Category Archives: Sexual Abuse

December 21, 2014 · 1:00 am

The Book of Job

For years, I was an atheist, unwilling to believe in or do homage to a God who would allow suffering by the innocent.

My view was a direct result of the abuse I had endured, and the suffering of all kinds I saw around me. I could not reconcile a good and just God with the many injustices in the world.  Faith was a fool’s game.

The Bible’s Book of Job, in particular, revealed the merciless nature of God. So I thought. A devout man is caused to lose his property, his children, and his health. All to demonstrate that his faith in God is not a response to good fortune alone.

I saw the God who would allow this as sadistic. I viewed the Book of Job as an obscenity, and rejected the propositions it put forward. For a long while, I preferred to rage.

When I found the law as a profession, it felt as if a sword had been placed into my hand.

But the Book of Job is a profound study in suffering. It makes the point that God is God. We are merely His creation, dearly though He loves us.

In the end, I came to recognize that we cannot substitute our sense of justice for God’s. We do not have His perspective. We cannot see the end from the beginning.

Christians do not always know why suffering takes place. Ours is a broken world, not the paradise we might wish.

Christians do, however, know the true character of God. He truly is holy, good, just, and merciful. He and only He is the God who suffered as we suffer, even dying for our sakes. Amid the severest of trials, He somehow sustains us. And we have His promise that He will use all things somehow for good.

That promise cannot be applied simplistically. No Christian would contend that good can come to a child from sexual molestation, torture, or neglect. Continue reading →

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December 14, 2014 · 1:00 am

Venom

“…[The] poison [of the wicked] is like the poison of a serpent…” (Ps. 58: 4).

The toxin that venomous snakes inject into their victims can cause pain, tissue necrosis, respiratory paralysis, and kidney failure, ultimately resulting in death.

In an effort to shield loved ones from the abuse to which we were subjected, many of us swallowed the venom our abusers spewed.

Powerless, we submitted to their violation of us or neglect of our basic needs, and accepted their lies about us – that we were worthless, that we were undeserving of love, that we were responsible for their violation and neglect of us.

As children, we suffered in silence. Often, as adults, we maintain that silence, wrongly believing the details of our abuse too off-putting or too shameful to share with others.

But until it is spat out, that venom continues to wreak havoc with us. It causes incalculable pain, destroys hope, and interferes with our capacity to breath in cleansing truth, ultimately resulting in a kind of spiritual death. Continue reading →

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November 30, 2014 · 1:00 am

Complicated

My mother died this week. While I loved her deeply, our relationship was, as they say, complicated.

The relationship between mothers and daughters is always complicated – all the more so when there is sexual abuse by the father/stepfather or another family member.

The central questions victims ask themselves, in such cases, are: whether their mothers knew the molestation was taking place; and, if they did know, why their mothers chose not to intervene on their behalf.

This can feel like betrayal on the most visceral level. How is it that we can be rejected by our mothers? Our very hearts cry out.

Many factors come into play:

  • A woman who is herself abused may fear for her life, if she does not acquiesce to the sexual violation of her children (daughters and/or sons).
  • Alternatively, a mother may fear abandonment by her partner/spouse, especially if she does not see herself as capable of supporting the children on her own.
  • A few women may be callous, particularly if they are addicts whose judgment has been impaired. This group of women may actually trade a child for drugs.
  • Many women live in denial. Unwilling or unable to cope with the thought of molestation by the father/stepfather or another family member, these women ignore what may to an outsider seem like clear signs of sexual abuse [1].

As for rescue:

  • There are women who do not understand the abuse dynamic (the inherent inequality between adult and child) and, therefore, see their daughters (even children as young as 6) as “competition” for a partner/spouse. These women are likely to blame a victim for the molestation, mistakenly characterizing the violation as seduction by the victim.
  • When the child molester is a family member, but not the father/stepfather (for instance, a brother, uncle, or grandparent), there is a greater chance of rescue for the victim, since “competition” does not come into play.
  • When child molesters challenge the veracity of the children they have violated, mothers are faced with a credibility issue. Some women will side with their partners/spouses as against their own children. This can be crushing for victims.
  • Women in denial never deal with the rescue issue.

Often, mothers and daughters are alike in more ways than we might care to admit. But ours is the choice of whether to follow in our mothers’ footsteps. We need not make the same mistakes they did…or inflict the same wounds.

—

[1] Signs of possible sexual abuse can include:

  • the presence of child pornography in the home,
  • changes in behavior by a child (disobedience on the part of a normally obedient child, for example),
  • sudden unease by a child around the offending individual,
  • secretive behavior by the offending individual,
  • unexplained nocturnal visits to a child’s bedroom,
  • sexual comments about a child in the mother’s hearing,
  • inappropriate touching of a child in the mother’s view, and finally
  • the statement by a child that sexual abuse has taken place.

None of these is, by itself, conclusive.  Each though merits inquiry.

