Learning From Children Exposed to Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation: The Bamboo Project study on child resilience

This report presents the findings from an 18 month participatory research project in Nepal from 2012 to 2013. The project looked at what could be learned from the life experience of children, adults, families, and communities, as well as programme practice that contributes to an understanding of resilience in the prevention of and recovery from child sexual abuse and exploitation.

In studying the resilience of children, two key methods were employed: life story interviews and focus group discussions. Both methods rely on child participation and allow children’s own experiences to be central to the analysis. Young people, as researchers and advisors, were involved in all aspects of the research, from data collection, analysis and validation to dissemination of the findings. Life story interviews were held with 47 children and focus group discussions with 70 children, resulting in a total of 117 children as research participants.

From an analysis of the wellbeing of children interviewed in this research it can be concluded that, despite the fact that the vast majority of children had experienced some form of abuse in their lives, a large majority of children had positive outcomes and were doing well. Assessments highlighted two key indicators of wellbeing: firstly children’s ability to reduce their feelings of fear, anxiety and anger and, secondly, children’s progress in their studies (or in some cases simply their regular attendance of school).