CHILD ABUSE: OUR NATIONAL NIGHTMARE

Case one:
Infant girl, about a year old, suddenly stops breathing. 911 is called. Later she is diagnosed as brain dead. Life support is removed six days later. Paramedics reported suspicious lacerations and bruises to head, and "a cloudy whitish fluid dripped from the anus."

Case two:
Female child, six years old, dies of suspicious head injury. Labial tissue laceration and bruising noticed during autopsy.

Case three:
Baby boy, 20 months of age dies of skull fracture. Care-giver said he rode his tricycle down concrete steps. An anal laceration is discovered by coroner.

These are just three cases of children who have died because of abuse-related incidents. In two of the three actual cases cited here, no charges were filed against an assailant. In the other case, (case three) a suspect plea-bargained to felony child abuse, not sexual abuse or homicide.(1) Who would have ever thought that a seemingly average neighborhood, day care center, even an average American home, would be unsafe for our children? Unfortunately, statistics do not lie, but they do shock.

Statistics show that in American homes and neighborhoods, the sexual abuse of children is occurring at a shocking rate.

In August 1985, after several years of observing child abuse stories in every hometown newspaper, one of the nation's top five newspapers. The Los Angeles Times, conducted a sophisticated study to figure out how many Americans had been molested as children.

The results of the study showed that a shocking 22 percent of all Americans - or 38 million people (27 percent of the women and 16 percent of the men) had been sexually molested as children.(2)

The Times survey confirmed an earlier estimate in the January Law Enforcement Bulletin of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that one out of four females will be sexually abused or raped before age 20.

They might have been molested once or hundreds of times. They might have been victimized by their natural parents (both by fathers and mothers), stepparents, foster parents, trusted family friends, neighbors, teachers, relatives, day care workers, older children, by their brother or sister, or by a stranger.

The Times survey estimated that 750,000 of the 38 million victims involved daughters abused by their natural fathers. While 750,000 is some of the overall number of molested victims, it represents the size of a large American city.

According to the Times survey more than eight million girls and five million boys will be abused before age 18.

Just what is meant when we refer to child sexual abuse? The terror covers a wide range, from sexual fondling to genital, anal, and oral intercourse. Victims range from three months old (this is right, there is even a "child-pom" magazine called "Baby Sex") to the early teens. Most victims are eight to thirteen. Professionals define sexual abuse as any sexual interaction where there is an imbalance in age, size or knowledge (i.e., adults vs. children).

Consequences of Abuse

What are the consequences of child abuse? Obviously children are horribly scarred and traumatized. Many have recurrent nightmares or other physical and emotional symptoms. Dissociative Identity Disorder is linked to early childhood abuse.

Many investigators of child abuse, along with hundreds of trial transcripts tell the frightfully sad story of children terrified of the very people who are responsible in the eyes of a compassionate Judeo-Christian society to love and nurture children. Frequently, the terror is so intense that abused children cannot eat or sleep. Suicide attempts and death fantasies are common.

Children feel violated, humiliated, dirty, and guilt-ridden. Their sense of safety and well-being is shattered, along with self worth and confidence. More than 60% of bulimics report childhood abuse. These symptoms often manifest first during the teen years.(3)

As abused children become adults, they exhibit more signs of hopelessness, neurosis, timidity, depression, drug and alcohol dependency and anxiety, even multiple personalities. For them, life is ruined. vulnerable and helpless, they were violated and in a sense, their entire personhood has been raped - perhaps repeatedly and brutally.

Understandably, most survivors will not be able to trust again or intimately relate and truly love. Survivors cope by dissociating. Many report having an unusual ability to "will the self to sleep." For some, this is exhibited as sleep-walking or memory loss. In extreme cases Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) occurs. Awareness of DID (formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder) is on the increase.

The latest available research shows that many women, abused as children, tend to be unconsciously drawn to men who are abusive. Adult survivors are often battered spouses and/or the mother of a sexually abused child.

The most unfortunate become prostitutes and/or addicts. Recent studies have shown that more than 60% of these women were sexually abused as children.(4)

It is important to remember that the reverse is not true. A majority of woman who were sexually abused as children do NOT grow up to become prostitutes or addicts.

A study with violent criminal offenders at San Quentin showed that 100% of the criminals had experienced extreme violence in their homes at an early age. For surviving victims, their only hope is to receive love, support and counseling. Unfortunately, many never do.

The Abused Become Abusers

Up to 40% of those abused as children become abusers as they grow into their teens or earlier. The inabilities to trust, love, nurture, and care for others caused by parental abuse spawn, in some, an aggressive parasitic anger in which misdirected rage is poured out on children.

Researchers say that sexual abusers of children, whether male or female, practitioners of incest or out-of-family exploitation, often share one common characteristic: they themselves were abused as children. And the pattern of sexual abuse is repeated.

"Survivors cope by dissociating."