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November 23, 2014 · 1:00 am

Cubs

ISIS is recruiting and training child soldiers it proudly calls “Cubs of the Islamic State” [1].

The recruitment and use of children as soldiers is a war crime, though not without precedent. Children – often forcibly conscripted – have acted as soldiers in India, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Thailand, and Myanmar [2].

In Sierra Leone, boys between the ages of 7 and 14 served in the Small Boys Unit. Some 10,000 are thought to have taken part, in that nation’s civil war from 1991-2002 [3]. These children were involved in rape, mutilation, sexual slavery, murder, and other forms of human rights abuses.

Over 30,000 children have taken part in the decades long conflict in Uganda, a substantial number of these actually abducted [4]. Young girls are subject to sexual violence, or required to serve as “wives” of the rebels and have their children.

And now ISIS.

Boys are taught how to use AK-47s and mercilessly behead captives. An Iraqi security official was quoted by NBC News as saying, “They use dolls to teach them how to behead people, then they make them watch a beheading, and sometimes they force them to carry the heads in order to cast the fear away from their hearts.”

Some children are used by ISIS as suicide bombers; others, as human shields. They are, also, indoctrinated in Shariah law. “It’s being done for the same reasons that Hitler had the Hitler Youth,” stated Charlie Winter of the Quilliam Foundation.

Brainwashing these children is a long-term strategy to assure ISIS’ continued existence. “They have to get used to hearing the sounds of explosions and machine guns and missiles and artillery and aircraft,” Abu Dujana explained. “They should get used to seeing blood,” the ISIS fighter said.

Americans can expect to see more blood, as well.

—
[1] NBC News, “ISIS Trains Child Soldiers at Camps for ‘Cubs of the Islamic State’ ” by Cassandra Vinograd, Ghazi Balkiz and Ammar Cheikh Omar, 11/7/14, http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-trains-child-soldiers-camps-cubs-islamic-state-n241821.

[2] Child Soldiers International, http://www.child-soldiers.org/.

[3] Human Rights Watch, “Sierra Leone Rebels Forcefully Recruit Child Soldiers”, 6/1/00, http://www.hrw.org/news/2000/05/31/sierra-leone-rebels-forcefully-recruit-child-soldiers.

[4] UN.org, Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About, “Uganda: Child Soldiers at Centre of Mounting Humanitarian Crisis”, http://www.un.org/events/tenstories/06/story.asp?storyID=100.

 FOR MORE OF MY ARTICLES ON POVERTY, POLITICS, AND MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE CHECK OUT MY BLOG A LAWYER’S PRAYERS AT: http://www.alawyersprayers.com

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November 16, 2014 · 1:00 am

Frozen

The Disney animated film “Frozen” has become enormously popular. Rather than telling yet another tale of how a girl finds her prince, the film tells the story of two sisters whose love for each other saves them and their world.

Child abuse victims, too, run the risk of being frozen.

It is not difficult to find stories about abuse in the news. Incest. Child pornography and exploitation. A child tortured to death. A group of children held captive; handicapped children tormented. Systemic abuse with the collusion of law enforcement or the church. The rare monetary judgment against a predator, more often than not unenforceable for lack of funds. Take your pick.

No Disney villain can compete.

The children robbed of their innocence and peace of mind – sometimes their lives – deserve to have their stories told. But as survivors we cannot focus exclusively on this darkness or we will succumb to it. Isolated, immobilized by despair. Frozen.

There is hope in the world. There are those who consider these violations among the worst harm human beings can inflict. There is love waiting to be found. Reach out for your share.

Darkness cannot withstand Light.  It was to conquer darkness that Jesus Christ came into our world.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1: 4-5 NIV).

FOR MORE OF MY ARTICLES ON POVERTY, POLITICS, AND MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE CHECK OUT MY BLOG A LAWYER’S PRAYERS AT: http://www.alawyersprayers.com

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November 2, 2014 · 1:00 am

Legacy

As abuse victims, we choose various means of expressing our pain, and seeking comfort for it.  The one thing victims should not do is attack one another for those choices.

Perhaps the most divisive issue for abuse victims is forgiveness.  Many victims view forgiveness as impossible, and forgiveness by other victims of their own abusers as a betrayal.

But forgiveness is, first and foremost, the decision by an abuse victim not to center his or her life wholly on the violation [1].

Forgiveness does NOT imply approval of the violation. Forgiven or not, the abuser should, if at all possible, be held accountable for the criminal act(s) of which s/he is guilty.  That may involve imprisonment, chemical castration, and lifelong monitoring to prevent a recurrence.

Whatever we do, we cannot fully balance the scales once a child has been violated [2].  In most cases, the child must deal with the scars of abuse for a lifetime.  For that very reason, the decision by a victim whether or not to forgive his or her abuser is entirely personal, not subject to a general critique, even by other victims [3]. Continue reading →

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October 19, 2014 · 1:00 am

Surviving the Fire

Read the blogs of child abuse victims and those concerned for them.  Somewhere along the line, you will find mention of what the abuse damaged or destroyed outright.

Our innocence.  Our childhood.  Our peace of mind.  Our self-confidence.  Our self-esteem.  Our ability to trust.  Our capacity to select loving partners, and sustain healthy relationships.  Our faith.  Our voice.

And from far too many, the abuse took their very lives.

For many of us, what the abuse left behind was isolation, grief, anxiety, depression, rage, and a permanent sense of violation.

Unfortunately, that we will never be the women (or men) we might have been is not helpful information.  We are who we are…marked by these scars.

In some sense, the scars are our badges – if not of honor exactly, then certainly not of shame.  We were the ones sinned against, not the ones sinning, no matter how we were made to feel about the torture inflicted upon us.

As with the veteran who has lost a limb to war or the woman who has lost a breast to cancer, this is simply our reality now. Continue reading →

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October 12, 2014 · 1:00 am

Love and Betrayal

A South Carolina man killed his 5 young children this summer [1][2]. Whatever his state of mind at the time, Timothy Ray Jones, Jr. managed to drive across several states in order to dispose of the bodies.

Social workers had visited the engineer’s home a dozen times in the last three years without removing the children. Aged one through eight, the children seemed happy and normal, though their father appeared overwhelmed by the challenge of raising them alone. Jones and his wife are divorced.

Heartbreaking photos of the three boys and two girls appeared in the press. They were smiling.

Meanwhile, the FBI opened an investigation into the abuse of deaf and autistic children at NDA Behavioral Health a/k/a the National Deaf Academy, a 22 acre residential school in Florida licensed for 60 adult and 72 child patients [3]. Patients (some dually diagnosed) have reported physical and sexual abuse, and neglect. Three patients have died under allegedly negligent circumstances since 2009.

Between 2008 and 2013, there were over 500 calls to police ranging from abuse to runaways. Experts consider this figure high. Continue reading →

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October 5, 2014 · 1:00 am

Imperfection

We burn the eggs, drip salad dressing down the front of a new blouse. We misplace our glasses, and lock our keys in the car. We mistakenly toss our wallets down the garbage chute, along with the trash. We amass fender benders, and parking tickets. We trip with the dog food, and scatter kibble across the kitchen floor.

Human beings are imperfect…as housekeepers, dry cleaners, locksmiths, building superintendents, and highway patrol officers (not to mention our pets) can attest. Minor shortcomings such as these are the least of our failings. For abuse victims, however, even minor imperfections can be deadly.

Abusers will set impossible standards for their victims, and punishment out of all proportion to an infraction. These standards may be the very ones to which the abusers were held in childhood. Not all abusers were though abused. Nor is childhood abuse a license to abuse others in adulthood.

Some individuals will inflict pain or deprivation on their victims from outright sadism or an extreme narcissism. The abused child (or abused adult partner) is viewed as a representative of the abuser before the world. All the abuser’s insecurities are projected onto the victim, who is then seen as deficient, defective.

Often the abuse victim will strive to achieve these unrealistic standards, as much out of love as out of fear. This is not brainless. Human beings are meant to love. Unfortunately, the image we have of love can be distorted.

Victims commonly blame themselves for an abuser’s actions, preserving at all cost the delusion of an ideal parent, caregiver or spouse. For children, in particular, it is terrifying to contemplate a dangerous world without the protection of a loving adult. Easier to shut our eyes on reality, and assume the abuser’s guilt.

To regain control of our lives, we must stop lying to ourselves; must deliberately set aside the futile pursuit of perfection; and – like the rest of humanity – must come to terms with our limitations.

Thankfully, excellence does not require perfection.  Not even God does.

“But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection” (Col. 3: 14).

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September 28, 2014 · 1:00 am

Chained

In Southeast Asia, wild elephants are trained to be docile while young.

When an immature elephant is first captured, it is securely tied or chained in place, so that its will may be broken. Unable to escape and denied food or water, the little elephant is repeatedly beaten while the trainer speaks in a calm voice to acclimate the elephant to commands. Afraid, in pain, hungry, and thirsty the young elephant is finally forced to submit.

Adult elephants would be strong enough to break free, but continue to believe in the power of the chains to hold them.

Could there be a more clear picture of child abuse?  We were repeatedly assaulted, at our most vulnerable.  It is no wonder the scars linger.

Now adults, we, too, have the power to break free from our chains.  The very knowledge is exhilarating.

But the extent to which release from our scars is possible will vary from one individual to the next.  For most, this will be a process. Setbacks should be expected.

There is no standard for suffering. Each victim is unique. Release from our scars is not a test of our worth, a calibrated measure of our recovery, or a competition with other victims.

Continued bondage is not another reason to berate ourselves.  Some scars may be intractable.  But there is reason to hope.

“Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, ‘Arise quickly!’ And his chains fell off his hands” (Acts 12: 7).

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