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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 2005)
O UNIVERSITY OF OREGON V* 2005 Summer Session Registration Starts May 2 Book Your Summer in Oregon Summer Session starts June 20. Pick up your free summer catalog today in the Summer Session office (333 Oregon Hall), at the UO Bookstore, or read it online. You can speed your way toward graduation by taking required courses during summer. Check Out Our Website! http://uosummer.uoregon.edu EO/AA/ADA institution committed to cultural diversity Wednesday, April 27 10am • 3pm • EMU Ballroom IN BRIEF Presentation addresses effects of militarization An expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s gender dynamics will dis cuss the effects of militarization on society and how to transform the world’s militarized cultures. Simona Sharoni will deliver a speech, “Com passionate Resistance: Confronting Militarization in the Age of Empire,” in the EMU Fir Room at 7 p.m. Sharoni, a visiting professor in the University’s Women’s and Gender r Studies Program, taught a course on race, gender and militarization dur ing winter term, according to a press release. Her main research areas in clude the relationship between vio lence against women and the vio lence of war. The event is co-sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Pro gram and the Center for the Study of Women in Society, and is free and open to the public. — Ayisha Yahya _____ Tim Bobosky | Photographer Psychology professor Jennifer Freyd talks about damage caused by child sexual abuse. Freyd: Child sexual abuse is immediate and future risk Continued from page 1A Pediatrics and Child Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said his center evaluates about 2,000 children per year for allegations of abuse. The center is faced with the problem of establishing clear-cut find ings of abuse in children who are too young to speak for themselves, yet have injuries inconsistent with their caretakers’ stories. “We talk about the ‘killer couch’ as we see so many children with terrible head injuries and multiple broken bones who ‘fell off the couch,’” Put nam said in an e-mail. “Often we can say that it didn’t happen that way, but we can’t say what actually did happen. Or we see children as young as three with sexually transmitted diseases, but can’t say who gave it (to) them.” Freyd said many child sexual abuse victims don’t report abuse for fear of not being believed or getting punished. “A great deal of abuse from an adult to a child ... happens in the context of a relationship,” Freyd said, adding that abuse perpetrators often “groom” and manipulate their victims emotionally. Freyd researches the phenomenon of betrayal trauma, which can include child sexual abuse and involves the mistreatment and abuse of a child by someone the child knows. She also researches memory and awareness. Article co-author Ross Cheit, associ ate professor of political science and public policy at Brown University, commented on the courts’ treatment of sexual abuse. “Our social response is actually far more lenient than is generally recog nized; child molesters receive surpris ingly lenient punishments as a group,” Cheit wrote in an e-mail. The article recommended three ways to combat child sexual abuse: in terdisciplinary research initiatives, the expansion of the National Child TYau matic Stress Network and the creation of a new Institute of Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence within the National Institutes of Health. Freyd said working with authors from various backgrounds helped keep the article free of excessive jargon and easily readable. “When you work with people outside your normal group, it changes your assumptions about what every one knows,” Freyd said. Freyd expressed hopes that the pub lication of the article in Science would draw attention to the study of child sexual abuse. “It gives this topic a voice and credi bility that has been lacking,” she said. She added that lawmakers often read Policy Forum, the section of Science that hosted the article. “If we want this new institute to happen, we want congressional aides to read about it,” Freyd said. The proposed developments would work to prevent future child sexual abuse through treatment of children who have been sexually abused. Freyd said children who are sexually abused have an increased likelihood of grow ing up to commit sexual abuse them selves, although she said this does not always happen. “Lots and lots of abuse victims do not grow up to become perpetrators,” Freyd said. “Lots and lots heal and grow up to do very good things. ” Nevertheless, Freyd described child sexual abuse as a future risk factor. She said the immediate consequences of child sexual abuse can range from lack of sleep because the victim is being abused at night, to being incorrectly di agnosed with Attention Deficit Disor der because of an overlap between ADD symptoms and child sexual abuse symptoms. Long-term conse quences can include serious mental and physical health problems, sub stance abuse, victimization and criminality in adulthood, according to the article. “If you wanted to make it more like ly someone was going to have a bad life, that’s one of the things you would do to them, abuse them,” Freyd said. Freyd emphasized the responsibility of parents to share healthy physical af fection with their children and talk with their children about appropriate relationship boundaries and types of physical expression. “When you teach kids about good touch ... and talk to them about it, they learn,” Freyd said. evasylwester@ dailyemerald. com
