Woman; 419; Sexual Abuse of Children

pretend to be fascinating so Good evening, and welcome to Woman, our topic tonight is the sexual abuse of children. With me is Florence Rush. Florence is a social worker who

works with children. She is currently writing a book on the sexual abuse of children. Also with me is Linda Sanford. Linda is a social worker. She is director of the rape prevention forum in Seattle, Washington, and she speaks to parents on sexual abuse of children. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. Do we know how much sexual abuse of children is going on in the United States today? Well, as far as I know, there are no statistics which will reveal these exact figures. The guess is that it is much higher than the battered child. There are no national statistics. The FBI crime report does not give a breakdown of this kind so that we don't have specific information. We know that it occurs. We know that it occurs very, very frequently, but there are no actual numbers to identify the enormity of the problem. Linda, in your area, you've been working

very closely with this kind of thing. What are the figures like in your area? Well, the Children's Protective Service which handles the kinds of cases that we are reported within families. They have 750 families on their caseload every month in King County. 700 of those families are there for neglect or other kinds of abuse and 50 are there for sexual abuse of their children. Incredible. I mean, it's a lot more than one would think. Definitely. Yes, I think that in terms of our statistics, we are aware we were with rape about 15 years ago. People aren't reporting. There really aren't that many resources available to them and we really have no idea how many. So the figure you just mentioned is the other reported cases? Yes, just reported. I think we could probably safely estimate maybe 10 times as many going on in actuality. Would you agree with that? Easily. Easily 10 times. At least. Props even more. Do you think we have a proper image of the person who is doing sexually molesting? Is it always male? Is it male and female? I mean, what is our

picture versus the reality? Well, in terms of the just general child molester, it is almost always male. He tends to be under 40. I think most of us have the image of a dirty old man in a black wrinkled up raincoat who sits in the park on a cloudy day with a bag of candy and ask little girls to come over. It's not that kind of person at all. He's generally employed and he's the same race and social class as the child and in about 70% of the cases at least the child knows exactly who it is. It's not a stranger. Yeah, most frequently it's a family member, a neighbor, a community member who is known to the family and to the child and the problem is quite an acute one because this person is liked and trusted by the child so that when the molestation does take place it results in a very, very difficult situation for the child for the total family because

this is somebody that they all know and perhaps even like. Is there a child that's more apt to be molested than one kind of child than another kind? Well unfortunately it is three-quarters girls at least and often more and it's strange because girls are vulnerable at any age to sexual molestation whereas boys tend to be vulnerable just within a certain age group of about nine to 14. That's a generalization but the important point is that girls are molested much more often and they're molested at all ages. If there's something that parents can do to prevent this from happening because parents I'm sure feel very guilty when this happens to their children. There are some things and there's a long list of precautionary measures, very, very long list. Generally the local police departments are very helpful to families and figuring out what some of those things are. Generally they need to talk to the child about it, they need to warn them. Sometimes parents are afraid to do

that because they don't want their children to be suspicious of strangers or to become skeptical. I think even if you warn your child badly it's better than not warning them at all. You really need to sit down and talk about it and talk about it many times not just once. It would be very difficult to walk that fine line because you don't want to make them afraid. Well it's an extremely sensitive and touchy subject because the child molester is predominantly not a stranger but a family member or a family friend. Now the picture is conjured up as to how do I tell my little girl to be afraid of a cousin William Uncle Charlie and somebody that we all know and like. But my feeling is that little girls should be told about it and should be apprised of this danger and I think that if it is recognized that the child can be molested and abused that the

child's own sense of her own reality and self-esteem will be supported. That is that if she has been molested by a member of the family and that molestation has not been denied and it is seen as a reality and it is dealt with as a reality. The child will not be faced with the confusion and the ambivalence and the guilt that she might be otherwise if it goes unsupported. Yes I would sacrifice the family relative for the child. I think it's worth it. Then to be a little more specific because I know you talk to parents directly about some of the things they can do and can't do. At least be specific about how to handle this problem of telling. Okay well I think the point I made originally about telling them more than once is important. Kids get thousands of instructions every day to brush their teeth to clean the room not to run out in front of cars not to go in your strange dogs. They don't do our ratchets because they hear it once and I think that the more we can deal

