Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 September 2022
Saturday, 27 August 2022
Saturday, 20 August 2022
Friday, 19 August 2022
Sunday, 7 August 2022
Friday, 3 May 2019
Rotherham MP Launches Report into How the Government is Failing Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
MP Sarah Champion is calling on the Government to increase funding to help stop victims from 'falling through the gaps'.
Rotherham MP Sarah Champion and The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse have launched a landmark report that uncovers the lifelong impact of child sexual abuse and exposes the failure of Government to provide survivors with information and support.
The six-month inquiry, gathered the views of nearly 400 survivors from across the country.
The APPG found whilst the impact of child sexual abuse lasts a lifetime, support for survivors often falls away when they reach adulthood.
The inquiry heard that, on average, male survivors wait 26 years before disclosing their abuse, meaning some survivors never receive adequate support.
Survivors told the inquiry how their relationships and family life is impeded by abuse, with families sometimes permanently divided as a result of closure (disclosure?). Many survivors felt they did not get any support to deal with this.
Only 16% said that mental health services met their needs and many told of wrong diagnoses and counterproductive treatment plans.
The report also found statutory services are not set up to recognise child sexual abuse survivors, with many speaking of how they were often given out of date or incorrect information by GPs and other professionals.
Survivors told the inquiry that counselling from a specialist is the single most important form of support to their recovery.
Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) hold NHS responsibility for commissioning specialist voluntary sector services but the Department for Health holds no records on what they are commissioning.
Rotherham MP Sarah Champion is the Chair of the APPG, she said:
“I have spoken to hundreds of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is striking that almost all of them describe the way they are treated by the state as a secondary form of abuse. Who are we as a nation if we do not support victims of horrendous crime?
"It is an outrage that despite all the talk of action so many child sex abuse survivors are left to fend for themselves. This is morally wrong and makes no sense economically.
"This report gives concrete, cost-effective solutions to Ministers. Victims and survivors of child abuse are fed up with warm words from Government, they now want change.
"Nearly 400 survivors have spoken. It’s time for the Government to show it’s listening and take action."
We have written to the Department for Health for a reply but have not had a response yet.
As miserable as this report is, the UK is far ahead of most countries, even western countries in the provision of counselling for child sex abuse victims. Many countries provide little or no counselling and, probably, no country provides the level of care for as long as the survivor needs it to mostly recover from their abuse.
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
A Refuge for Victims of Child Sex Trafficking Finds it’s Lost Wings
OEWM Truck Stop Outreach I-85 SC
By Frances Queen, Huffington Post
Josie started running away at age 14 because of abuse in her home. She met a man on the streets who promised he’d care for her. He took her to New York, where he said he ran a music studio. She had always dreamed of being a singer — but sadly, he deceived her. He was not a music producer. He was a pimp. Josie’s dream quickly turned into a unimaginable nightmare. He forced her into the sex trade at the age of 14. She was a child.
Mia was a normal teenager who received an unsolicited social media friend request from a cute boy. He told her she had a beautiful smile. He swept her up in the romance of it all. They chatted for weeks before she agreed to meet him at a nearby shopping mall. He was a charmer. After several meetings like that, she agreed to leave the mall with him. That’s the last thing she remembers. She was drugged, beaten and exploited for three months before police found her.
Girls like Josie and Mia who are lucky enough to escape do so with nothing but the clothes on their back. They are full of fear, lack the ability to trust and often believe they have no worth. Many carry deep family wounds. All they want is a place to be safe.
The Hope House was established back in 2009 to be just that safe place. After witnessing trafficking overseas on a mission trip, founder Emily Fitchpatrick felt inspired to start a shelter back home in North Carolina. Emily and her organization On Eagles Wings Ministries (OEW), and with the help of several local churches, raised enough money to purchase an abandoned home on six acres of land in Gaston County near Charlotte, North Carolina. They transformed the house into a safe haven for girls ages 12-17, with a beautiful outdoor patio, outdoor fireplace, trampoline, and many locations on the grounds for resting, reading, and journaling.
Today, it is now North Carolina’s only residential care program for domestic minor victims of sex trafficking, offering a holistic, trauma-informed model of care. Minor survivors receive long-term housing, 24-hour care, onsite private school, therapy, mentoring, life skills, health care, recreation, and individualized treatment plans.
At Hope House, it is our job to show the girls love, patience, grace, and hope by providing trauma-focused therapy to help them work through years of abuse and pain. We give them a chance to find love, hope and trust — and a fresh start.
“Imagine suffocating for ten years, in a constant struggle to find air while you are surrounded by dense, cold, salt water stinging fresh open wounds that cannot heal. Now imagine finding the surface with that lovely first breath of fresh air and eventually finding ground beneath your feet. It is the most amazing thing.” - Hayley, child sex trafficking survivor
Sadly, Hope House was in a serious financial crisis just a few months ago. The founder had left and operating funds were almost depleted. I had come on shortly before Emily left, and the the Board of Directors, staff and I agonized over what to do — our organization plays such an important role in the lives of many child victims of human sex trafficking. Most people don’t realize that modern day slavery, especially child sex trafficking , is very common. And, North Carolina has become a big hot spot for human trafficking due to the transient population and the state’s major highways and intersections. Another scary fact is that over 100,000 children are victims of child sex trafficking in the USA alone each year. It is an inexcusable horror in our modern society, especially in a first world country like the United States. Being that the problem is so great, we knew the work we were doing at the Hope House was so crucial. It was essential that we find a solution. It would simply be too heartbreaking to think of closing this precious resource that has helped so many.
With a firm resolve to keep Hope House open, we set about trying to find solutions for sustainability and future growth. As a retired IT Executive who ran a successful company in Charlotte for many years, I knew how important healthy systems and processes are to sustainability and survival. To find a solution, my fellow board members and I quickly engaged a well-known local consultant named Lori Vaccaro who had a strong history of helping organizations achieve financial stability and growth. Her knowledge and expertise was a light of hope in our bleak situation so we asked her to help us assess our options. She quickly diagnosed the problem. It was our leadership gap, and not our funding shortfall that was causing the crisis that would likely result in our closing, so we recruited Lori to lead us through this critical stage of our organization’s development. Lori’s first major act as our leader was to suggested we immediately start a multi- faceted fundraising campaign. And so, our Plumfund campaign came to be.
I’m thrilled to report our fundraising campaign has been a success. In fact, just recently, a generous Charlotte couple anonymously pledged a $25,000 challenge grant to attract new donors. This amazing couple will match every new gift up to a total of $25,000 for Hope House. We have been very excited to reach out to our community, supporters and the world to let them know their donations will make double the impact and their generosity will help healing begin for children who have been victims of the horrors of sex trafficking. At Hope House, Josie can dream again, Mia can smile again, and Hayley can catch her breath.
You can keep the hope alive by donating here
Saturday, 1 October 2016
One Mississippi - The Life of Sexually Abused Comedian Tig Notaro
What Tig Notaro’s New Show Gets Right about
Child Sexual Abuse
By Sarah Newman, MA
In the new Amazon series One Mississippi, loosely based on the life of comedian Tig Notaro, she finds herself living back home in Mississippi following the sudden death of her mother. Staying in her childhood home with her stepfather, Bill, and her adult brother, Remy, Tig isn’t just facing the grief of losing her mother, she’s recovering from breast cancer, which resulted in a double mastectomy, and suffering from a C. diff infection. She’s also dealing with the ghosts of her past. Tig — as she’s also called on the show — was molested by her grandfather throughout her childhood.
Although it’s estimated that one in 10 children will be sexually abused before age 18, it’s rare to see a TV series deal with the reality of child sexual abuse. There’s so much about the issue that One Mississippi gets right.
One in 10 is a very conservative number. The best estimates are about 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys.
People are a part of the trauma even if they don’t want to be
Looking through a box of old photographs with her brother, Tig sees a picture of herself as a young girl sitting beside her grandfather. “Hey look, you’re being molested right now,” she says to the photo.
“Aw, come on, Tig!” her brother squirms.
“What? I was,” she tells him. “At least let me joke about it.”
“We should just throw that out,” he says grabbing the picture and leaving the room.
Hearing about child molestation can make people uncomfortable. It may be disturbing to imagine that your memories of a situation are tainted because in a back room or while your sister was away at camp she was being victimized. You don’t want to be a part of that reality — but neither does the victim.
Pretending that the past is over and that the pain doesn’t remain can’t fix anything. It’s alienating. It reinforces shame. It tells a victim, “This thing that happened to you is too grotesque for me to face and so I can’t be connected to you right now.”
Pretending it isn’t there, doesn’t make it go away
Tig’s molestation keeps coming up even at the most seemingly unrelated moments because it is related. It’s related to everything. Trauma is woven into the fabric of life. She’s at home — not just in the town, but in the very house she lived in during the abuse. She’s surrounded by the same individuals who were a part of her life during the abuse, even if they had no idea what was happening to her.
Each times her family tries to keep abuse out of the conversation, resentment wells up. When her stepfather’s cat disappears, he accuses Tig of letting her out. She claims he might have mistakenly let her out himself. “You miss a lot,” she tells him.
After a pause, as if it’s the furthest thing from his mind, her stepfather Bill says, “Oh I can’t believe you’re bringing up that again.”
“That? The fact that I was molested by a creepy old man my entire childhood?” she asks.
“It’s been over 30 years. The man is dead,” he says. “ You know, when are you going to let go of that? It’s in the past.”
Moving on from abuse takes more than just “leaving it” in the past and learning to cope requires empathy.
“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it.
It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”
РBren̩ Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection:
Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
You can’t accept good memories without accepting the bad as well
That’s just how autobiographical memory works. Our experience — good and bad — informs everything we do every day.
