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Cathy Harner, a social work professor at Taylor University in Indiana, has never opted for life in an ivory tower. She just wants to do whatever's needed. Two summers ago, at the encouragement of a former student, the 45-year-old teacher visited Sri Lanka, an island off the coast of India.

She discovered that Sri Lanka had an estimated 30,000 cases of child prostitution. According to Harner, those cases account for only 20 percent of the cases of sexual abuse against children. Frighteningly, most of the remaining 80 percent were the result of incest, she says. In 1995, sexual abuse against children was declared illegal. But the problem has not been eradicated.

Although Christians have been persecuted and make up less than 8 percent of the population of 19 million, the Sri Lankan government recently welcomed Christian social workers into the public schools to help. Harner had the skills to teach children how to protect themselves with a child-abuse prevention curriculum she wrote herself.

So, in summer 1999, using her own funds, Harner returned to Sri Lanka to teach, but was prohibited for various cultural reasons. Instead, through Lanka Evangelical Alliance and Development Services, she trained native Sri Lankan teachers to use her curriculum.

To get the message across, Harner used large cloth dolls handcrafted by Ruth Bainbridge, a physician from Harner's church, College Wesleyan, in Marion, Indiana, and masks depicting the various emotions child abuse victims experience. The props and translated material were left for the teachers.

Visiting Sri Lanka again in early 2000, she learned that more than 17,000 children have already been taught that it's okay to say "no" to abuse.

"I went with a servant's heart, to help in whatever way was needed," Harner says. "Now there's hope for a new generation of children."

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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