Child Sexual Abuse: Have we Learnt Anything?
Thu, 06 Feb 2014 09:34:00 GMT
On Wednesday 11 December 2013, Dr Bernard Gallagher delivered the third public lecture in the Institute for Research in Citizenship and Applied Human Sciences (IRCAHS) 2013-2014 Series entitled Child Sexual Abuse: Have we Learnt Anything?
The lecture took place in the George Buckley Lecture theatre, within the Researcher Hub building on the University of Huddersfield Queensgate camp.
Dr Bernard Gallagher is a Reader in Social Work and Applied Social Sciences, specialising in the areas of child protection, looked after children, and child welfare and child victimisation more generally.
He has carried out major studies into organised child sexual abuse (CSA); stranger abuse; the attrition of cases of child abuse and neglect in the criminal justice system; and international and internet CSA. He has, in addition, been involved in two small scale evaluations of therapeutic, residential care for severely maltreated children.
Prior to his current post, Dr Gallagher worked at the University of Manchester, the National Institute for Social Work, the NSPCC and the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge. Before embarking upon his academic career, Dr Gallagher was employed in a number of children’s homes in London and South East England.
The fifty or more members of the public, staff and students listened intently to the presentation, which focused on contemporary understandings of child sexual abuse (CSA). Dr Gallagher began by reminding the audience of some of the more recent, high profile investigations into CSA. This began with the launch of Operation Yewtree and the investigations into the child sexual abuse allegations reported against Jimmy Savile; quoting Peter Spindler, the Metropolitan Police Commander who said that Savile had “groomed a nation”. The talk was framed within the context that 10% of young people, approximately 1.5 million, will experience inappropriate sexual contact that may be classified as CSA.
The audience were also reminded about other high profile cases of CSA that have made the ‘headlines’, including the conviction of the former BBC presenter Stuart Hall and the tragic murder of April Jones, before being challenged to consider whether we have actually learnt anything about CSA.
Dr Gallagher suggested that there is also a need to better understand and distinguish between the ways in which CSA occurs: ‘situational’/ ’regressed’ versus ‘preferential’/ ’fixated’ cases. The audience were reminded that anyone can become a ‘victim’ of CSA. This point was illustrated with photos of a few high profile celebrities who have revealed that they experienced abuse earlier in their lives, including Oprah Winfrey, Terry Hatcher and Terry Hall.
Dr Gallagher asserted that we ‘need to learn’ more about CSA because although ‘we’ (academics and practitioners who specialise in this area) know a lot about the issue much less is known by those outside the field. He illustrated this point by running a ‘google scholar’ search, which revealed that there were over 1.3 million ‘academic’ articles available on the topic. Refining the search further, to articles published in 2013, the search revealed that there were over 37,000 articles available and that 79 items were listed already for 2014. However, Dr Gallagher noted that one key issue in society is that there is a reluctance to talk openly about sex and that this can further impact upon understandings of CSA. He then went on to suggest that there is a need for a public health approach to CSA in order to further develop lay understanding.
Dr Gallagher also argued that there is a need to examine male socialisation and the influence this has on men’s attitudes towards both girls and women.
This emotive but sensitively delivered talk was interspersed with some lighter moments, including humour, which albeit used sparingly, helped to lighten the mood of the audience during this thought-provoking talk.
A copy of Dr Gallagher’s PowerPoint presentation is available online.