“You say to move on,” she tells Bill. “Why not move on from the good, too? Like the day I learned to walk or birthday parties. Or when Remy pitched a perfect game? The good is in the past, too, Bill. You can’t pick and choose. Every chapter matters.”
“This is nonsense,” he says.
“You don’t seem to comprehend the impact all of this has had and continues to have on my life and Remy.”
It’s alienating when others won’t accept the bad. You lose closeness and trust in a way that can be difficult to repair.
“If you put shame into a petri dish and cover it with judgment, silence, and secrecy, it grows
out of control until in consumers everything in sight — you have basically provided shame
with the environment it needs to thrive. On the other hand, if you put shame in
a petri dish and douse it with empathy, shame loses power and starts to fade.
Empathy creates a hostile environment for shame — it can’t survive.”
– Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t)
The truth wants to be told
It takes an inordinate amount of courage for a person to talk about the sexual abuse they suffered. When you’re very young, it’s difficult to understand what’s happening to you. You doubt yourself because it’s easier to imagine you’re misinterpreting the abuse than it is to accept the fact that you’re in a very dangerous situation. In this case, it would also mean having to accept that family, someone who is supposed to love and care for you, is hurting you.
Shame is paralyzing and, despite not being responsible for what’s happening to them, victims often blame themselves. Personally, I felt defective and damaged by the abuse I suffered. I observed that what happened to me at home wasn’t happening in my friends’ homes. But rather than wanting to tell, I felt deeply ashamed. I thought that if other people knew what happened to me they would think I was disgusting, contaminated, perverse. I thought they wouldn’t want to know me anymore. Simultaneously, I didn’t want to keep my abuser’s secret. I didn’t want to protect him, but I felt powerless and afraid of his wrath.
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.”
— Brené Brown
One can only live in denial for so long. The truth will come out. It shows up in your thoughts and behavior — panic attacks, anxiety, depression, trouble with intimacy, difficulty in relationships, and many other symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
In a flashback, we see Tig’s grades have plummeted and her mother asks her to take her education more seriously. Decline in schoolwork — a sign of the insidious secret abuse. The truth wants to be told.
I dealt with molestation through denial. In the show, Tig appears to deal with it through humor. I think a lot of trauma survivors can relate to “inappropriate humor.”
“A tough sense of humor or biting wit can get you through hard times. As long as you keep people laughing, you maintain a certain perspective distance. And as long as you keep laughing you don’t have to cry.”
– The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis
Empathy is the first step in ending the shame surrounding child sexual abuse and listening to the victim’s story is part of that. Validating their feelings, instead of turning away and giving into your own feelings of shame and guilt, is an important first step.
Maybe if more shows and movies confronted the reality of child sexual abuse, people wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable with the subject, they wouldn’t be caught so off-guard when it touches their lives, and they might learn to respond with empathy. Instead of running away from the truth, we can be inspired by the victim’s strength and remind them that they are worthy of respect and connection.
“Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn't
change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
— Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection:
Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Sunday, 15 November 2015
Life After Child Sex Abuse Difficult, but You Can Survive and Even Thrive
By RILEY JOHNSON | LINCOLN JOURNAL STAR
Life for thousands of Nebraska children who are sexually abused almost certainly will include struggles, but counselors, psychologists and survivors say there is hope.
“You’re not doomed,” said Lincoln lawyer Susan Napolitano, who was raped by a relative in Michigan in the 1980s.
“It’s not what you see in the movies. I don’t shoot up. I don’t cower. I don’t feel like it has dominated my life path.”
It's possible to process and heal, she said.
“It’s going to be another brick in your foundation,” she said.
Napolitano remembers summer nights in the Upper Peninsula when she popped the screen off her bedroom window and contemplated jumping.
“(I’d) think about leaving and try to work up the courage to just jump out the window and just go and tell somebody,” she said. “But I didn’t trust that that would work.”
Like an estimated 90 percent of child sexual abuse victims, Napolitano knew her perpetrator.
When she was 8 or 9, she said, he started to make her fondle him.
“Don’t tell,” he told her.
Every kid needs to learn about sex, he said. He'd be her teacher.
She felt something was wrong, but he convinced her not to tell anyone.
The abuse escalated -- ultimately to sexual intercourse, she said.
“I remember telling him that it hurt, and he wouldn’t stop,” Napolitano said. “And that’s when I knew that this guy was not who I thought he was.”
Candy and gifts followed the assaults, coupled with apologies and promises it would stop.
But the promises were empty, she said.
Napolitano kept the abuse secret until she was 11, when she wrote a note and left it out for an adult to find, she said.
The abuse continued for about four years, until he left, she said.
Courtesy photo
Susan Napolitano at 8 or 9, dressed as Raggedy Ann for a school play. This was about the time the abuse started.
Long-term effects of child sexual abuse vary, but many victims have post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse issues and anxiety, said University of Nebraska-Lincoln psychologist David Hansen.
One study found children who are raped are about 12 times more likely to attempt suicide than non-victims.
While researchers believe there's strong evidence a significant number of victims have psychological and behavioral issues, some studies suggest as many as 50 percent of them present no symptoms.
Sexually abused children also tend to exhibit problematic sexual behavior, researchers have found. And they are more likely to continue to engage in inappropriate sexual behavior after an adult tells them to stop -- some into adulthood.
Although there's often concern children who are sexually abused will grow up to be sex offenders themselves, Hansen said there's no causal link.
There is a causal link, just not where you are looking. It is spiritual not biological or psychological.
In fact, researchers estimate victims of child sexual abuse are two to three times more likely to be sexually victimized as adults than people who were not abused as children.
Still, Lincoln psychologist Steve Blum said he saw a common trend at the Lincoln Regional Center, where he evaluated more than 1,000 sex offenders over 15 years as a consultant for the center.
About a third of those offenders reported being sexually abused as children, he said.
That might be higher than was actually the case, Blum said, but in several instances the offender’s abuse of a child mirrored his or her own.
One man arranged his daughter’s room to replicate the room in which he was abused as a child, he said.
When the daughter turned the age he was when he was abused, he molested her, Blum said. At some less-than-conscious level, he said, the man was acting out his own molestation.
Why that happens isn’t clear, he said, but one thought is that the victim was powerless when he or she was abused, and by abusing, is taking back that power -- albeit in a very disturbing and unhealthy manner.
Because of that feeling of powerlessness, it's crucial how adults respond when a victim discloses abuse, Blum said.
“If there isn’t a supportive, protective response, the trauma that the victim experiences is much greater.”
Layne Armstrong didn’t think police would believe him when he decided to tell them what former Project Youth Director Joe Ballard did to him.
But as he watched the ball drop on TV on New Year's Eve 2009, he thought of another year passing and the potential of more boys being abused by Ballard, who also coached youth basketball.
Armstrong was 19 then, and routinely abused meth to mask the pain of being abused by Ballard for six years, starting when he was 11.
Ballard gained his mom's trust, he said, spending time with him that included overnights at Ballard's home. Eventually, he said, Ballard raped him.
He said he tried to drive Ballard away by having the letters KKK tattooed just below his biceps. It didn’t work.
But Armstrong was homeless by then and using drugs. When he needed a place to stay, he said, he'd go back to Ballard's.
On that New Year’s Eve years later, Armstrong called a former Teammates mentor and opened up about the abuse for the first time.
Then he went to police, who strapped a wire to his chest and sent him to Ballard’s apartment, recording a conversation about a sexual encounter between the two.
More victims came forward, and in October 2010, a judge sent Ballard to prison.
He turned 48 on Friday, and is serving 34 to 50 years at the state prison in Tecumseh. He'll be eligible for parole in 2027.
“It takes just one person to save a life,” Armstrong said. “It takes just one person to save 100 lives.
“I was that one person.”
Now 25, Armstrong is married with two kids. He owns a roofing company, and he's sober. He had the KKK tattoos covered with crosses.
“I made my dreams come true,” Armstrong said. “I fought for them.”
But he's not immune to the past. In August, he was drinking with friends and ended up in the parking lot where Project Youth used to be.
Being there brought it all back, he said. Enraged, he punched the car and broke his hand.
He quit drinking after that, and he's learned to deal with the flashbacks through counseling, he said.
“You’re always going to be a victim until you’re tired of being a victim,” he said. “I’m not a victim anymore."
Bianca is 26 and tried for most of her life to bury the memories of what happened when she was 10.
Her older brother sexually abused her for about six months in their home in rural Nebraska, she said.
“Since it was someone in my family, I felt like I couldn’t tell.”
She distracted herself with school, the drive to excel helping her feel good about herself.
But it also instilled a fear of failure. In fifth grade, when the abuse was happening, she got lesions on her skin, among other physical side-effects, Bianca said.
After that, memories of the abuse surfaced now and then, but she’d jettison them from her mind, she said.
Only when she saw a counselor for an unrelated matter during her freshman year in college did she disclose what happened, she said.
Anxiety and depression stemming from the abuse continued, hitting hardest in 2012. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been happy.
She enrolled in a therapy group for child sexual abuse survivors called Wounded Heart and run by counselor Deb Perrin since 2011.
The faith-based program is based on a book of the same name by counselor Dan Allender, who believes that abuse changes the victim's soul.
Perrin said counseling survivors of child sex abuse is her life's calling, drawn out of her own abuse.
She said she was molested and sexually abused by a relative from when she was 3 until her pre-teen years. Until her abuser died when Perrin was an adult, she said, she wasn't sure she was sexually abused because she was so young when it happened.
But in cleaning out the relative's home, she found items that triggered her memory.