with this subject as in a matter of fact manner that this is unpleasant but it is a reality of life it's just like you can't walk up to every strange dog you meet. Okay so we go over those kinds of situations with your child. One of the main things that I recommend is what I call the what if game sort of making a family theater about this. If you're into bribing your child, reward them for getting the right answer and play out some of the situations. One thing that's used with stranger molestation is come see my puppies, come see my cat and I think first time you ask your child what would you do I will bet you anything that your child is going to say oh I'd go see it you know so go over that and make that perfectly clear with your child and till they they it's become varying grain. The child's best defense is going to be a lack of confusion about what they should do about that situation. The other thing is is that the secret is used a lot in these kinds of cases whether it's someone in your family or a stranger you know it's not a weapon it's not a threat of I'm going to beat you up it's let's have this little secret you know. Right

this will be our little story and our little relationship and if you teach your child not to get into that kind of bond that's going to be very helpful to them if you instill that reflex that there's something wrong here. Our kids believed it's my impression that they aren't believed when they suddenly do tell someone well I think a lot of it might depend upon who's doing the molestation. If it's a stranger are they believed. If it's a stranger well we were just talking about this before and what happens is that in certain areas where it is a where a stranger is molesting a child let us say in a poverty area. I do I don't think that the child would be as readily believed because these are areas where all kinds of assaults and crimes and children are exposed too much greater dangers in this area and even if it's believed it is not responded to with the same intensity as it might be in a middle class

area where the families are have the capacity to react to this. I think in that area that they would react a child molester in a middle class area would be apprehended and would create quite a stir. Well and I think this is very sad and it's interesting because we talk about burglary prevention and we talk about arson prevention and we don't talk about all the false reports and we don't talk about all the people who up their insurance claims in a burglary or people who set up their own businesses on fire whenever we talk about sexual abuse of anything one of the main things that we hear about is the false report and it just does not happen that often. You would include rape in that. Definitely you know and especially with children most of them do not have the sophistication or the motivation to go on making things up. Yes that's true a children have to talk out of their own experience. If they have an experience that it hasn't happened and the chances that somebody is going to sit and teach them or prepare brief them on telling such a story is very very unlikely. What about the low enforcement agencies? How responsive are they to

a call from a hysterical parent or a non-historical parent for that matter? Saying my child has just been molested. What's their procedure? How do they respond to it? Well they come around and they start gathering the information and also if you want a case you need somebody there who's witnessed it. In some instances with rape they've done away with corroboration but now with child molestation it still persists the corroboration still persists. Then you have this very very serious problem of having the child act as a witness in this very very difficult situation particularly if it's a family member. Interestingly enough in Israel where they do have child molestation they have somebody come in to act in behalf of the child somebody who gathers the information and who will if it comes into court who will appear in court for the child they do not require the presence of the child to

confront the abuser or the offender and say yes he's the one. It would seem to me that it would be just terrible for a child to have to tell the story over and over again. Frequently families have dropped charges because the strain has been so difficult on the child and it has been so hard on the family and the child. You really bring up an important point there in King County if you prosecute a case like this the chances are that your child has told that story five or six times at least by the time you get into the courtroom. Also just as a corollary to that the child should not have to listen to the story over and over again many times the mother will call up the ants and the grandmother and the neighbors and did you hear about this terrible thing that happened to Suzie or Johnny and that's not good for the child either the child shouldn't have to tell it over and over again and they shouldn't have to hear it. It starts getting a life of its own after a while. Alright if a child is molested by a stranger does this mean that this child will is fixed for life this will have a

bad impact on the child the child may be maladjusted is this a certainty under those conditions? Now that's what the movies tell us doesn't don't they lots of times they grow up and become criminals or something no that's really not true. One of the things that's intervention is very important it is important to see a social worker see somebody also the medical exam is very important even though they're probably the kinds of in there's not severe injuries very often but it's still important for that child to have an exam and to know that their body's okay to know that it hasn't changed because of this event and so that's that's important and I think if you take some of those steps you can really alleviate a lot of the long-term harm most important variable is how the parents react to it especially with small children they'll directly mirror whatever the parents reaction is and if the parent is hysterical and very upset then before long they will be too. There's another kind of sexual abuse isn't there and that's the kind that happens in the

