Stop the Silence: Talk Around the Clock - Help End Child Sexual Abuse

"Stop the Silence: Talk Around the Clock" uses web-based media to reach a worldwide audience with information, messages, and artistic expression to increase awareness, restore hope and integrity, and increase concrete action. Each year (for instance, on November 19 2008), organisers will begin talking and presenting art and information through the internet from people around the world who have responded to an invitation to add their work and thoughts to this movement by the specified deadline each year. During a 24-hour period, organisers present the work that the public and others have contributed (via an online process) - for instance, they can air a clip of poetry - or people may present it live through a special web programme that will allow others throughout the world to see and/or hear the contributor.

One strategy involves encouraging and incorporating diverse voices and types of expression. Survivors, bystanders, and supporters of the prevention of CSA are called upon each year to help celebrate the courageous efforts of past victims, survivors, and those who have supported them - as well as to voice the conviction that no child (regardless of geography, culture or heritage, or economic status, etc.) should have to endure any form of sexual abuse. By visiting the collaborators' websites (see contact information section, below) and/or accessing a dedicated website, people may upload submissions - art stills (e.g., paintings, drawings, sculpture) or art to donate (with proceeds going to further education about and prevention of CSA), formal presentations (e.g., speaking live from one's computer and/or PowerPoint slides), and poetry, dance, or theatre (uploaded as a video or audio clip, or presented live during the marathon). Celebrities are invited to offer their voices and opinions by uploading video clips or monologues about a CSA-related story, history, experience, or perspective. These clips will be aired throughout the marathon.

Children, Rights, Health.

According to Stop the Silence, CSA constitutes a broad range of behaviours occurring along a continuum from voyeurism to rape, and usually happens over an extended period of time. CSA is possible due to differences in power and control between the offender and the victim. The organisation reports that "CSA is occurring in pandemic proportions and causes grave physical and psychological trauma, along with social havoc....It is difficult to know the true extent of CSA; most CSA is never reported (due to shame, fear, stigma, and other factors). The information that does get reported can look quite different depending on who is reporting it....Also, authorities often minimize or dismiss the abuse reported, blame the victim, and/or protect the abuser."