She got into counseling in 1984 and ultimately started the local Wounded Heart group.
"You feel more like supported because you’ve been in such isolation in your head,” Perrin said. "And it’s a shameful secret that you don’t want people to know about you."
Through the 42-week program, she said, the survivors dive into the trauma through group and individual therapy.
Bianca said that hearing other women's experiences helped.
"It just kind of made you feel less alone and more normal," she said.
Bianca's mother eventually guessed the source of the depression her daughter was battling, and the secret came out, she said.
For all her life, she felt she had to protect her parents from knowing what happened because she knew they would burden themselves with guilt.
They know now, and family dynamics are strained, she said. Her brother feels ashamed, and they're not a cohesive unit anymore.
Bianca has struggled with trust issues and believes the powerlessness she felt during the abuse reared its head when she became intimate with a man as an adult.
Despite that, she doesn't wish her brother ill, she said.
“At some point, I would like to have a conversation with my brother, telling him that I love him and forgive him. That I never want our relationship to be destroyed.”
The hope for victims of child sexual abuse lies in processing the pain head-on, Bianca said.
“Even though it’s hard, it’s so much richer and more meaningful,” she said. “I feel like I’m seeing the power of God in ways I never would have.”
Susan Napolitano remembers a turning point in her teenage years.
She drank, smoked pot and hung out with older boys. Her self-esteem was low, and the abuse hadn't stopped. One night, her parents grounded her after she sneaked in late.
She swallowed half a bottle of aspirin and went to sleep, she said. Instead of dying, she awoke wired, her heartbeat audible in her ears.
"Just get through this s***, and you're gonna make it," she thought to herself. "This is your trial."
She took refuge in art and English, feeling empowered by teachers who she felt saw the good in her, she said.
"If I did not paint and write and color, I don't think that my mind and heart would have been able to gain the peace to move forward."
In college, Napolitano went through counseling, confronted her abuser in a letter and made peace with the trauma, she said. She took her case to authorities in the 1990s, but Michigan's statute of limitations had run out.
Stupid Michigan!
So she moved forward, became a teacher and later fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming a lawyer. She opted to pursue a career in real estate law instead of locking up criminals, she said. She didn't want her abuse to define her career, she said.
Her life isn't perfect, and trust will probably never come easy.
But the mother of three is not ashamed of what happened to her, and she doesn't want others to ignore what happened to them or be afraid to speak up.
"You discover your character," she said. "You find out who the hell you are."
 |
| Susan Napolitano plays with her dog Rosebud. The Lincoln lawyer was sexually abused as a child and says it's possible to survive and thrive. |
“You’re not doomed,” said Lincoln lawyer Susan Napolitano, who was raped by a relative in Michigan in the 1980s.
“It’s not what you see in the movies. I don’t shoot up. I don’t cower. I don’t feel like it has dominated my life path.”
It's possible to process and heal, she said.
“It’s going to be another brick in your foundation,” she said.
Napolitano remembers summer nights in the Upper Peninsula when she popped the screen off her bedroom window and contemplated jumping.
“(I’d) think about leaving and try to work up the courage to just jump out the window and just go and tell somebody,” she said. “But I didn’t trust that that would work.”
Like an estimated 90 percent of child sexual abuse victims, Napolitano knew her perpetrator.
When she was 8 or 9, she said, he started to make her fondle him.
“Don’t tell,” he told her.
Every kid needs to learn about sex, he said. He'd be her teacher.
She felt something was wrong, but he convinced her not to tell anyone.
The abuse escalated -- ultimately to sexual intercourse, she said.
“I remember telling him that it hurt, and he wouldn’t stop,” Napolitano said. “And that’s when I knew that this guy was not who I thought he was.”
Candy and gifts followed the assaults, coupled with apologies and promises it would stop.
But the promises were empty, she said.
Napolitano kept the abuse secret until she was 11, when she wrote a note and left it out for an adult to find, she said.
The abuse continued for about four years, until he left, she said.
Susan Napolitano at 8 or 9, dressed as Raggedy Ann for a school play. This was about the time the abuse started.
Long-term effects of child sexual abuse vary, but many victims have post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse issues and anxiety, said University of Nebraska-Lincoln psychologist David Hansen.
One study found children who are raped are about 12 times more likely to attempt suicide than non-victims.
While researchers believe there's strong evidence a significant number of victims have psychological and behavioral issues, some studies suggest as many as 50 percent of them present no symptoms.
Sexually abused children also tend to exhibit problematic sexual behavior, researchers have found. And they are more likely to continue to engage in inappropriate sexual behavior after an adult tells them to stop -- some into adulthood.
Although there's often concern children who are sexually abused will grow up to be sex offenders themselves, Hansen said there's no causal link.
There is a causal link, just not where you are looking. It is spiritual not biological or psychological.
In fact, researchers estimate victims of child sexual abuse are two to three times more likely to be sexually victimized as adults than people who were not abused as children.
Still, Lincoln psychologist Steve Blum said he saw a common trend at the Lincoln Regional Center, where he evaluated more than 1,000 sex offenders over 15 years as a consultant for the center.
About a third of those offenders reported being sexually abused as children, he said.
That might be higher than was actually the case, Blum said, but in several instances the offender’s abuse of a child mirrored his or her own.
One man arranged his daughter’s room to replicate the room in which he was abused as a child, he said.
When the daughter turned the age he was when he was abused, he molested her, Blum said. At some less-than-conscious level, he said, the man was acting out his own molestation.
Why that happens isn’t clear, he said, but one thought is that the victim was powerless when he or she was abused, and by abusing, is taking back that power -- albeit in a very disturbing and unhealthy manner.
Because of that feeling of powerlessness, it's crucial how adults respond when a victim discloses abuse, Blum said.
“If there isn’t a supportive, protective response, the trauma that the victim experiences is much greater.”
 |
| Layne Armstrong stands with his Teammates mentor, David Kolowski |
But as he watched the ball drop on TV on New Year's Eve 2009, he thought of another year passing and the potential of more boys being abused by Ballard, who also coached youth basketball.
Armstrong was 19 then, and routinely abused meth to mask the pain of being abused by Ballard for six years, starting when he was 11.
Ballard gained his mom's trust, he said, spending time with him that included overnights at Ballard's home. Eventually, he said, Ballard raped him.
He said he tried to drive Ballard away by having the letters KKK tattooed just below his biceps. It didn’t work.
But Armstrong was homeless by then and using drugs. When he needed a place to stay, he said, he'd go back to Ballard's.
On that New Year’s Eve years later, Armstrong called a former Teammates mentor and opened up about the abuse for the first time.
Then he went to police, who strapped a wire to his chest and sent him to Ballard’s apartment, recording a conversation about a sexual encounter between the two.
More victims came forward, and in October 2010, a judge sent Ballard to prison.
He turned 48 on Friday, and is serving 34 to 50 years at the state prison in Tecumseh. He'll be eligible for parole in 2027.
“It takes just one person to save a life,” Armstrong said. “It takes just one person to save 100 lives.
“I was that one person.”
Now 25, Armstrong is married with two kids. He owns a roofing company, and he's sober. He had the KKK tattoos covered with crosses.
“I made my dreams come true,” Armstrong said. “I fought for them.”
But he's not immune to the past. In August, he was drinking with friends and ended up in the parking lot where Project Youth used to be.
Being there brought it all back, he said. Enraged, he punched the car and broke his hand.
He quit drinking after that, and he's learned to deal with the flashbacks through counseling, he said.
“You’re always going to be a victim until you’re tired of being a victim,” he said. “I’m not a victim anymore."
Bianca is 26 and tried for most of her life to bury the memories of what happened when she was 10.
Her older brother sexually abused her for about six months in their home in rural Nebraska, she said.
“Since it was someone in my family, I felt like I couldn’t tell.”
She distracted herself with school, the drive to excel helping her feel good about herself.
But it also instilled a fear of failure. In fifth grade, when the abuse was happening, she got lesions on her skin, among other physical side-effects, Bianca said.
After that, memories of the abuse surfaced now and then, but she’d jettison them from her mind, she said.
Only when she saw a counselor for an unrelated matter during her freshman year in college did she disclose what happened, she said.
Anxiety and depression stemming from the abuse continued, hitting hardest in 2012. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been happy.
She enrolled in a therapy group for child sexual abuse survivors called Wounded Heart and run by counselor Deb Perrin since 2011.
The faith-based program is based on a book of the same name by counselor Dan Allender, who believes that abuse changes the victim's soul.
Perrin said counseling survivors of child sex abuse is her life's calling, drawn out of her own abuse.
She said she was molested and sexually abused by a relative from when she was 3 until her pre-teen years. Until her abuser died when Perrin was an adult, she said, she wasn't sure she was sexually abused because she was so young when it happened.
But in cleaning out the relative's home, she found items that triggered her memory.
She got into counseling in 1984 and ultimately started the local Wounded Heart group.
"You feel more like supported because you’ve been in such isolation in your head,” Perrin said. "And it’s a shameful secret that you don’t want people to know about you."
Through the 42-week program, she said, the survivors dive into the trauma through group and individual therapy.
Bianca said that hearing other women's experiences helped.
"It just kind of made you feel less alone and more normal," she said.
Bianca's mother eventually guessed the source of the depression her daughter was battling, and the secret came out, she said.
For all her life, she felt she had to protect her parents from knowing what happened because she knew they would burden themselves with guilt.
They know now, and family dynamics are strained, she said. Her brother feels ashamed, and they're not a cohesive unit anymore.
Bianca has struggled with trust issues and believes the powerlessness she felt during the abuse reared its head when she became intimate with a man as an adult.
