Dolls help kids ‘talk’ about sexual abuse

Cape Town - They may look just like any other rag dolls, but the anatomically correct forensic dolls have an important role to play for children who have been sexually abused.

Complete with genitalia, breasts, fingers and tongues, the forensic dolls are designed to help children who have allegedly been sexually abused to explain what happened to them during a forensic assessment.

A total of 34 of these special dolls were donated to the police family violence, child protection and sexual offences units at the Old Commando Building in Stellenbosch on Thursday.

This was part of a Matla A Bana Charity Trust initiative ahead of Child Protection Week.

Monique Strydom, the trust’s founder, explained that the dolls were donated by Thorburn Security Solutions and cost R30 000. The annual Child Protection Week begins next Monday and runs until June 2.

The campaign, launched in 1997, is a bid to raise awareness about the rights of children and to urge society to ensure the care and protection of children. The dolls come in a family unit of six, which includes a grandmother and grandfather, a mother and father and a boy and girl.

All the dolls are dressed.

Provincial co-ordinator of forensic police social workers, Captain Neville Dampies, said the dolls were designed to help in a forensic investigation.

“It’s hard for children to tell a stranger about the abuse especially if the perpetrator is someone they trusted. These dolls help them to communicate what happened and help us to identify their alleged abusers,” said Dampies.

The family violence, child protection and sexual offences units work with children aged three to 12 years.

“Most children are too traumatised to talk and it can take up to eight sessions for them to open up. Some of the children are mentally challenged, so we rely on techniques such as playing with dolls to help them tell their stories,” he said.

Dampies said a “blind assessment” was used to determine what happened to a child.

This meant that the medical or the police’s investigation report on the child was not read before assessing a child and reliance was exclusively on what the child revealed through “play” in the assessment room.

Forensic social worker at Stellenbosch’s family violence, child protection and sexual offences units, Maria Goosen, said more people were reporting cases of child abuse.

“The children will use the dolls to demonstrate what they want to say when they can’t put it in words,” Goosen said.

nontando.mposo@inl.co.za

Cape Argus