Recently, after several high profile cases, one paper’s headlines screamed “Predators Walk Among Us’’ and there were calls for a sex offender register to protect our children. We are all justifiably and understandably appalled by these crimes. We would all like to know who the perpetrators are so that we can keep our children safe.
A sex offender’s registry would allow us to identify the KNOWN perpetrators, the ones who have been accused, charged or convicted. Most perpetrators have not been accused, charged or convicted. Most perpetrators are people we already know.
Predators DO walk among us and mostly they walk undetected within the walls of our homes.
The majority of child sexual abuse happens within the family, the majority of perpetrators are known to the child, frequently a close family member or friend.
We would all like to believe that perpetrators are easily identifiable. We would all like to believe that we would know, recognise, be able to tell if someone close to us was an abuser. Somewhere in our heads the picture of the ‘dirty old man’ in a trench coat persists.
Two years ago I had a conversation that haunts me with a man who I will call John. John and Bill had worked together for years. Their wives were friends, they had children of a similar age and the two families holidayed together, socialised and minded each other’s children for over ten years. When Bill’s 14 year old daughter ran away from home, went to a refuge and accused her father of sexual abuse, John and his wife Mary were horrified. Bill cried and told them he was hurt, devastated, totally innocent. They stood by him and supported him. After all, they had known him for years. One night John and Mary were discussing the matter, saying how terrible it was for Bill and saying how they could not believe his daughter could do something this bad. That night, on his way to bed, John heard his eleven year old daughter crying and went to see what was wrong. She told him she was a bad girl too. She told him that Bill had told her she was a bad girl and that if she ever told she would go to gaol. She told him Bill had been sexually touching her for two years. John will never stop blaming himself for not knowing.
Education programs that teach our kids about ‘good and bad touching’, about bodily autonomy, about speaking out and telling someone are great initiatives. They protect children from the unknown predator, the stranger, and sometimes, from the friend, carer or extended family member. When the abuser is father, stepfather, grandfather, uncle, brother, mother, close family friend, the situation is different.
Familial predators rarely kill their victims. They don’t have to. Victims are often killed to silence them. The child within the family is silenced enough.
It is difficult sometimes to realise the extent of a child’s powerlessness and lack of knowledge in the world of adults. A simple example I often use in groups is the situation of a child living in a safe and happy family. She is nine, loves her school, does ballet, has friends and family in her street. One day her parents tell her they are moving to a different city. She doesn’t want to go, she doesn’t want to leave her school, friends and family, but she has no choice BECAUSE she is a child. Children are dependent upon the adults around them, and if the parenting is reasonable and the child is safe, that is not a problem. If parents tell children about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or the giant frog that will eat them if they go near the pond, the child has no frame of reference to question this reality. Again, not necessarily dangerous.
If a father tells a child that all daddies do this, if a grandfather tells a child that her mother will die if she tells anyone, if a uncle tells a child it is a special secret, if a the child is too young to know that sexual touching is not just another strange thing that adults do, if a child is convinced that she is the bad one and she will be in trouble, the child has no frame of reference to question this reality either.
When sexual abuse occurs within the immediate family, most children do not disclose, or disclose and are not believed, or disclose and withdraw their disclosure.
Children are silenced by fear, by believing the perpetrator’s story, by love, by coercion, by being treated as special, by being lied to, by shame and by confusion.
Recently, The Royal Commission has shone a light onto institutional abuse and the long history of sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children by those in authority over them. What is emerging is a story of cover ups, disbelief, secrecy and silence.I think most of us following the Royal Commission have been appalled by the level of cover ups, the level of silencing, the number of people who knew and did not speak out. We have questioned the power of the Church, and other institutions, wondered why SOMEONE didn’t say something, take some action, why so many of these perpetrators were protected.
The same dynamics operate in families.
Mona was abused by her brother in law as a child. He was fifteen years older than her and the abuse went on from the age of seven until she was about 12. This happened in the 60’s. Later, she learnt that he had sexually abused his daughter for all of her childhood – most of the 1970’s. She also learnt he had sexually abused another child in the family. Mona disclosed to her family. They told her to let bygones be bygones. When she refused to attend family events where he was she was vilified by her family. Her mother did not understand why Mona would not let her little daughter visit her sister. This man went on to be the grandfather of several girl children. He was involved in local youth programs. Mona reported him to Community Services and to Operation Paradox. She made a Police statement. She tried to tell all the mothers of children within the family. A few heard her. Most abused her for saying it. She learnt there had been several allegations made against him but he had not been charged. She learnt of two other girls he had abused and she learnt her niece had also tried to tell the family. They either disbelieved or minimised. This was in the 90’s. After a family funeral in 2000, Mona was contacted by an extended family member to say that this man had touched her daughter (5). The Police were informed but he was not charged. He still continued to work with young people. He still is. Forty years of perpetrating and this man is still being protected by his family and the community.