Despite that, she doesn't wish her brother ill, she said.
“At some point, I would like to have a conversation with my brother, telling him that I love him and forgive him. That I never want our relationship to be destroyed.”
The hope for victims of child sexual abuse lies in processing the pain head-on, Bianca said.
“Even though it’s hard, it’s so much richer and more meaningful,” she said. “I feel like I’m seeing the power of God in ways I never would have.”
Susan Napolitano remembers a turning point in her teenage years.
She drank, smoked pot and hung out with older boys. Her self-esteem was low, and the abuse hadn't stopped. One night, her parents grounded her after she sneaked in late.
She swallowed half a bottle of aspirin and went to sleep, she said. Instead of dying, she awoke wired, her heartbeat audible in her ears.
"Just get through this s***, and you're gonna make it," she thought to herself. "This is your trial."
She took refuge in art and English, feeling empowered by teachers who she felt saw the good in her, she said.
"If I did not paint and write and color, I don't think that my mind and heart would have been able to gain the peace to move forward."
In college, Napolitano went through counseling, confronted her abuser in a letter and made peace with the trauma, she said. She took her case to authorities in the 1990s, but Michigan's statute of limitations had run out.
Stupid Michigan!
So she moved forward, became a teacher and later fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming a lawyer. She opted to pursue a career in real estate law instead of locking up criminals, she said. She didn't want her abuse to define her career, she said.
Her life isn't perfect, and trust will probably never come easy.
But the mother of three is not ashamed of what happened to her, and she doesn't want others to ignore what happened to them or be afraid to speak up.
"You discover your character," she said. "You find out who the hell you are."
Monday, 2 November 2015
"Why Can't You Just Get Over It?"
What Every Survivor of Sexual Trauma Needs to Know
Jennifer Rollin
Mental Health Therapist, Social Worker, Body Image Activist and Wellness Enthusiast
Huff Post
"I feel like what happened was my fault. Like I did something to deserve it," is a statement that I have heard frequently in my work as a therapist who specializes in helping survivors of trauma. I have spoken with numerous survivors whose families and friends asked them, "Why can't you just get over it?"
Awareness of the impact that trauma can have on an individual is spreading, however there is still a lot of misinformation and stigma that many survivors experience. Although everyone copes with trauma and the healing process differently, the following are some universal truths that I wish every survivor of sexual trauma could hear.
1. What happened to you was not your fault.
I know you may have heard this before, but that it might be difficult for you to believe. You may think to yourself, "If only I hadn't gone to that party, this wouldn't have happened" or "I didn't tell anyone what was happening, so I must have wanted it."
First off, I want you to know that this is a common reaction to sexual trauma. Your mind wants to make sense of a situation that ultimately was out of your control. Therefore, many people wrongly believe that they must have been responsible for what happened to them.
When someone is sexually abused, the only person who is to blame is the perpetrator. You did the best that you could, with the coping skills that you had at the time. No matter what party you went to, if you had a drink, if you didn't fight the person off, if you were dating the person, if you were aroused and regardless of any other circumstance -- it was not your fault. You were not responsible for this and you certainly did not deserve it.
Think about what you would tell a friend who shared with you the same experience. It is unlikely that you would tell your friend that what happened to them was their fault. You deserve to give yourself the same compassion that you would give to a friend or loved one who went through a trauma. If you are struggling with intense feelings of shame and guilt following trauma, it could be helpful to consider reaching out to a therapist-preferably one who specializes in trauma.
2. Your responses are normal reactions to an abnormal experience.
Some people who experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress feel that they are "going crazy." When someone experiences trauma his or her body naturally goes into "fight or flight" mode. This reaction to a stressor in the environment, developed as it was evolutionarily advantageous and protected our ancestors from imminent danger.
According to The National Institute of Mental Health,"This fight-or-flight response is a healthy reaction meant to protect a person from harm. But in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this reaction is changed or damaged. People who have PTSD may feel stressed or frightened even when they're no longer in danger."
Not everyone who experiences trauma will go on to develop PTSD. However, if you are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress or have received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, it is important to note that you are not "crazy."
First off, I find it offensive to label any individual as "crazy." Secondly, you experienced something that no one should have to go through. Your body and mind may be trying desperately to make sense of what happened. No matter what symptoms you may be experiencing as a result of your trauma, you are certainly not alone in experiencing them.
3. Healing and recovery is possible.
There are numerous individuals whose lives serve as examples that healing and recovery following sexual trauma is possible. Erin Merryn is one woman who is an amazing example of resilience following sexual trauma. Erin is a mother, wife, author, activist, and Glamour Magazine 2012 Woman of the Year, who has been featured in numerous media outlets. She is also a survivor of childhood sexual assault and went on to create"Erin's Law," which "requires that all public schools in each state implement a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program." In her book entitled, Living for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and Forgiveness, Merryn stated,As I faced each tragedy in my life, I learned to reach into the depth of my soul for strength and determination. Through this healing process, I discovered perseverance and resilience. I could not go into the past and use White-Out to erase any events; instead, I had to find a way to use my pain to help me heal and grow. I had to stare darkness in the face and accept that I could not change the past, but I could build a better future.
If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, it's not your fault. You are not alone. Help is available 24/7 through the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-HOPE and online.rainn.org, y en español: rainn.org/es.
Friday, 9 October 2015
Boko Haram's Child Victims Learn to Smile Again at Niger Camp
By Boureima Hama
AFP
ASSAGA (Niger) (AFP) - In a shed at the heart of the Assaga refugee camp in southeast Niger, around 50 children sing and dance, masking the deep emotional trauma inflicted on them by Boko Haram.
Nearby, little girls who fled the brutal Islamists in neighbouring Nigeria huddle around jigsaw puzzles, while barefoot young boys in ragged clothes or shirtless play football and table tennis.
The camp has no school, but staff from UN agencies and specialised charities do their best to help the youngsters, who make up the majority of the around 6,000 refugees here who were routed from their villages by Boko Haram.
Special help is being provided by psychologists to 1,011 of the children, seen as among the most vulnerable victims of the violence, to adapt to a new life, often in the wake of terrible events.
"Many children were witnesses or the direct victims of atrocities by Boko Haram," says Adama Cossimbo, head of the psychological help centre financed by the Italian non-governmental organisation COOPI.
"Boko Haram forced some children to watch their mothers or sisters being raped," a UN relief worker says. "Others saw their father or their brother having his throat slit."
The trauma was so severe for some that when they first arrived in Assaga, they would not eat or speak, he adds.
- 'On the right path' -
According to COOPI, many of the children show signs of mental illness.
"We're developing games and activities to strengthen their resilience after the trauma they've endured," says Cossimbo, who works with a psychologist and teachers.
Along with sports and games, relief workers give puzzles and memory quizzes to the children cared for at the centre.
Two months on, Cossimbo is optimistic. "They sing and seem to be their old cheerful selves... We're on the right path towards their 'reconstruction'," he claims with pride.
Nine-year-old Ali lost part of his family in a Boko Haram raid and has said nothing for days on end, but he manages to whisper: "I escaped from Boko Haram and I feel good here."
For Ali's father, wealthy bell pepper grower Elhadj Gremah, forced exile is sheer "humiliation".
"In the village, my children had all they needed to eat. Here they don't go to school and they sometimes sleep on empty stomachs," he complains.
At Assaga, huts supported with tree branches compete with standard-issue tents provided by the United Nations. First created by UN staff three months ago, the camp looks like a shantytown.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that some 1.4 million children have fled Islamist attacks in Nigeria and neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and Chad in the past five months.
These regional nations have joined forces against Boko Haram as the Islamists have launched bloody cross-border raids.
"The flow of refugees and the lack of resources seriously compromises our ability to provide vital aid on the ground," the UN agency recently reported.
During a visit to the Diffa zone in mid-September, Toby Lanzer, the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, remarked on the "very severe security crisis" at Assaga.
"The situation here is atrocious," he added. "People are traumatised."
Diffa has for three years been confronted with food shortages because of successive periods of drought and floods. The arrival of about 150,000 refugees since 2013 has worsened the situation for local poor people.
"We have to act right now to save lives," insists Rotimy Djossaya, the local chief of the American NGO CARE. The authorities warn that Niger, a deeply poor country, could face another food crisis in 2016 because of a poor harvest.
AFP
 |
| Children at a refugee camp in southeast Niger |
Nearby, little girls who fled the brutal Islamists in neighbouring Nigeria huddle around jigsaw puzzles, while barefoot young boys in ragged clothes or shirtless play football and table tennis.
The camp has no school, but staff from UN agencies and specialised charities do their best to help the youngsters, who make up the majority of the around 6,000 refugees here who were routed from their villages by Boko Haram.
Special help is being provided by psychologists to 1,011 of the children, seen as among the most vulnerable victims of the violence, to adapt to a new life, often in the wake of terrible events.
"Many children were witnesses or the direct victims of atrocities by Boko Haram," says Adama Cossimbo, head of the psychological help centre financed by the Italian non-governmental organisation COOPI.
"Boko Haram forced some children to watch their mothers or sisters being raped," a UN relief worker says. "Others saw their father or their brother having his throat slit."
 |
| Children stand next to a UNICEF tent at a refugee camp |
- 'On the right path' -
According to COOPI, many of the children show signs of mental illness.
"We're developing games and activities to strengthen their resilience after the trauma they've endured," says Cossimbo, who works with a psychologist and teachers.
Along with sports and games, relief workers give puzzles and memory quizzes to the children cared for at the centre.
 |
| Psychologists say many children were witnesses or the direct victims of atrocities by Boko Haram (AFP) |
Nine-year-old Ali lost part of his family in a Boko Haram raid and has said nothing for days on end, but he manages to whisper: "I escaped from Boko Haram and I feel good here."
For Ali's father, wealthy bell pepper grower Elhadj Gremah, forced exile is sheer "humiliation".
"In the village, my children had all they needed to eat. Here they don't go to school and they sometimes sleep on empty stomachs," he complains.
At Assaga, huts supported with tree branches compete with standard-issue tents provided by the United Nations. First created by UN staff three months ago, the camp looks like a shantytown.
 |
| Children sing and dance in a refugee camp in Assaga, Niger |
These regional nations have joined forces against Boko Haram as the Islamists have launched bloody cross-border raids.
"The flow of refugees and the lack of resources seriously compromises our ability to provide vital aid on the ground," the UN agency recently reported.
During a visit to the Diffa zone in mid-September, Toby Lanzer, the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, remarked on the "very severe security crisis" at Assaga.
"The situation here is atrocious," he added. "People are traumatised."
Diffa has for three years been confronted with food shortages because of successive periods of drought and floods. The arrival of about 150,000 refugees since 2013 has worsened the situation for local poor people.
"We have to act right now to save lives," insists Rotimy Djossaya, the local chief of the American NGO CARE. The authorities warn that Niger, a deeply poor country, could face another food crisis in 2016 because of a poor harvest.
Saturday, 2 May 2015
Children’s Safe Harbor Recognizes 1,000-plus Child Sex Abuse Victims in Montgomery Co.
Children's Safe Harbor staff are my heroes today
 |
| Clare Lucas and Michelle Sanson place blue pinwheels in the ground near the Alan B. Sadler Administration building in downtown Conroe. More than 1,000 were placed in recognition of Child Abuse Awareness Month. |
Montgomery Co. Courier
The Children’s Safe Harbor in Conroe treated a record 1,053 children last year that had been sexually abused, according to Executive Director Dr. Victoria Constance.
To recognize the victims, the harbor joined community stakeholders this week in displaying 1,053 pinwheels on the grounds of the Alan B. Sadler Administrative Building in downtown Conroe.
Montgomery County commissioners granted permission for the ceremony to recognize April as National Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month.
Constance said April 30 was chosen as the day to display the pinwheels to show each one represents the life of a child who walked through the Safe Harbor’s doors in 2014.
“A pinwheel moves with the air, so there’s movement forward,” Constance said. “When you see those, they’re actually children’s lives that we have impacted and I believe we’ve positively impacted these children.”
The Safe Harbor has been in Conroe for 16 years, but never saw this many children in a single year, Constance said.
Surpassing 1,000 new cases of child sexual abuse ranks the Safe Harbor, located in rural-suburban Conroe, along with other urban centers across the nation.
Constance said Montgomery County’s population growth is one of the factors driving up the number of cases.
“There’s a certain number of children that are going to come forward and as population grows, there are more children,” Constance said. ”We are doing a better job of serving these children.”
First Assistant Phil Grant called the Safe Harbor “an incredible resource” for abused and neglected children in the community.
“As terrible as the event is that is represented by these pinwheels, there is victory in the end when we see the perpetrators punished and children made whole again.” he said.
Grant added that Safe Harbor, along with law enforcement and the DA’s Office, are working together to see children emerge as survivors, noting that it is unfortunate the children find their way into the criminal justice system as victims of physical or sexual abuse.
The Safe Harbor wanted to illustrate the two-part process of healing and justice stressed at by the child victims advocacy group.
“(The commissioners) wanted it outside of their building, which I think is a beautiful thing,” Constance said. “It’s there where the public can see for one day how many children’s lives are impacted. Let the healing and justice move forward because their lives are going to continue to touch this entire community.”
 |
| Children's Safe Harbor (I believe), Conroe, Tx |
Safe Harbor should be congratulated for their excellent work, God bless them. But is anything being done to help the other children, or do they simply fall through the very large cracks in government floors?
If governments can't stop the incredible amount of sexual abuse of children, the very least they can do is to take responsibility for the care and treatment of every single victim.
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Can You Stop a Paedophile Before They Harm a Child?
Between 1-2% of men are thought to be paedophiles. Some become dangerous criminals preying on children, while others never act on their feelings. However views are divided on how and when to intervene in order to protect children.
They are studying pictures of convicted paedophiles. The two women scan local newspapers and the internet for information about court cases, then update their website. Their mission is to name and shame men convicted of abusing children.
"I think it is really important that children are protected from predatory paedophiles," says Keilly Devlin, a mother of three.
"An innocent child's life is more important to be kept sacred and safe than a paedophile. I think that paedophiles do need to be named and shamed and people do need to know where they are living locally so we can keep our children away."
Their group Communities Against Paedophiles South Lakes claims to have 5,000 members. However, their activities are discouraged by the police.
"Whilst we appreciate that members of the public may have concerns regarding convicted sexual offenders in the community, we would discourage naming and shaming groups," a spokesperson for Cumbria Constabulary says.
"The reason for this is that this presents a risk of misinformation, which can deter the work police and partner agencies conduct on a daily basis. It can also be counter-productive as these type of groups can inadvertently send offenders further underground."
Some of us would like to send them underground, about 6 feet underground. It is unfortunate that the police discourage activity like this. Any activity that raises the profile of the problem and offers knowledge of pedophiles, should be encouraged.
So who are the people who abuse children? And how can children best be protected?
Between 1% and 2% of men are thought to be paedophiles. There are many female paedophiles but the vast majority are men.
By its very nature the true picture of child abuse is unclear. But with women perpetrators it's even more so. Convictions are thin on the ground and some believe the issue is an unhelpful distraction from the bigger problem.
Experts agree that women commit only a fraction of child sexual abuse but so much is hidden that it's difficult to be accurate. An influential study in the US in the 1980s suggested 20% of all offences against boys and 5% against girls were by women.
In 2005, the NSPCC raised concerns about how disbelief of female paedophiles was hindering detection. Its report said child protection professionals too often met allegations of abuse by females with incredulity, dismissing them as fabrication and allowing women to continue to offend.
One study, by Professor Tamara Turner-Moore at Leeds Beckett University, suggests up to 10% of men have sexual thoughts about children at some stage in their lives.
Researchers also say paedophiles are most likely to offend when their self-esteem is low and their stress levels are high.
In a room above a café in Cumbria sits Eddie. This is not his real name, but he agreed to meet on condition of anonymity. He is a convicted paedophile. He was jailed for nine years for serious sexual offences against a child. Now he says he is on a path to rehabilitation.
"I feel really guilty yes. It's unacceptable what I did," he says.
"At the time I thought it was OK. Of course it's not. You can't go out and do something like that to someone who is basically harmless and think it's OK you can get away with it."
Eddie says the abuse took place when his drinking was spiralling out of control.
"I don't know why it happened. I can't just blame the drink. There must have been something there, a feeling for children. I can't understand it now because I can't understand why I did it. If Circles hadn't been there, things would possibly have started over again"
On release from prison, Eddie was helped by Circles UK. Working with probation officers, volunteers form a "circle of accountability and support" around a newly released sex offender, who is known as the "core member" of the circle.
The aim is to help him resettle in the community. It says it has a high rate of success in preventing reoffending. It has received government funding to form 74 more circles working with offenders across England.
Zak, a Circles volunteer in Cumbria, explains how it works:
"Because they are feeling totally isolated from the community and very lonely, they have a high risk of reoffending. What a circle does is supporting the role of watchdog.
"If the offender indicates some kind of risk to the community we inform the co-ordinator and address them to the appropriate agencies. By helping them by challenging their behaviour and risky thoughts we can prevent them reoffend and prevent another victim being recreated."
Another is a confidential helpline - Stop It Now! - which aims to encourage adult abusers to seek therapy and help. It also advises families where someone is showing worrying sexual behaviour.
"We need to intervene earlier in order to better protect children," says Donald Findlater, Director of Research and Development at Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which runs the helpline.
Largely funded by the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office it was founded 12 years ago and now receives some 700 calls per month.
Of the callers, 48% have already committed an offence and 8% were men troubled by their sexual thoughts who had not yet offended, according to an evaluation last year by the National Centre for Social Research.
"There is so much more we can do to prevent child sexual abuse," says Findlater. "Education for parents is grossly inadequate - there is much, much more they can do to keep their children safe."
"However one of the problems is that some of the help is not available until someone has broken the law - surely it is better to make help available before a child has been harmed?"
Findlater advised Dutch campaigners in setting up their own helpline. However in the Netherlands they have gone much further in encouraging men to call and seek help.
An advertisement on national television shows a man wrapped in a towel, shaving, with a voice-over saying: "I'm Frank. I'm a paedophile."
As he cycles to work clutching a brown leather bag, the voiceover continues: "My paedophilia is treatable. I do not have contact with children." The advert ends with the helpline phone number. There are also billboards posted in some cities.
On the day we visited the helpline, anyone calling the number would have got through to a small modern office in an old building in the centre of the historic university city of Leiden.
Jules Mulder, the director the Dutch helpline, says he wants to encourage men to seek help before they have contact with children.
"What we try to do is be more permissive to being paedophilic. These people are in society - they are among us. It is much better for them and us if you just accept this fact - you can help them to live a normal life. It makes society safer if you acknowledge the problem.
By helping the men who do this before they do, it is the best thing to do. If you can really understand that, we can help society get safer. That's what we try to get across to people. Everybody wants to have less child abuse."
In a drab industrial estate in the city of Utrecht is a squat modern building. From the outside it looks like an office or small workshop. But it is a clinic for sex offenders. It is to here that the callers to the helpline are referred.
