Our Reason for Being…….. St. Bernadette´s Residential Home

Sexual abuse is one of the more extreme forms of violence towards children, a reality in our country of Peru that is becoming ever more evident and threatening. Various studies at the national and international level confirm that Peru is one of the countries where sexual abuse is more prevalent. Diana Portal, commissioned by the Women´s Rights and People´s Defense offices states, in a study by the OMS (2013) in countries with a high incident rate of sexual abuse, that Peru is in third place at the world level. The two places below are occupied by Ethiopia and Bangladesh where sexual abuse is on the increase due to children marrying before the age of 15 years. In June of 2015 the newspaper, “La Republica”, published data from the Women´s Ministry that show there exists an increase in sexual abuse in Peru and that 90% of these cases are children.  In October of the same year, once again the “La Republica”, based on a report by, “Planned Parenthood”, the biggest association on family planning in the United States, stated that Peru is the country with most official complaints for sexual abuse in South America.

This cruel reality demands a political response from the State to confront this problem in public health, while taking actions that promote the security and protection of all children. Nevertheless, we can recognize that public political figures, as regards this problem, have garnered the efforts of other private institutions from civil society which has increased the capacity of detection, although the major difficulty is not the lack of complaints, but rather the implementation of effective programmes for prevention and specialized intervention orientated towards the socio-emotional recovery of the victims.

The work realized in the St. Bernadette’s Residential Home embraces these objectives and is committed in the fight against the victimization of more children, while continuing the noble work of healing hearts and curing hurts.

We have to affirm that there is a lot of work to do, but we are convinced that initiatives likes ours are pertinent and necessary in order to achieve, in the not too distant future, a childhood free of sexual abuse.

Objectives:

To provide integral attention and specialized psychological therapy for children who have been victims of sexual abuse.

To prevent , detect and give psychological treatment with temporary residential placements to children, victims of sexual abuse, while supporting the whole family in order to return the child afterwards to a healthy and positive family environment.

Violeta Noemy Roldán Lopez.

Directora.