home and we call it incest and it's one of the strongest taboo since the society not only in this country but everywhere and it's also you know a kind of taboo to talk about too and especially on television but I would like to get into it and I would like you to do the same kind of thing you did with the molestation with a stranger give me a kind of profile of incest and what happens and who the attacker is and who the victim is likely to be. Well father daughter incest is most common and I think that's a surprise to most people it's natural father daughter the fathers tend to be on their late 30s they're non-psychotic they don't they are not when we take people's to prisons and hospitals and test them do they do not come off as a psychotic or very very sick people they generally are fairly upstanding members of the community you know they're just you know the guy down down the blog in other words you can't tell and it's as as with the rapist exactly exactly they don't have horns or drag

their knuckles or anything so nice that they didn't know that it's nothing like that at all. The daughters on the average are 13 years old and the incest just relationship generally goes on from about three to five years and they tend to be more physically developed more attractive than other girls or age those are all generations it's really important as the audience listens to Florence and I talk about this subject that they don't start to over identify with with different things that we say we may say one thing that fits in a family you know or your own family and that doesn't necessarily mean that they're an incestuous family. One of the questions I think you know I think it's very shocking to most people the fact that incestuous relationships can go on for so long as you say three to five years and the one question that comes to mind if it is a father daughter relationship does the mother know about it. In most of the instances that have come to my attention I think the mother does know and most certainly most of the daughters who've reported it feel very strongly the

mother does know but for whatever her reasons she cannot handle it she cannot deal with it and she cannot deal with it in the same way that many mothers can I deal with certain abuses that exist within the family generally precisely because she has she is dependent upon the father and her whole identity is tied up with being a mother and a wife and having this man as her husband and she cannot give that up so her immediate reaction is to deny that it existed that the child made it up that she told lie and this this is very sad but it's true so are you saying that you think children who are victims in an incestuous situation are less likely to believe to be believed. Yes definitely that is precisely what I'm saying I'm saying that if it's incest they're less likely to be believed if it is a total stranger if the family can say nobody's going to lay a hand on my daughter nobody's going to touch her and that and then you

you you picture this this psychopathic fiend lurking in an alley it's very easy to express anger against that that person who's assaulting my child but if that person is a husband or an uncle or somebody who the family knows even somebody who the family likes it's very hard to work up that kind of anger all kinds of ambivalent set set in all kinds of excuses are made for for the father one of the excuses being one of the excuses that he often makes is that I couldn't help it my wife wouldn't sleep with me or the kid was really getting very sexy she's growing up I'm only human yes I was drunk when it happened I couldn't I didn't know what I was doing or blaming the child or as you said what was it blaming the the child the wife or the the mother is a defense that that's often used when the cases are prosecuted that either it's the

daughter's fault even though she's eight or nine because she's so seductive he just couldn't help himself you know and who in that position could could could not go through something like that and if it's not the daughter's fault then it's the wife's fault and of course if she'd been a good wife and met all his needs he wouldn't have to fool around with kids and if it's not the daughter or the wife's fault then it's his mother's fault because if she'd raised him right he wouldn't have grown up to be the kind of guy who messes around with kids so we often find in the legal defense is that it becomes every other woman's fault in his life other than the man who actually actually did the the it's was involved in the incestuous relationship the point that that Florence makes about the mothers is really important and I think traditionally if the mother's given the choice between the father leaving the home and the daughter leaving the home she'll feel a lot more secure and feel and it's probably more beneficial to giving the family together if the daughter leaves the home okay so very often they have chosen to keep the marriage intact but I see the daughter is in effect punished right exactly but

I think with with the new resources that are coming about in society and women supporting each other and I like to attribute some of it to assertiveness training which we're seeing a change in the mothers and and now they seem to be coming around to stand up for the daughters more often feeling like well maybe they can emotionally and financially make it without that man well isn't it too that the onus is on the mother I mean we we are always saying it's the mother could do something about it is that right listen that's my pet subject is everything I do is wrong is a mother you say and but I think that what it does is really clarify the essential what what women and the women's woman are talking about today the essential differences are not different but equal but actually unequal and the double standards that exist for both the one standard for for man and one standard for women the girl is the victim and she's to blame the man is the offender and he's he's not to blame he is

really if we look at the statistics if we look at the case records he is more readily forgiven than than the child in the child who's been sexually abused and used and that is because the child is Eve it's been that way for thousands and thousands of years and the man is somehow some way has this raging sexual passion that is understood it's a lowlyta situation right and as in lowlyta this man wanted a little girl and she wound up seducing him and that is a picture we constantly get that this adduction comes from from the child now one of the things I remember that I've always said when when when I go and speaking and people say what about the child isn't she seductive why is it that we're when sex is concerned the blame is always on the little girl let's say there was a man and a little girl and a little girl saw this beautiful doll in the window and said I want you to go in there and steal it for me now if he did