Inside, by a leafy courtyard, we meet one of the therapists, Annemarie Determan. Her job is to help sex offenders change their behaviour. Does therapy work?
"Yes all the time," she says. "Treatment can take a long time. Sometimes it is five conversations but mostly it is over a year or two years. I have seen people motivated not to download child porn, or groom children, or to change their lives, not going to places where children are. Most of them are capable of changing."
"There are some who have feelings but are not paedophilic. They have problems with emotions or with coping styles so they feel frustrating and they end up downloading child porn. Then I teach them something else about how to cope with their emotions or frustrations or another way not downloading child porn."
If you have been affected, the following organisations can help:
NSPCC charity specialises in child protection.
National Association for People Abused in Childhood offers support, advice and guidance to adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse.
Childline is a private and confidential service for children and young people up to the age of 19. The Children's Society works to support vulnerable children in England and Wales.
Other help:
Stop it Now is a is a child sexual abuse prevention campaign in the UK and Ireland.
Circles UK aims to reduce sexual reoffending by working directly with paedophiles through networks of community volunteers
 |
| In a terraced house in Barrow-in Furness, Cumbria, two mothers are looking intently at a computer screen |
"I think it is really important that children are protected from predatory paedophiles," says Keilly Devlin, a mother of three.
"An innocent child's life is more important to be kept sacred and safe than a paedophile. I think that paedophiles do need to be named and shamed and people do need to know where they are living locally so we can keep our children away."
Their group Communities Against Paedophiles South Lakes claims to have 5,000 members. However, their activities are discouraged by the police.
"Whilst we appreciate that members of the public may have concerns regarding convicted sexual offenders in the community, we would discourage naming and shaming groups," a spokesperson for Cumbria Constabulary says.
"The reason for this is that this presents a risk of misinformation, which can deter the work police and partner agencies conduct on a daily basis. It can also be counter-productive as these type of groups can inadvertently send offenders further underground."
Some of us would like to send them underground, about 6 feet underground. It is unfortunate that the police discourage activity like this. Any activity that raises the profile of the problem and offers knowledge of pedophiles, should be encouraged.
So who are the people who abuse children? And how can children best be protected?
Between 1% and 2% of men are thought to be paedophiles. There are many female paedophiles but the vast majority are men.
By its very nature the true picture of child abuse is unclear. But with women perpetrators it's even more so. Convictions are thin on the ground and some believe the issue is an unhelpful distraction from the bigger problem.
Experts agree that women commit only a fraction of child sexual abuse but so much is hidden that it's difficult to be accurate. An influential study in the US in the 1980s suggested 20% of all offences against boys and 5% against girls were by women.
In 2005, the NSPCC raised concerns about how disbelief of female paedophiles was hindering detection. Its report said child protection professionals too often met allegations of abuse by females with incredulity, dismissing them as fabrication and allowing women to continue to offend.
One study, by Professor Tamara Turner-Moore at Leeds Beckett University, suggests up to 10% of men have sexual thoughts about children at some stage in their lives.
Researchers also say paedophiles are most likely to offend when their self-esteem is low and their stress levels are high.
In a room above a café in Cumbria sits Eddie. This is not his real name, but he agreed to meet on condition of anonymity. He is a convicted paedophile. He was jailed for nine years for serious sexual offences against a child. Now he says he is on a path to rehabilitation.
"I feel really guilty yes. It's unacceptable what I did," he says.
"At the time I thought it was OK. Of course it's not. You can't go out and do something like that to someone who is basically harmless and think it's OK you can get away with it."
Eddie says the abuse took place when his drinking was spiralling out of control.
"I don't know why it happened. I can't just blame the drink. There must have been something there, a feeling for children. I can't understand it now because I can't understand why I did it. If Circles hadn't been there, things would possibly have started over again"
On release from prison, Eddie was helped by Circles UK. Working with probation officers, volunteers form a "circle of accountability and support" around a newly released sex offender, who is known as the "core member" of the circle.
The aim is to help him resettle in the community. It says it has a high rate of success in preventing reoffending. It has received government funding to form 74 more circles working with offenders across England.
Zak, a Circles volunteer in Cumbria, explains how it works:
"Because they are feeling totally isolated from the community and very lonely, they have a high risk of reoffending. What a circle does is supporting the role of watchdog.
"If the offender indicates some kind of risk to the community we inform the co-ordinator and address them to the appropriate agencies. By helping them by challenging their behaviour and risky thoughts we can prevent them reoffend and prevent another victim being recreated."
Another is a confidential helpline - Stop It Now! - which aims to encourage adult abusers to seek therapy and help. It also advises families where someone is showing worrying sexual behaviour.
"We need to intervene earlier in order to better protect children," says Donald Findlater, Director of Research and Development at Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which runs the helpline.
Largely funded by the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office it was founded 12 years ago and now receives some 700 calls per month.
Of the callers, 48% have already committed an offence and 8% were men troubled by their sexual thoughts who had not yet offended, according to an evaluation last year by the National Centre for Social Research.
"There is so much more we can do to prevent child sexual abuse," says Findlater. "Education for parents is grossly inadequate - there is much, much more they can do to keep their children safe."
"However one of the problems is that some of the help is not available until someone has broken the law - surely it is better to make help available before a child has been harmed?"
Findlater advised Dutch campaigners in setting up their own helpline. However in the Netherlands they have gone much further in encouraging men to call and seek help.
An advertisement on national television shows a man wrapped in a towel, shaving, with a voice-over saying: "I'm Frank. I'm a paedophile."
As he cycles to work clutching a brown leather bag, the voiceover continues: "My paedophilia is treatable. I do not have contact with children." The advert ends with the helpline phone number. There are also billboards posted in some cities.
On the day we visited the helpline, anyone calling the number would have got through to a small modern office in an old building in the centre of the historic university city of Leiden.
 |
| A psychology student sat at a neat desk by a computer screen and a pot plant (potted plant), waiting for the phone to ring |
"What we try to do is be more permissive to being paedophilic. These people are in society - they are among us. It is much better for them and us if you just accept this fact - you can help them to live a normal life. It makes society safer if you acknowledge the problem.
By helping the men who do this before they do, it is the best thing to do. If you can really understand that, we can help society get safer. That's what we try to get across to people. Everybody wants to have less child abuse."
In a drab industrial estate in the city of Utrecht is a squat modern building. From the outside it looks like an office or small workshop. But it is a clinic for sex offenders. It is to here that the callers to the helpline are referred.
Inside, by a leafy courtyard, we meet one of the therapists, Annemarie Determan. Her job is to help sex offenders change their behaviour. Does therapy work?
"Yes all the time," she says. "Treatment can take a long time. Sometimes it is five conversations but mostly it is over a year or two years. I have seen people motivated not to download child porn, or groom children, or to change their lives, not going to places where children are. Most of them are capable of changing."
"There are some who have feelings but are not paedophilic. They have problems with emotions or with coping styles so they feel frustrating and they end up downloading child porn. Then I teach them something else about how to cope with their emotions or frustrations or another way not downloading child porn."
If you have been affected, the following organisations can help:
NSPCC charity specialises in child protection.
National Association for People Abused in Childhood offers support, advice and guidance to adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse.
Childline is a private and confidential service for children and young people up to the age of 19. The Children's Society works to support vulnerable children in England and Wales.
Other help:
Stop it Now is a is a child sexual abuse prevention campaign in the UK and Ireland.
Circles UK aims to reduce sexual reoffending by working directly with paedophiles through networks of community volunteers
Saturday, 13 December 2014
There is Hope for Sexually Abused Children - Even the Worst Cases
BAY MINETTE, Alabama - The 16-year-old victim who underwent years of sexual abuse and torture has "hope," like thousands of other victims of sexual abuse, experts in the field of sexual abuse counseling say.
Chances are, the typical person might have doubts about whether the victim can recover. The girl who testified in the Wendy Holland jury trial this week in Baldwin County will need to be surrounded by positive influences and believe that she can recover from years of sexual torment suffered at the hands of multiple adults, experts say.
An excellent example is the story of Gemma Schembri. Raped by her father for more than a year when she was just 12 & 13, Gemma acted out for some years before she got help, but then, what a change! Please read the two links in this paragraph and watch the short video clip.
She'll have plenty of resources, all of them free. Child advocacy centers in Mobile and Baldwin counties provide a variety of counseling services. The Mobile region has advocates and therapists who specialize in sexual assault and abuse against children. If needed, there are shelters.
"She is definitely going to have effects, there is no doubt about it," Debra Nelson-Gardell, associate professor at the University of Alabama's School of Social Work said. "But her life is not over. Lay people will think ... (victims) are forever broken. She is not broken."
Demand rises
Demand for services, not only in Alabama but throughout the U.S., has risen in recent years as statistical estimates show that 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before the age of 16, and 1 in 6 boys are victimized.
In other words, chances are that you will walk by a victim of sexual abuse the next time you are at the mall or grocery store.
Demand is also rising at the CACs in Mobile and Baldwin counties. At the Baldwin County Care House, 368 children were served during fiscal year 2014 - which ended on Sept. 30 - compared to 341 during the same time period in 2013.
"For whatever reason, there tends to be a lot of sex crimes here," Niki Whitaker, executive director of Care House, said. "It's something that every year, we've increased the number of interviews we've done. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that happen more frequently than we like."
At the Mobile County Child Advocacy Center, approximately 100 to 125 child sex victims are seen each month.
"We have definitely not seen a decrease," said one clinical therapist who wished to not have his name revealed because of involvement with the victims in the Holland case.
Public awareness of child sex abuse has helped, he said, in getting more children to report the crime.
