Do You Want to Touch Me, Oh No! (2010)

Gary Glitter, the ageing rock singer who sang the above verse, was eventually extradited from Thailand, and, after other countries refused to give him sanctuary, was flown back to Britain and incarcerated for abuse against children, in 2008. Initially Gary Glitter (born Paul Francis Gadd) had been arrested, in 1997, for child pornography found on his home computer and convicted in 1999. In 2005 he was arrested and charged with molesting under-age girls of 10 and 11, in Thailand, convicted in 2006. Many young people looked up to Gary Glitter, as a rock star, as a mentor, as a role model and as someone they could trust and identify with. In return he was seen to prey upon those very impressionable innocents who trusted him. It is an acknowledged duty, in society, for those who are adult, better off, knowledgeable, able and compos mentis to care for those who are not - not to abuse them or their trust. Childhood per se was not seen to exist in the early centuries, when, what we might call children were seen as merely mini-adults. Childhood is seen as a Victorian construct, emerging out of a growing concern for family values in the late 1800s, and a concern for child labour, spearheaded by notables such as Charles Dickens. Childhood is now enmeshed within the framework of many societies, and has grown to be protective of those people who society deems not yet mature enough for the responsibilities of adulthood. Immaturity means that those people undergoing their childhood years are not fully able to make decisions, and need further time to grow until they reach the level society have declared that they may be able to do so. Attached to immaturity are notions of innocence, protection and trust. In short, children, for that is what we call people during the childhood years, are vulnerable. Often vulnerable and trusting, for the two conditions frequently exist side by side. They are recurrently led to believe that adults will look out for them, care for them, help them grow and protect them, hence the trust that many children have in adults. It is not difficult for adults to earn the trust of children. Children want to trust, want to be protected, guided, loved by adults and it has become part of the natural order of most societies for it to be so. How much more heinous then, when an adult, having once gained children’s trust, abuses them. Granted there are many forms of abuse, and depending upon which country you live in whether it is called abuse or chastisement, punishment or behaviour correction. But the form of abuse I refer to is not correctional nor chastisement, but the improper sexual advances by an adult towards children, popularly called paedophilia. Paedophilia, as categorised by the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a disorder whereby a person either has acted upon intense sexual urges towards children, or has recurrent sexual urges towards children and fantasises about children, enough to cause distress or interpersonal difficulty. According to law a paedophile is an individual who has been found guilty of sexual offences (abuse) against a minor – a child. In common parlance a paedophile is a sexual abuser of children whether arrested or not. As well as being a crime in law, the abuse of a child must be seen as not only a betrayal of trust, but a reprehensible violence against the very fabric of society. As well as injuring an innocent (child), the perpetrator of abuse also damages the adult that child grows into, if, that is, the child survives the abuse, or repercussions of the abuse. Sadly many children are used, abused then discarded by their abusers, defiled, mutilated and cast aside in the hope that their crime is never discovered. Those are extreme cases. Much child abuse happens at a more subtle level, and is seldom reported due to stigmatisation and finger pointing. In Malaysia UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) supported the Child Act 2001, which assisted in training and workshops for people working with children, later, in 2006, along with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, UNICEF was able to form partnerships with child protection agencies and the police to battle child abuse and abusers. This support has meant that necessary guidelines have been put in place to minimize the occurrences of child abuse by workers working alongside vulnerable children - minimize but not stop that form of abuse. Abusers of children are often adept at concealing their nature/disorder, and act as predators. They are often calculative and stealthily stalk their victims, while hiding under a guise of normalcy. Like other forms of desire, the paedophile seeks to be closer to the objects of his, and it generally is his, desire. Paedophiles may be uncles, grandfathers, neighbours or adult friends/mentors of children. Some Paedophiles edge their way into working with children, into government offices, playgrounds and into charities set up ostensibly to work with vulnerable innocents. Some paedophiles have been discovered to be priests, teachers, care workers, youth group workers and even social workers. They are frequently found in professions and jobs which entail working with children of all ages, gaining their trust and ‘hooking’ them in to abuse them later. Paedophiles look for places where children are, including the internet. As there is now a growing body of evidence of what paedophiles look for and how they seek out their prey, it is much easier to try to prevent harm to the children they seek. Government ‘Acts’ help to clamp down, but guidelines for working with children need to be much tighter. Stringent police checks need to be made for anyone wishing to take up a job working with children, including voluntary/charity work too. Social agencies need to work alongside education and police departments to prevent people slipping through the net. More reporting of abuse needs to be encouraged, to prevent future abuse like in the Gary Glitter case. PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER