Tag: Sexual abuse

  • Dylan Farrow and believing child victims of sexual abuse

    By Tammi Pitzen, Executive Director of the Children’s Advocacy Center of Jackson County

    Having spent nearly a quarter of a century working in the field of child protection with a focus on sexual abuse, I am somewhat baffled by this:

    We as a society have always, and evidently continue to be, aligned with the offenders and against the victims.

    I know. When you read it in black and white, and in very simple language, it seems so hard to believe that we do this.

    Let’s examine the recent events of Dylan Farrow coming out with a strong statement regarding her sexual abuse by Woody Allen.  It seems that as a society we have turned our head and  said that it is okay to sexually abuse a child if you are an entertainer or if you are famous.  It becomes okay to sexually abuse a child if you have money.  Even with the people who support Dylan, it is support that comes in the form of “if this is true…”

    Why is that?  We work so hard to disprove a child’s statement.  We work so hard to convince ourselves that child sexual abuse only happens in the park at night.  That these heinous offenses are perpetrated by people we don’t know.  That these terrible acts are only perpetrated by the dirty old man in a trench coat offering candy to a child to lure them into his white unmarked windowless utility van.

    I have seen it in the courtroom while trying to provide some sense of support to a young child testifying in an open courtroom about the most intimate, terrifying, and confusing sexual events that have happened to them.

    Generally when you go into a courtroom during a trial there are two sides — the prosecution and the defense.  It is much like a wedding.  If you are supporting the offender, you sit on the side of the courtroom behind the defendant.  If you are supporting the victim, you sit behind the prosecutor’s table.  It is always heartbreaking to me.  I position myself in the front row behind the prosecutor’s table so the child and I can make eye contact.  But in the moments before the young child walks into the courtroom to testify, I always survey the room.  There are always, without exception, people sitting behind the abuser in support of his actions.  Most times the other side, the side where you sit to show support for the victim, is empty — with the exception of me.

    In the community where I did most of my court support, the Deputy District Attorney would always request to talk to the jury after a not guilty verdict came in.  Almost without exception they would be told, when asked about the not guilty finding, that the jury believed the victim but really wanted more evidence.  There are no fingerprints left.  There are no witnesses.  And despite what you see on TV, there is no DNA evidence left.  There are many reasons why that is and that might be a subject for another blog.

    The evidence is the child’s statement, and if you believe it, then why is that not enough?  It is enough that the perpetrator denies his offenses.  We give him/her the benefit of the doubt.

    I wonder what would happen if we all said enough is enough. 

    What would happen if we as a society got behind our child victims and stood strong with them?  Research shows that not many victims lie when it comes to their abuse and if they do lie, it usually a lie to cover up that it happened — not to fabricate that it did happen.

    So where do we go from here?  I ask, when you weigh in on whether Woody Allen could have done this, that you consider carefully the message you are giving to the children in your life.  That is right.  If Dylan Farrow were your daughter how would you feel about what the public response has been?  How would you want Barbara Walters to respond?  How would you feel if Diane Keaton stood up and supported your daughter’s abuser?  If your granddaughter reported sexual abuse, what is the response that you would want her to receive?

    Examine the facts.  What financial gain is Dylan Farrow receiving?  Is she getting anything out of this?

    Someone has to be the first to say that it is time to support our child victims.  Someone has to tell the Woody Allens of the world that sexual behavior with a child is never okay.  Someone has to say that enough is enough.

    At some point we can no longer close our eyes and pretend that sexual abuse happens in some other place and to someone else’s children.  At some point we must realize that it is no longer enough to say that we believe the child sexual abuse victim . . . but we just need more evidence.

     

     

  • Why it Matters

    This is a post by Randy Ellison, author of the book — Boys Don’t Tell: Ending the Silence of Abuse. Randy is also Board President of  Oregon Abuse Advocates & Survivors in Service (OAASIS)

    Why does what happened to me matter? Why does telling my story matter? Why does your story matter? What difference does it really make?

    Why does it matter forty years later that my minister sexually abused me? Well for starters it impacted everything I did or didn’t do. When we live in total denial of major trauma that happened to us in childhood, our entire reality is distorted.

    Because I had never spoken of what happened to me, every decision I made in life was informed by the trauma I suffered as a child. Technically I was a survivor, but as long as I held on to the toxic stress of child abuse, I was giving victim reactions to a lot of the input that came my way. It was not a choice I made, it was programmed into my brain to respond to people and situations as though they might be a threat.

    My quality of life suffered immeasurably, and over time I became just plain tired of trying to hold it all. I do not believe one can attempt to recover from child sex abuse to please or satisfy someone else. You have to want it or need it for yourself, more than the perceived safety of keeping the secret, with the pain locked inside.

    So as I started my therapy I had to learn to put health ahead of secret keeping. It took effort and intensity to break through my mind’s defenses and the shame that guarded my secret. To be honest, in my case it probably took a year before I realized how much others really meant to me. After a life of keeping everyone at a distance, when I started showing up, I found a whole new world open to me. As I learned to be present with others I was finally able to give and receive love.

    Reporting my abuser mattered. The places he had been a minister were notified so they could look for others that might have been victims and needed help. The faith community became aware of what had happened in their building and had the opportunity to discuss what they needed to do to protect children and work for prevention. In creating a safe environment for kids, everyone benefits.

    Telling your story matters more than you could ever imagine. It gives people you have never met the strength to share their own story. And the more we share our stories, the more we heal, systems change and our communities heal. As survivors, telling our story first changes our lives, and then it gradually moves outward through our love ones in an ever widening circle.

    Children’s Advocacy Center intervenes in this process for kids that have been abused and focuses on helping the child recover. What matters most is preventing abuse from happening at all. But until we are able to do that, we need CAC to help the healing begin as soon as possible. Help a child heal today.

    Imagine a world without child abuse. Together we make it happen. It matters.

    To find out more about Randy Ellison and his book, Boys Don’t Tell: Ending the Silence of Abuse, visit: http://www.boysdonttell.com/

    Randy Ellison
    Randy Ellison