The awareness rose in the 1980s amid the sex abuse scandal involving the Roman Catholic Church and was heightened about a dozen years ago after the Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its critical look at decades of abuse within the church.
Other high-profile cases, including the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State University and recent allegations against comedian Bill Cosby, have kept the issue in the forefront.
"There needs to be even more awareness," the Mobile County therapist said. "There are so many cases where the abuse is not reported. Oftentimes, kids don't talk about the abuse. It's prevalent."
Generations of unreported abuse existed in the family sex ring involving Wendy Holland and her late husband, Donnie. It wasn't until the disappearance of a teen, Brittney Wood, that an investigation ensued and a child victimized by the family came forward to tell her story.
She spoke about the atrocities during what prosecutors described as a "difficult" trial that concluded on Wednesday with a conviction on four counts of sex crimes.
"We have generations of people who were abused and never disclosed," Nicki Patterson, an assistant district attorney in Mobile County who helped prosecute the case against Holland, said. "Their lack of disclosure, unfortunately, allowed the next generation of kids to be abused as well."
She added, "This was the first victim to tell. The good news is that by coming forward, these children ... have put an end to the generational abuse. These kids are in counseling and I suspect they will do fine."
'There is absolutely always hope'
But can a child victimized by years of sexual torment become a productive adult? The answer is a definitive "yes," according to counselors.
Two things are required in the early stages: belief in their accusations and support from family members or guardians.
Holland, 35, argued that the victim wasn't to be believed. Her attorney, during the three-day jury trial, attempted to cast the victim as someone who made false accusations against others.
But the victim's story was corroborated by other family members who said that Holland was an active participant in the abuse. The jury convicted her of sodomy, sexual torture, criminal sexual abuse, and endangering the welfare of a child. Holland will be sentenced up to life in prison on Jan. 15.
"Someone believed (the child) when she told," Nelson-Gardell said. "That is the single, most powerful thing that helps people become healthier is when they are believed. When people are told and not believed, it makes it much more difficult."
Patrick Guyton, executive director of the Mobile County CAC, said that counseling is required in order for hope to be realized. Without it, the weight of the psychological baggage will be like an "invisible bag of rocks on their backs" that they'll carry throughout their lives, he said.
"It's a whole process and it's also helping children realize that they are not damaged and they can be OK and heal," Guyton said.
Providing care to victims
There are 27 child advocacy centers in Alabama, including those located in Mobile and Baldwin counties. Almost all of the centers, according to Guyton, are different in what they offer with regards to therapy, investigation, courtroom preparedness, etc.
At Mobile County's CAC, treatment is provided by trauma focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is designed to reduce negative emotional and behavioral responses from child sex abuse and other trauma.
The CAC contracts with Lifelines Counseling Services, a Mobile-based non-profit company with four therapists assigned to Mobile County cases involving children suffering traumatic experiences from sexual abuse.
"We teach them to manage stress through breathing exercises, recognize and express feelings and cope with negative thoughts and feelings and help them get through the traumatic narrative," the Mobile County therapist said. "We help them work past the trauma."
One way is through art. The CAC program offers children, ages 3 up to 18, opportunities to "tap into their feelings" non-verbally through drawings and other artistic displays.
"Sometimes they draw out their feelings and sometimes they will elect to draw out the abuse," he said. "It may be a lot easier to draw (than to verbalize the experience)."
Treatment varies from child-to-child. Timelines within the program also vary. Typical sessions, which are free for children, occur weekly to monthly.
Rebecca Washburn, a counselor at Care House for the past three years, said the Baldwin County organization will apply pieces of the structured therapy and utilize them as needed.
"We assess where they are at and what we can use where they are at that particular time," she said.
What Washburn said she finds effective is to address the educational component of treatment first.
"Then we start identifying their feelings and emotions and help them to process that," Washburn said. "At the same time, we work with the parents (and analyze) what kind of symptoms they are experiencing and that lets us know where they should go next."
When the abuse involves family members or someone close to the child, a grieving process must also be incorporated, she added.
"It's the grieving the loss of the family they have and what they believed the people are capable of," Washburn said. .
Counselors say that the children who come forward with their accusations, especially those against adults they have long trust, need to be celebrated and praised as "courageous."
"It is courageous for any child to step forward and share what they've gone through," Whitaker said. "It's absolutely courageous in every way."
Nelson-Gardell said there is always hope for victims, even in the worst of situations.
"One of the things I'll encounter working in this area is that when I tell someone I study child sex abuse, (people) will look at me and (say) 'that must be awful,'" Nelson-Gardell said. "It's not. I get to watch people who have had these terrible things happen in their life to bounce back, grow up, marry and have kids."
Chances are, the typical person might have doubts about whether the victim can recover. The girl who testified in the Wendy Holland jury trial this week in Baldwin County will need to be surrounded by positive influences and believe that she can recover from years of sexual torment suffered at the hands of multiple adults, experts say.
 |
| Gemma |
"She is definitely going to have effects, there is no doubt about it," Debra Nelson-Gardell, associate professor at the University of Alabama's School of Social Work said. "But her life is not over. Lay people will think ... (victims) are forever broken. She is not broken."
Demand rises
Demand for services, not only in Alabama but throughout the U.S., has risen in recent years as statistical estimates show that 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before the age of 16, and 1 in 6 boys are victimized.
In other words, chances are that you will walk by a victim of sexual abuse the next time you are at the mall or grocery store.
Demand is also rising at the CACs in Mobile and Baldwin counties. At the Baldwin County Care House, 368 children were served during fiscal year 2014 - which ended on Sept. 30 - compared to 341 during the same time period in 2013.
"For whatever reason, there tends to be a lot of sex crimes here," Niki Whitaker, executive director of Care House, said. "It's something that every year, we've increased the number of interviews we've done. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that happen more frequently than we like."
At the Mobile County Child Advocacy Center, approximately 100 to 125 child sex victims are seen each month.
"We have definitely not seen a decrease," said one clinical therapist who wished to not have his name revealed because of involvement with the victims in the Holland case.
Public awareness of child sex abuse has helped, he said, in getting more children to report the crime.
The awareness rose in the 1980s amid the sex abuse scandal involving the Roman Catholic Church and was heightened about a dozen years ago after the Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its critical look at decades of abuse within the church.
Other high-profile cases, including the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State University and recent allegations against comedian Bill Cosby, have kept the issue in the forefront.
"There needs to be even more awareness," the Mobile County therapist said. "There are so many cases where the abuse is not reported. Oftentimes, kids don't talk about the abuse. It's prevalent."
Generations of unreported abuse existed in the family sex ring involving Wendy Holland and her late husband, Donnie. It wasn't until the disappearance of a teen, Brittney Wood, that an investigation ensued and a child victimized by the family came forward to tell her story.
She spoke about the atrocities during what prosecutors described as a "difficult" trial that concluded on Wednesday with a conviction on four counts of sex crimes.
"We have generations of people who were abused and never disclosed," Nicki Patterson, an assistant district attorney in Mobile County who helped prosecute the case against Holland, said. "Their lack of disclosure, unfortunately, allowed the next generation of kids to be abused as well."
She added, "This was the first victim to tell. The good news is that by coming forward, these children ... have put an end to the generational abuse. These kids are in counseling and I suspect they will do fine."
'There is absolutely always hope'
But can a child victimized by years of sexual torment become a productive adult? The answer is a definitive "yes," according to counselors.
Two things are required in the early stages: belief in their accusations and support from family members or guardians.
 |
| "It is courageous for any child to step forward and share what they've gone through." - Niki Whitaker with the Care House in Baldwin County |
But the victim's story was corroborated by other family members who said that Holland was an active participant in the abuse. The jury convicted her of sodomy, sexual torture, criminal sexual abuse, and endangering the welfare of a child. Holland will be sentenced up to life in prison on Jan. 15.
"Someone believed (the child) when she told," Nelson-Gardell said. "That is the single, most powerful thing that helps people become healthier is when they are believed. When people are told and not believed, it makes it much more difficult."
Patrick Guyton, executive director of the Mobile County CAC, said that counseling is required in order for hope to be realized. Without it, the weight of the psychological baggage will be like an "invisible bag of rocks on their backs" that they'll carry throughout their lives, he said.
"It's a whole process and it's also helping children realize that they are not damaged and they can be OK and heal," Guyton said.
Providing care to victims
There are 27 child advocacy centers in Alabama, including those located in Mobile and Baldwin counties. Almost all of the centers, according to Guyton, are different in what they offer with regards to therapy, investigation, courtroom preparedness, etc.
At Mobile County's CAC, treatment is provided by trauma focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is designed to reduce negative emotional and behavioral responses from child sex abuse and other trauma.
The CAC contracts with Lifelines Counseling Services, a Mobile-based non-profit company with four therapists assigned to Mobile County cases involving children suffering traumatic experiences from sexual abuse.
 |
| Bay Minette, Alabama |
One way is through art. The CAC program offers children, ages 3 up to 18, opportunities to "tap into their feelings" non-verbally through drawings and other artistic displays.
"Sometimes they draw out their feelings and sometimes they will elect to draw out the abuse," he said. "It may be a lot easier to draw (than to verbalize the experience)."
Treatment varies from child-to-child. Timelines within the program also vary. Typical sessions, which are free for children, occur weekly to monthly.
Rebecca Washburn, a counselor at Care House for the past three years, said the Baldwin County organization will apply pieces of the structured therapy and utilize them as needed.
"We assess where they are at and what we can use where they are at that particular time," she said.
What Washburn said she finds effective is to address the educational component of treatment first.
"Then we start identifying their feelings and emotions and help them to process that," Washburn said. "At the same time, we work with the parents (and analyze) what kind of symptoms they are experiencing and that lets us know where they should go next."
