In Tanzania every day newspapers report ghastly stories of children being hurt, maimed, raped, torn and broken by adult men. All sorts of people  journalists, religious leaders, politicians and your ordinary woman on the street  are talking about it. Clearly the situation is extremely serious. Something needs to be done.

Unfortunately, however, the sensationalism around the issue has yielded much noise and little action that can lead to practical social change. Too many people continue to believe, incorrectly, that a cadre of sick, crazy people who probably smoke a lot of marijuana sexually abuse children. Many people are clamouring for harsher penalties against accused perpetrators  for life sentences, the death penalty, even castration - "to wipe out this blight from the face of the earth", as if killing people or chopping off testicles will somehow solve the problem.

Significantly, in the clamour to punish the monster, the abused child is quickly forgotten and little is done to ensure her healing, protection and vibrant growth. We owe it to our children to be sober, to do a thoughtful analysis of the problem, and to help create a world in which children can really grow up in safety and love.

Many studies, including an analysis of newspaper reports by the Tanzania Legal and Human Rights Centre (November 1997), have shown that the vast majority of perpetrators are adult men who are close to the children they abuse. Perpetrators are "normal" people who are well respected in society. More often than not they are fathers, uncles, teachers, employers and neighbours - people who have access to and power over children's lives.

Researchers show that the sexual abuse of children is fundamentally an expression of an adult's power over a child's life. Children in Tanzania have extremely little power or say in negotiating their relationships with adults. For instance, many children in homes and schools throughout the country are regularly beaten, slapped and caned, without anyone batting an eye. Adult conversations with children are typically monologues of the imperative: "do this, don't do that, go there, fetch this, shut up". Verbal insults are commonplace: "you dog, donkey, stupid, don't you have a brain".

In relating to adults, children know that there is no place for their views or feelings -they are to do what they are told and accept what comes without question. This is a recipe for disaster. Children who are regularly beaten and verbally abused end up feeling broken and worthless and cannot grow up with self-esteem and a strong sense of integrity about their body. Children who have not experienced having their feelings and thoughts matter will be ill prepared to defend themselves against sexual abuse.

A society in which children have little status or power, where beatings and emotional abuse of children are condoned, and where children have no voice is a society that makes its children extremely susceptible to sexual abuse - in this sort of world, child sexual abuse is not an aberration, but an inevitable consequence. We should not be surprised that so many children are abused so often, when we ourselves have sown the seeds and tolerated the conditions that make children so vulnerable.

Locking up the abusers will not solve the problem. The way society is organized will bring forth many other abusers, and we cannot lock up everyone. Instead, we need a situation where perpetrators are accountable and made to understand the full gravity of their actions, where they are made to make amends towards the child. They may, for instance, be legally obligated to provide the full costs of the child's health and education and do mandatory community service work that makes children safer. True justice comes from holding perpetrators responsible in a way that brings real benefit to the child.

Ending child sexual abuse requires respecting children. Only when children grow up with plenty of experiences of being valued, heard, taken seriously and having control will they really know that they can say no to the adult who is touching them in a way they don't like. Children need the power to refuse abuse.