What Do Service Providers’ Understand About Cross-Cultural Differences In The ‘Stranger Danger’ Myth?

Abstract

The paucity of research on cross-cultural diversity in the psychosocial experience of child sexual abuse can affirm biases toward universality. However, belief of the myth that most perpetrators are strangers may be higher in ethnic minority communities because of collectivist norms that view extended family as primary providers of child safety, maintained by prohibitive social norms discussing any sexual matters to protect female and family honour. A program addressing these issues was delivered across Australia and evaluated over six months using a mixed-methods design. The results show that the program fulfilled its intention, with service providers more deeply engaging with this possible cross-cultural difference. They also show the program: safely allows white practitioners to acknowledge their awareness of this possible difference; eases judgment of this difference among ethnic minority practitioners in light of the multiple oppressions migrant communities negotiate; and raises attunement among all practitioners to ‘quiet’ child-safe parenting that may be occurring to help ensure risk-of-harm assessments are more accurate. Overall, there appears a need for persistent national awareness-raising campaigns against the myth of ‘stranger danger’ because this myth serves a protective function in all cultures (to greater or lesser extents) about perceptions of where children are/are not safe.