When the abuse involves family members or someone close to the child, a grieving process must also be incorporated, she added.
"It's the grieving the loss of the family they have and what they believed the people are capable of," Washburn said. .
Counselors say that the children who come forward with their accusations, especially those against adults they have long trust, need to be celebrated and praised as "courageous."
"It is courageous for any child to step forward and share what they've gone through," Whitaker said. "It's absolutely courageous in every way."
Nelson-Gardell said there is always hope for victims, even in the worst of situations.
"One of the things I'll encounter working in this area is that when I tell someone I study child sex abuse, (people) will look at me and (say) 'that must be awful,'" Nelson-Gardell said. "It's not. I get to watch people who have had these terrible things happen in their life to bounce back, grow up, marry and have kids."
Saturday, 30 August 2014
Many Rotherham Victims had Babies Taken from Them by Social Services - and Never Seen by Moms Again
Report from the Sheffield Star:
Several Rotherham schoolgirls who were victims of sexual exploitation had babies as a result of being raped - children they were then never allowed to see again after having them taken away by social services.
The Jay report said that, in several cases, abuse victims suffered the ‘further trauma’ of having their babies removed and contact with their children stopped.
No-one has been able to say precisely how many girls in the town, who had babies after being in abusive relationships, had their children taken into care.
Professor Alexis Jay’s explosive report, published earlier this week, said child sexual exploitation in the town had an ‘absolutely devastating’ effect on the estimated 1,400 victims.
The report also highlighted another tragic element of the scandal for some of the victims who fell pregnant - being separated from the babies born as a result.
It said: “In a number of cases we read, children and young people had pregnancies, miscarriages and terminations.
“Some had children removed under care orders, and suffered further trauma when contact with their child was terminated and alternative family placements found.
“This affected not just the victims themselves, but other siblings who had developed attachments to the baby.
“However, there were other cases where vulnerable and sometimes very young mothers were able, with appropriate long-term support, to recover and successfully care for their children.”
Among the victims of grooming in Rotherham who went on to have a child was Laura Wilson, who was murdered, aged 17, in 2010.
Laura’s baby was not one of those taken into care but, when her daughter was just 11 weeks old, Laura was stabbed and thrown into a canal by Ashtiaq Ashgar, then also 17 - after she told the families of Ashgar and the baby’s father, Ishaq Hussein, 22, about her relationships with them.
It was later revealed social workers had known for six years Laura was at risk from predatory Asian gangs, and had received information about adults suspected of targeting her from the age of 11.
Last year, a Home Affairs Select Committee report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which was commissioned in the wake of Laura’s murder, said police and council chiefs in the town had been ‘inexcusably slow’ at recognising the extent of the problem.
Rotherham Council said today it was unable to provide precise figures on how many abused girls had their children taken away from them.
A spokeswoman said the information kept by the council on care orders for children under a year old did not indicate specific reasons - such as child sexual exploitation or drug use - for a care order being made.
The spokeswoman said around 80 children per year are taken into care by the council.
She said: “Each child is subject to either an interim care order or an interim supervision order under the Children Act 1989. The authority has to show the children have suffered or are likely to suffer significant harm, or be beyond parental control, and that obviously can include a whole variety of reasons.
“It is not a decision we take lightly. It is a last resort and follows a very lengthy process.”
Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham, said details about the removal of babies from abuse victims were ‘one of the most upsetting parts’ of the Jay report.
She said: “I have the utmost sympathy for the children and young people who suffered during this appalling period.
“That some babies born to the victims as a direct result of such horrific abuse were taken away, and never seen by their mothers again, speaks volumes about the way these girls weren’t seen as victims at all. In my eyes, this is one of the most upsetting parts of the report.
“I intend to press the council to find out what is being done to identify both the girls and their babies, and the counselling being offered. The parents involved deserve personal apologies. It is precisely these people we should keep in mind when holding to account those who failed in child protection.”
Prof Jay’s report said many children who were the victims of abuse self-harmed and became suicidal, and others developed drug and alcohol problems. So, obviously, there was some justification for removing many of the children from their mothers.
Many suffered severe post-traumatic stress, but the report said there was ‘little or no specialist counselling or appropriate mental health intervention’. However, there is no justification for completely severing all ties with the mothers, or not significantly intervening to nurture the mothers back to health and then re-unite them with their children. For this reason, Joyce Thacker, Head of Social Services in Rotherham, should resign or be fired.
It found the majority of victims were white girls, with most perpetrators men of Pakistani heritage.
Prof Jay said: “It is important to emphasise that, even when agencies intervened appropriately to protect and support children and young people, the impact sexual exploitation had on them was absolutely devastating.
“Time and again we read in the files and other documents of children being violently raped, beaten, forced to perform sex acts in taxis and cars when they were being trafficked between towns, and serially abused by large numbers of men. Many children repeatedly self-harmed and some became suicidal.”
It comes as the Labour party announced it is deciding whether to take ‘further action’ against its Rotherham councillors who presided over the town’s child sexual exploitation scandal.
The party is conducting its own investigation into the conduct of the Labour-run council over the period of the inquiry to review ‘what further action is necessary’.
.jpg)
The Jay report said senior councillors were told of the town’s abuse problems ‘in the most explicit terms’ in a seminar in 2004-05 - but did not act.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The party is reviewing what further action is necessary against any councillor who may have been involved in the appalling failure to protect children.”
Pressure is also growing on South Yorkshire Police over its handling of the issue. And yet, Commissioner Shaun White refuses to take responsibility for his considerable part in allowing this travesty to carry-on for 16 years. Someone must have the authority to fire him!
Several Rotherham schoolgirls who were victims of sexual exploitation had babies as a result of being raped - children they were then never allowed to see again after having them taken away by social services.The Jay report said that, in several cases, abuse victims suffered the ‘further trauma’ of having their babies removed and contact with their children stopped.
No-one has been able to say precisely how many girls in the town, who had babies after being in abusive relationships, had their children taken into care.
The report also highlighted another tragic element of the scandal for some of the victims who fell pregnant - being separated from the babies born as a result.
It said: “In a number of cases we read, children and young people had pregnancies, miscarriages and terminations.
“Some had children removed under care orders, and suffered further trauma when contact with their child was terminated and alternative family placements found.
“This affected not just the victims themselves, but other siblings who had developed attachments to the baby.
“However, there were other cases where vulnerable and sometimes very young mothers were able, with appropriate long-term support, to recover and successfully care for their children.”
Among the victims of grooming in Rotherham who went on to have a child was Laura Wilson, who was murdered, aged 17, in 2010.
 |
| Laura Wilson - Britain's first 'honour killing' |
Laura’s baby was not one of those taken into care but, when her daughter was just 11 weeks old, Laura was stabbed and thrown into a canal by Ashtiaq Ashgar, then also 17 - after she told the families of Ashgar and the baby’s father, Ishaq Hussein, 22, about her relationships with them.
It was later revealed social workers had known for six years Laura was at risk from predatory Asian gangs, and had received information about adults suspected of targeting her from the age of 11.
Last year, a Home Affairs Select Committee report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which was commissioned in the wake of Laura’s murder, said police and council chiefs in the town had been ‘inexcusably slow’ at recognising the extent of the problem.
Rotherham Council said today it was unable to provide precise figures on how many abused girls had their children taken away from them.
A spokeswoman said the information kept by the council on care orders for children under a year old did not indicate specific reasons - such as child sexual exploitation or drug use - for a care order being made.
The spokeswoman said around 80 children per year are taken into care by the council.
 |
| Rotherham town centre |
“It is not a decision we take lightly. It is a last resort and follows a very lengthy process.”
Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham, said details about the removal of babies from abuse victims were ‘one of the most upsetting parts’ of the Jay report.
She said: “I have the utmost sympathy for the children and young people who suffered during this appalling period.
“That some babies born to the victims as a direct result of such horrific abuse were taken away, and never seen by their mothers again, speaks volumes about the way these girls weren’t seen as victims at all. In my eyes, this is one of the most upsetting parts of the report.
Prof Jay’s report said many children who were the victims of abuse self-harmed and became suicidal, and others developed drug and alcohol problems. So, obviously, there was some justification for removing many of the children from their mothers.
 |
| Joyce Thacker |
Many suffered severe post-traumatic stress, but the report said there was ‘little or no specialist counselling or appropriate mental health intervention’. However, there is no justification for completely severing all ties with the mothers, or not significantly intervening to nurture the mothers back to health and then re-unite them with their children. For this reason, Joyce Thacker, Head of Social Services in Rotherham, should resign or be fired.
It found the majority of victims were white girls, with most perpetrators men of Pakistani heritage.
Prof Jay said: “It is important to emphasise that, even when agencies intervened appropriately to protect and support children and young people, the impact sexual exploitation had on them was absolutely devastating.
 |
| 5 Pakistani degenerates sent to prison There should probably be many, many more |
It comes as the Labour party announced it is deciding whether to take ‘further action’ against its Rotherham councillors who presided over the town’s child sexual exploitation scandal.
The party is conducting its own investigation into the conduct of the Labour-run council over the period of the inquiry to review ‘what further action is necessary’.
The Jay report said senior councillors were told of the town’s abuse problems ‘in the most explicit terms’ in a seminar in 2004-05 - but did not act.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The party is reviewing what further action is necessary against any councillor who may have been involved in the appalling failure to protect children.”
Pressure is also growing on South Yorkshire Police over its handling of the issue. And yet, Commissioner Shaun White refuses to take responsibility for his considerable part in allowing this travesty to carry-on for 16 years. Someone must have the authority to fire him!
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