that that would never be an excuse in a courtroom nobody would ever accept that what do you mean this kid told you to steal it and you're gonna go steal it but if a kid works around that sexy can help myself and everybody understand that it's just like okay but it is only only in situations of sex that suddenly the little girl no matter how young is a temptress and the man no matter how old and in control can't help himself when it comes to his passion one of the real sad things about this whole thing and I know you're both gonna scream at me for this but it appears that there's no way out of this situation it seems that our system is not responsive to it really and that it ends up destroying the family almost always I disagree really strong I know you don't have this well the you know one thing that we didn't mention when we were talking about the onus being on the mothers very often the mother is a victim of incest yourself as a child she grows up and and marries someone who will

do the same thing to her children I think that as we see women maybe leaving their husbands are dealing with them in a more straightforward manner you know protecting the child I think we're going to start seeing that syndrome broken that goes on from generation to generation I personally believe a great deal in a program that's in Santa Clara County in California and it's the first regional incest counseling center in the nation it's the only one it's the only one still and it deals purely with incest and it was started and still is directed by a man named Hanchi Oredo they feel it's very important to get the family in at the time of discovery at that crisis point and that's very true and they will do a very long-term family therapy it ends up being about a hundred hours and it's not just family therapy they start out with individual therapy mother daughter therapy father daughter therapy family therapy the daughters are in groups with each other and the parents are in groups with each other and I believe that you know we get back to this whole poor self concept of everyone in the family and that's why this this this

problem comes about I think working on family therapy to kind of elevate some of that self concept to guide yourself to some different answers other than incest to your problems is worthwhile I think it works well I have a thing about the family I think that the making the family sacrosanct is happens to be one of the things that has enslaved everybody men, women and children there is no other way that we have we have no alternatives to raising children in the world in which we live today and I think that that is totally unfortunate so being forced into that situation without an alternative kind of gives us no way out I think that incestuous fathers should be separated from the daughters whom they are subjecting to this incest but certainly not in a way that punishes the daughter no no absolutely never in a way that punishes the daughter I don't

think the daughter should be sent away I think it should be made very very clear that what the father has done is wrong that the daughter has the father is the one who has the has the power he's the grown up he's usually the most powerful figure in the family the child is usually the most helpless one in the family I feel very very strongly that through the raised consciousness that women are getting today that hopefully mothers will not feel anymore that their only identification is with a man whom she is married to and who will be able to evaluate a situation in terms of what a man who is in an incestuous relationship with his daughter is doing to the daughter and to the entire family and to be able to find the strength hopefully to take her daughter and move away from that situation I think it is intrinsically harmful and bad and I would add that I feel the same way about physically abusive parents whether it is a mother

or the father I cannot understand the rehabilitation of families where children are sent back and repeatedly beaten and abused and in the situations that I have known where the father has been gone back into the family either he has gotten into the relationship with the same daughter or with the younger daughter and that I think that the only alternative being family rehabilitation is not a good enough alternative all right well you you offer two alternatives here the one thing that I don't want to be accused of it you know people watching the program is that we've been only talking about men belesting little girls what are the percentages again is it 97% men yes men as as with women 3% women now I would say that for purposes of social studies there are so few women that

molest children that I usually do not present it as a figure that has to be dealt with the the thing is that the problem is essentially one of sexism of men abusing sexually abusing women and children just as it is in rape you would draw that parallel to rape that parallel I would draw to rape otherwise I would say that it is more with it is it is an oppression of men over women and children because men are raping and sexually abusing boys also but you're more hopeful about the situation than you are in we as a society being able to do something about it you're more hopeful that we can stop sexual abuse of children more quickly than we can rape is that true I would partially agree with that statement basically I think the incest taboo is correct 15 seconds I would

really think that I don't know that we can control it my great big hope is in the women's movement and what women are doing in terms of encouraging women to be stronger and to make claim to their own bodies and all women including daughters and nieces are being taught to to behave in very very much the same way I think we're out of time okay I thank you both for being here thank you for watching and good night this program was produced by WNED TV which is solely responsible for its

content major funding was provided by public television stations additional support was provided by unrestricted general program grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Ford Foundation