The regular reports emanating from our courts about cases of paedophilia continue to shock and stun us with their depravity.

Just to mention one, the thought of a 56-year-old man molesting his six-year-old granddaughter is enough to make anyone physically ill.

However, as the debate of whether to “name or not to name” child abusers rages on, my mind wandered on to another aspect of this abhorrent social phenomenon. Does Malta have more than its fair share of paedophiles per square kilometre? From a casual observer’s point of view, it sure looks like it.

Of course, this could just be a perception as news reports seem to be publicising these cases with alarming frequency as more people come bravely forward, whereas in the past, victims of child molestation had no option but to live with their dark, dirty secret. You cannot help but wonder, however, whether our islands are crawling with sexual perverts.

According to a report carried in the Malta Medical Journal (Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2007), entitled “Child Abuse in Malta: A review” authored by Dr Simon Attard Montaldo and Dr Mariella Mangion, between 1993 and 2006 Agenzija Appogg reported 6,442 cases involving some form of child abuse.

That by itself is a numbing statistic, but it gets worse – sexual abuse comprises 17 per cent of these cases. If my calculations are correct, that averages out to roughly 84 cases of sexual abuse on minors per year. And let us not forget that these are only the cases that have been reported.

Unfortunately, deviant behaviour has always been with us, but surely this number is pointing to something very wrong in our society. There are those who will point to the ready availability of child pornography on the Internet to explain why there are so many people (mainly men) whose sexual preferences have drifted towards prepubescent children. When their sexual tastes have become jaded, some will argue, there are those who will turn to more decadent forms of sex to get their kicks.

But ask any “normal” person to view a picture of child porn and they will turn away in horror and disgust. It seems to me that you would have to already be predisposed towards this type of sexual perversion to find something like that remotely arousing. Even writing about it is difficult, at least for me.

It is clear that paedophilia is a sickness which cannot be psychoanalysed into ‘normality’ – which is why in some countries, chemical castration (which reduces the levels of testosterone) has been one method which the State has seen fit to handle paedophiles’ re-introduction into society after serving their jail time. As repeat offenders have demonstrated, adults who are sexually attracted to children are often unable to “help themselves” from reverting to their horrendous behaviour.

One film that portrays this extremely well is The Woodsman. It shows you the world as seen from the molester’s point of view, as he tries to get on with his life back in his hometown after 12 years in prison, constantly in fear that his past will catch up with him. The only ones who know of his crimes are his immediate family, his psychiatrist and the local police. The paedophile is brilliantly portrayed by Kevin Bacon, and the subject is handled delicately with no graphic scenes. But it is still a difficult, disturbing film to watch, particularly when we see him watching children at play, albeit from a distance. It is when he begins to befriend a little girl, and we see him struggling to overcome his primal urges, that the message is brought forcefully and chillingly home. No, paedophilia is not something that can be “cured”.

To explain why there are so many cases of sexual abuse in Malta, it is easy to point the finger at repressed childhoods, where the subject of sex is taboo, where the Catholic faith has drummed into us the mantra that “sex outside marriage is bad”, so that any sex then takes us on this illicit, dirty connotation, making it thrillingly alluring because it is so forbidden. But maybe this is just too facile an explanation.

It still doesn’t explain why some men are sexually aroused by innocent children who cannot defend themselves. Like rape, where the victim is a helpless woman who is no match for her aggressor, paedophilia probably has more to do with power and control than the sex act itself. Feelings of social and sexual inadequacy in the perpetrator tend to be the key issues.

I came across this observation by therapist Dr Jeanine De Volder, from the Granada Institute in Shankill, Co Dublin who works with both sex offenders and their victims:

“Usually the abuser is confused, feels neglected and lacks intimacy in his life. The abuser is usually depressed, and children who are very friendly and loving fill that void for them. A lot of the time the sexual aspect of being with a child is not the foremost important aspect of the relationship with the child.”

In cases where abuse of the same child spans a long period of time, she points out that “the abusers convince themselves they are not inflicting much damage because the child keeps coming back to them.”

And let us not forget the many studies which show that this is a vicious cycle and that abusers have often been victims of abuse themselves. This is perhaps the one aspect of this whole issue we find hardest to understand. How can a person who has been cruelly robbed of his childhood, corrupted and mentally scarred by acts no child should ever be a part of or even witness to, turn around and do the same thing to another child himself?

Does sexual abuse cause such untold psychological damage that it completely wipes out the capacity for empathy towards others? One study points out, “Some victims become sexual abusers or prostitutes because they have a difficult time relating to others except on sexual terms.”

Other studies suggest that the reason for the cycle of abuse could be:

re-enactment of their own abuse;

social learning and modelling (learnt from an abusive environment);

attempts to achieve mastery over negative experiences (that is a response to trauma – becoming the aggressor to achieve a sense of control and power); and

when sexual arousal is conditioned by fantasies of abuse

In cases where the victims do not become abusers themselves, they can sometimes become self-destructive, turning to drugs or alcohol, and spiralling out of control in their behaviour because they have never come to terms with the guilt and shame of what they went through.

And parents…?

This topic is probably a parent’s worst nightmare, and trying to deal with it rationally is the biggest challenge. Where children are involved our protective instincts kick in – it is tempting to want to put them under lock and key and never let them out of our sight. But this, of course, is impossible.

One course of action is to make our children more street-wise at an earlier age than we would perhaps prefer. These days it’s not enough to admonish children not to take sweets from strangers; parents have to be blunt and specific about the dangers, which sometimes lurk behind seemingly harmless, friendly faces. Parents need to be on the alert about who their under-age children are chatting and SMS-ing with. Young girls especially should never be allowed to post provocative photos of themselves on their Hi5 page…it is the parents’ job to explain the implications of this and the ‘message’ being sent to anyone accessing their profile. The time for coyly beating around the bush when it comes to discussing sex is long over.

But if you think paedophilia is a nightmare, then incest must be the most unspeakable nightmare of them all.

As we have seen from the news, child molesters are often closer to home than we think. Sickening as it sounds, it means that we now have to be on the lookout for suspicious behaviour from relatives as well. Can a much-loved uncle put a child on his knee any more? Can an affectionate grandfather or a father allow certain cuddles and kisses without being misinterpreted? I doubt there are any answers, except again, to teach children what parts of their bodies are strictly out of bounds to others.

We hear about these stories and the automatic question is: but how could the parents not know? When the father is the perpetrator the accusing fingers also point to the mother, because we find it hard to believe that this was all happening without her knowledge. In our eyes, she becomes equally a monster, for surely a mother is supposed to sense these things?

Incest is probably the ultimate betrayal to a child, where those who are closest to him/her, those who he/she should be able to trust implicitly, turn out to be the ones who are inflicting the most atrocious physical and emotional harm.

And try as I might, it is beyond my imagination how anyone can truly overcome that kind of devastating trauma.

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