Rhiannon disclosed to her mother that her grandfather was sexually touching her. Her mother stopped leaving her alone with her grandparents and told Rhiannon she had been right to tell her but she must not tell anyone else because it would ‘break her grandmother’s heart’. They still have Sunday lunch with the grandparents every week.
Mara did not believe her granddaughter when the little girl disclosed sexual abuse by her father. She believed her mother was ‘putting her up to it’ due to a bitter divorce. An investigation led to charges and conviction on both the abuse and the possession of child pornography. Mara still did not believe it and cut contact with the family. While in prison the perpetrator converted to Christianity and wrote a letter of confession which he sent to his mother in which he admitted to abusing girls and boys for a number of years. He identified 32 victims over a 16 year period. He had been perpetrating from the age of 15. None of the other victims had ever disclosed.
Families excuse, hide, refuse to acknowledge, blame, shame and deny the experience of those abused within the family. For survivors, the most common story is that the survivor is the one who is not welcome at family events, or expected to deny their experience, or pretend it didn’t happen, or minimise or shut up. To name it, to say it, to demand accountability frequently results in the victim being ostracised. I have worked with women from 16 – 70 plus with similar experiences. One young woman named it well ‘The price of being in my family is to deny my own experience and buy into the myth.’
Even when the abuse is acknowledged or believed there is often the expectation that it will then be forgotten, swept back under the carpet, ignored or denied. Most families seem to believe that once it is named the abuser will stop. Some families believe they can ‘keep an eye on him.’ Some families believe that the abuse is limited to one child, that, even if wrong, it is a dynamic between that child and her father/uncle/brother. Few report, confront or even ostracise the perpetrator.
Abuse is always the responsibility of the perpetrator. It is his responsibility to NOT abuse, not the child’s to stop him or tell, or the mother’s or the family’s. However, when families close ranks, deny, collude and support the abuser, it allows this abuse to continue unchecked, just as the Church and other institutions closed ranks and protected paedophile priests/ministers/workers.
Maria was sexually abused by her grandfather from the age of five. He told her she was special and he loved her and that this was their special secret. Then he told her she was a dirty girl and her mother would not love her if she found out. Maria didn’t tell. Ten years later, she saw her grandfather holding her little niece and tickling her. She told her brother (the child’s father) about the abuse and the brother accused her of lying and jealousy. However, the child’s mother asked her little girl some questions and the girl disclosed that ‘poppy’ was touching her sexually. In the resulting family flare up, three cousins also disclosed abuse. Maria’s mother then revealed that she had been his victim too. Maria reported him, against the wishes of her mother and grandmother, who did not want the ‘family shame’ revealed.
A woman who has been raped by a stranger would not be expected to sit at dinner with the rapist. Nor would she be expected to visit the rapist in prison or welcome him back home at the end of his sentence. A woman raped by a stranger would not be expected to spend time with that rapist’s family and never, ever mention the rape.
Of course, if the perpetrator dies, the myth building continues. One woman was asked to give the eulogy at her abusive father’s funeral. Another was expected to be her stepfather’s carer when he became ill. Another, who refused to attend her grandfather’s deathbed, was abused by her family, called cold hearted and uncaring and án unforgiving bitch’.
Wherever you sit on the subject of forgiveness, forgiveness does not mean denial. Wherever you sit on family, to be asked to minimise, deny, accept the lies, be part of the myth is soul destroying.
One of the reasons child sexual abuse continues to happen is this level of denial, this belief in the sacredness of family, this unwillingness to stand beside the victim. In the same way that religious institutions protected and supported abusers, the family protects and supports abusers. Perhaps the reasons are similar too. The Church was, by definition, blameless, holy and good. To acknowledge the abuse brought into question that whole concept. Acknowledging abuse in the family questions our whole concept of family and the sacredness we impose on the idea of family. Because the abuser was protected within the Church/institution he continued to perpetrate and the number of victims multiplied. Because we protect perpetrators within the family, the number of victims also multiplies and the most vulnerable among us – our children – are placed at risk.
Abusers rarely abuse only one child, abusers rarely change their ways, abusers who are abusing in their twenties continue to abuse into their fifties, sixties, seventies. One family predator frequently has multiple victims.
By all means name and shame predators, by all means publicise a sex offender’s register, by all means acknowledge, investigate and name institutional abuse of children and hold those institutions accountable.
The biggest risk to our children however, is within the family. Predators DO walk among us, and most of them are people we know.