tackled with. However, the government has promoted a suitable solution with this campaign message. The adults from different cultures can initiate a talk on this topic to help their child preventing the future without the pressure of shame and silent
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