http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article81402.ece
Child abuse: We and the Americans By KHALAF AL-HARBI | OKAZ Published: Jul 9, 2010 00:03 Updated: Jul 9, 2010 00:03 Two studies have been issued on the issue of child abuse in the last two months. The first one, conducted in the United States, claims one in six children would be subjected to sexual abuse. The second study, conducted in Saudi Arabia by Dr. Nura Al-Suwaiyan, director of the family safety program at the National Guard Hospital, revealed one in four children is abused in the Kingdom. This clearly shows that children are far more likely to be molested in the Kingdom than in the United States! I know that such a result will shock many of us who believe that we are living in utopia, while American society is devoid of any ethical values. These people will reject the results of these studies or at least doubt the credibility of the researchers. They are dreaming. They are determined to provide a picture of our society as one that is completely flawless. As it is useless to talk to these dreamers, I will address citizens with a more realistic outlook in our society and tell them that child abuse rates in the US will come down with time, while it will increase in our society. The reason for this is the way each country deals with the problem. From a legal point of view, while sexual harassment against children in the US is considered a heinous crime, we look at it as a mistake or a wrongdoing, not as a crime, unless the child has been raped. The child molester in America is considered a dangerous criminal while for us he is a man who committed a mistake that does not necessarily entail informing the police! In the US, there is a detailed description of child harassment. Showing a pornographic picture to a child or talking to him about sex in the US is considered molestation, while in the Kingdom sexual harassment cannot be considered abuse unless actual sex act has taken place. >From a social point of view, it is a duty of parents and adults in America who >notice their children being abused to inform police, but in our society >parents would feel ashamed to tell officers if their son or daughter has been >molested! The Americans can confront this problem because they know that they are human beings and hence liable to make mistakes, while those in Saudi Arabia are unable to deal with this problem because they want to adhere to the imaginary idea that we are the purest society in the whole world. (klfh...@gmail.com )
