Facing Facts
This is an odd sort of resource page for persons combatting sexual abuse. For I won't give any links to "system" response, like agencies designed to connect you with social services or the police. I won't lead you to counseling services that promise to testify for you in court. Because it is my experience that when a child reports sexual abuse, and that report is processed by social services and the police/judicial system, things actually get worse for the child and not better.
I listened to a speech once about sexual abuse system-response in my home state. I wish I'd written down the numbers she gave: but what I remember was this. In one year there were over 500 substantiated cases of reported sexual abuse. ("Substantiated" means that the social service worker followed up on the initial report and, basically, believed it.) Of these 500 cases plugged into "the system" only about ten went to trial, and only two resulted in convictions for the offender charged. That means that 498 kids went through a grinder of interviews, interferences, investigations, all to re-open the wound (but not heal it) raising false hopes of some kind of resolution through the courts - only to be dumped and insulted, reinforcing the message that what they went through being molested didn't matter to people "in charge."
Not to mention the kind of hell that must have happened in the home or at school or where ever the abuse had taken place. New threats against the child are made when the possibility of police action is raised. New humiliations are delivered when the surrounding community realizes that a child is trying to be taken seriously when reporting sexual abuse.
I once devised a definition of co-offender, in cases of sexual abuse. A co-offender is anyone who is notified of an on-going abuse, yet does not do whatever is necessary to stop it from happening again.
Those who do not believe the report, and thus who act against the child who reports (as if he or she is the criminal), these are co-offenders. Those who do believe the report, yet do ineffectual behaviors that make things worse instead of better - these are also co-offenders. What it boils down to is this: as long as there are still children imprisoned in incest homes, we are all co-offenders. Even the victims become "co-offenders" under that definition, because they are notified, they know about it, yet they do not do what is necessary to stop the abuse.
I guess I need to revise this definition.
A co-offender is anyone who is notified of an on-going abuse, yet does not do everything in their power to stop it from happening again. There. So. For those of us who desire to step into the role of being true advocates for the safety of children - successful advocates - we need to learn how to do what is actually in our power to do. And what will work.
I listened to a speech once about sexual abuse system-response in my home state. I wish I'd written down the numbers she gave: but what I remember was this. In one year there were over 500 substantiated cases of reported sexual abuse. ("Substantiated" means that the social service worker followed up on the initial report and, basically, believed it.) Of these 500 cases plugged into "the system" only about ten went to trial, and only two resulted in convictions for the offender charged. That means that 498 kids went through a grinder of interviews, interferences, investigations, all to re-open the wound (but not heal it) raising false hopes of some kind of resolution through the courts - only to be dumped and insulted, reinforcing the message that what they went through being molested didn't matter to people "in charge."
Not to mention the kind of hell that must have happened in the home or at school or where ever the abuse had taken place. New threats against the child are made when the possibility of police action is raised. New humiliations are delivered when the surrounding community realizes that a child is trying to be taken seriously when reporting sexual abuse.
I once devised a definition of co-offender, in cases of sexual abuse. A co-offender is anyone who is notified of an on-going abuse, yet does not do whatever is necessary to stop it from happening again.
Those who do not believe the report, and thus who act against the child who reports (as if he or she is the criminal), these are co-offenders. Those who do believe the report, yet do ineffectual behaviors that make things worse instead of better - these are also co-offenders. What it boils down to is this: as long as there are still children imprisoned in incest homes, we are all co-offenders. Even the victims become "co-offenders" under that definition, because they are notified, they know about it, yet they do not do what is necessary to stop the abuse.
I guess I need to revise this definition.
A co-offender is anyone who is notified of an on-going abuse, yet does not do everything in their power to stop it from happening again. There. So. For those of us who desire to step into the role of being true advocates for the safety of children - successful advocates - we need to learn how to do what is actually in our power to do. And what will work.
NEXT: In Our Power
