This is a difficult subject, one I probably have no right
to write about, but I that isn’t going to stop me. It is something of which I
have no personal direct experience, but I have dear friends who have… their
stories are just so shocking, so disturbing, yet I know they are the tip of the
iceberg… these things happen far more often than you would dare imagine.
What are we talking about now? Child abuse. In particular I
am looking at sexual abuse. The appalling thing is that in the majority of
sexual abuse cases, it is a close family member or close friend who commits the
crimes.
Not
only do these things happen more often than you would imagine, but they can
continue, through the years, through generations, as statistics show that many
abusers have themselves grown up being abused… they are themselves also victims,
and their own sufferings are transferred to their children. It is important to
understand, however, that not all who suffer go on to abuse, but all who are
abused go on to suffer the effects for many years, if not for ever.
The implications for the victim, the person abused, are
lifelong… not only do they suffer the pain, the shame, the terror the fear of
the physical assaults, the rapes, but they carry the fear and horror with them
around the clock, day in, day out for a lifetime.
They become defensive, suspicious, withdrawn… they cannot
form proper bonds, so have few if any friends, they often fail at school
because they are so continually worried about what will happen when they get
home, so distracted by it that they cannot concentrate, and they cannot work at
home because of what they are expecting every minute.
The issue is, the abuse usually is at home, no-one sees it
apart from the two people… usually the two people… involved…
If you have not been there, you will wonder why the victim
doesn’t tell the other parent, tell the police, tell the school… ask for help…
if you have been there, you will know exactly why you can’t; you are
frightened, you are embarrassed, you are ashamed of what is happening to you..
and the longer it goes on the harder it becomes to tell… you know that other
family members will not believe you anyway.
So often then, the abuse carries on over years, the victim
finds it less and less possible to speak up, the perpetrator thrives on the
power and domination in the situation. Whatever happens, the pain, suffering,
trauma of the abuse will live forever in the victim.
It is so important to identify where this behaviour is
happening, and there is one huge difficulty of the situation. We do not want
the so-called nanny state peering into to every room of every household daily
to track down abuse, but we cannot allow it to carry on. There has to be a
compromise somewhere betwen
I don’t have any definitive answers to this question, but
the victims must surely display signs of the abuse, either by way of suspicious
bruises, withdrawn behaviour, erratic behaviour… of course these all have a
host of potential causes, but all need dealing with, they should not be left unchecked.
In a previous job I had to do regular training sessions in safeguarding, and I
only saw children, for the most part with their parents or teachers in school
parties, but it is useful and important training.
I wonder if teachers, and everyone whose work puts them
regularly in contact with a group of children, should have more intensive
training in how to identify children who are being abused, or indeed being
bullied, or acting as carers…because they are the people that see most of the
children, other than the parents, and we know most abuse is in the home.
It may also be useful to introduce the same subjects into
the curriculum, not in detail, but to get younger folk to become accustomed to
the concept and implications of abuse, mental illness and a host of other
sensitive subjects may just help to eradicate the stigma which makes it so
impossible to talk about it publicly and to be willing to seek help when it is
needed.
I realise that this sort of approach would offend, and there
is an argument that it would rob the children of their innocence too soon… but
we need to consider the well being of the countless children who are, even now,
being abused or losing their youth for any one of many reasons.
I am the last person to encourage the so-called
“nanny-state” or big brother, and I don’t want to see children losing their
childhood innocence too early, but I think we have to compromise towards these
situations to protect the people who are being abused, remember the damage that
can be done to someone by sexually abusing them is beyond imaging… it can leave
people literally scarred for life, both physically and mentally, it will
severely impact on any potential future relationships, you will be unable to
trust people, you will have a lifetime sentence of depression and post
traumatic stress, fear of trusting people…
Can you imagine what it is like at the time you most need
your parents support to know that that is the last thing you can ever have, to
grow up knowing a parent is responsible for your sufferings, to resent them for
eternity…
Can you imagine being unable to trust anyone enough to have
a proper relationship, or alternatively totally lose everything and give
yourself recklessly to everyone.
Can you imagine, beyond this, to have a serious mental
illness for life, to need therapy but know that therapy is potentially as
dangerous as the suffering.
Is it any wonder that victims of abuse are prone to serious
self-harm under duress and even suicide attempts, because there is no way out,
at best you can learn to control to some extent the appalling damage you have
suffered.
Even if you are strong enough to form a loving bond with a
partner, to have children, to know that your partners life will also be
blighted by your illness, that any children will be brought up, lovingly and
compassionately, but knowing the horror of a parent suffering serious mental
illness and feeling the shame of being a victim of something totally out of
their control, feeling unworthy, and
perhaps not understanding that the self harm and suicide attempts are because
it is so much easier to deal with than the mental torment, rather than being a
tacit statement that they don’t love their family enough, or even dislike them
enough, to want to stay with them.
It affects everyone involved… it affects them for life…
there is no respite from this sort of suffering.
I know that training teachers, and others who see children
regularly in a professional capacity is an expensive and demanding strategy, I
know that setting up peer group counselling services and therapy is expensive
and demanding, but consider the benefits, not only is there a chance that
abused children will be identified sooner, minimising the suffering, improving
their chances of recovering a normal life, but on a mercenary level, it would
be probably less expensive than the cost of providing care and support for the
victims if they escape and are able to talk about it, or when they collapse
into serious mental illness and need permanent hospitalisation.
I really don’t have the answers, I do at least acknowledge
the questions, the main one of which is that vast numbers of children in the
past, and now, and in the future are being sexually abused, and having their
entire lives ruined through no fault of their own, and we need to do something
about it.
These people need all the help and support we can give them,
every last scrap of help and support to prevent them getting into the desperate
condition that so many now find themselves in.
No price is too great to achieve that, so let us at least
take the rose tinted glasses away from our eyes, start the discussion, try, as
with mental illness, to at least remove the stigma for the victims. Only then
will we be able to start to make some headway.
As for the abusers… not my problem right now, maybe subject
for another article… it may not be simple black and white.. but for the victim
it is, it always will be… they have been abused, assaulted, stripped of dignity
and hope and have had their entire lives broken.
That is something that must not be allowed to continue