Child Abuse Skyrocketed in 80's and leveled off in the 90s

Not a pretty picture, is it: The future looks even worse, as the rate of child molestations continues to skyrocket. There are strong indications of an increasing trend toward more sexual abuse of children. Not a new category of child sexual abuse, satanic ritual abuse of children is increasing too.

According to a paper presented at a 1989 conference on abuse and victimization:

"Clinicians are increasingly faced with the challenge of recognizing and understanding ritualistic abuse of children. Cases of ritual abuse create a credibility crisis of far greater size than the skepticism ordinarily encountered when cases are identified."

As Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author, John Crewdson, cites in his excellent book on child abuse. By Silence Betrayed, " A decade ago, only about twelve thousand American children were reported each year as having been sexually abused. By 1985 the number had passed 150,000 and no state or region seemed to be exempt. Reports in Georgia were up by 102%, in Iowa by 40%, in North Carolina by 43% and in Rhode Island by 51%. Even largely rural Maine was reporting a single-year increase of 300%.(5)

Yet, even these figures are too low to accurately reflect the incredible growth of child abuse. Why too low? Because as Crewdson pointed out, a federal government study found that two-thirds of all suspected cases of child abuse go unre-ported.(6) Other authorities believe the figures for unreported cases are even higher. Why is child abuse increasing? Why is such a repelling thing as child abuse increasing so dramatically?

FIVE PRIMARY REASONS ARE OFFERED:

Molesters Those Molested Often Become
There are 38 million Americans abused as children who might act out their frustration on children.

Stressful Conditions
There is a type of child molester who is "triggered" into incest with his own children by sudden traumatic stress, i.e., unemployment, financial or marital problems. In our modem, impersonal, technological, fast-paced and viciously competitive society, many people are reaching their "breaking point".

Hard-Core Pedophiles
The other major type of child molester is a "hard-core pedophile" who is attracted to children. The massive increase in pornography (and especially child pornography) as well as the increasing sexualization of young children in movies and even TV ads (i.e., jeans, etc.) add tremendous fuel to the fire raging within the molester - until he is stimulated into action.

Working Mothers and Family Breakdown
As Crewdson points out, "For the first time in history, more American children have mothers who work than have ones who stay home. Many of those women are married, but many are not. The number of single-parent families, nearly all of them headed by a women, increased by more than 40% during the 1970's." Crewdson continues, "The number of divorces in the U.S. is also rising steadily, and a fifth of all babies born in this country are born to unmarried women... at least a third of all families with children will be headed by only one parent." "More working, single, and divorced mothers means a greater demand for day care centers, nurseries, and baby-sitters to look after preschoolers."

This also creates a greater demand for youth groups, sports teams, and other activities to fill the after-school hours of older children. "Because some child abusers take jobs in day care centers and other surroundings that provide them with access to children, more surrogate child-tenders may create more avenues for contact between abusers and potential victims."

Stepfathers and Significant Others
There is another aspect to such demographics. Crewdson writes, "As the divorce rate rises, so does the number of women who marry for a second time, and even a third. Fifteen years ago (1973) only a quarter of the marriages performed in this country were second marriages; today the figure is 34%."

More second marriages mean more stepfathers, and stepdaughters seem particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse. "Diana Russell found that women who had a stepfather as a principal male figure in their childhoods were six times more likely to have been abused than those with a biological father. As some researchers have begun to suspect, it may be the case that a growing number of stepfathers are really smart pedophiles, men who marry divorced or single women with families as a way of getting close to children."(7) Suspects in child abuse cases are frequently the live-in lover of the biological mother, though unmarried.

Deteriorating Morality
Possibly the most important point is that our society no longer has a strong consensus on what is right or wrong. The all-powerful and pervasive broadcast and print media follow a naturalistic, existentialist philosophy of "live for today, live for yourself."

This modern philosophy is usually summed up as "if it feels good, do it".

It is fashionable in our institutes of higher learning to teach that absolutes do not exist, everything is relative. Francis Schaeffer, deceased theologian and philosopher, put it this way, "The shift has been tremendous. Thirty or more years ago you could have said things such as "This is true' or "This is right,' and you would have been on everybody's wavelength." But today, Schaeffer explains, "the blank look you might receive would not mean that your standards had been rejected, but that your message was meaningless."

A society that no longer agrees on a moral/ethical basis for conducting itself is forced to allow each citizen to do his own thing. It seems that one of the last taboos, sex with children, is crumbling too.

Solutions must exist. Is it better reporting and prosecution we need? Therapy? Rehabilitation? Can our public morality be redefined? How can we protect children? What can you do about the national nightmare?

These and other questions will be explored in the following pages.

FOOTNOTES
1 Report presented at Child Maltreatment Conference, San Diego, CA
2 The Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1985, page 1. These figures were re-validated by the Gallup Organization, August - September 1995.
3 Paper presented at August 1989 American Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA
4 John Crewdson, By Silence Betrayed (Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1988), pp. 36-37.
5 Crewdson, p. 72
6 Crewdson, p. 208
7 Crewdson, p. 21

© 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1991, Survivors And Victims Empowered, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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