A compassionate approach to healing childhood sexual abuse
by Karen A. Duncan, M.A., LMFT, LSW

"Our national security is meaningless if we cannot keep our children safe in their homes, neighborhoods and schools". Karen A. Duncan

How Perpetrators Stay Hidden

An eleven-year-old girl reports to her mother that her father and grandfather have been sexually abusing her since the age of five. A fifteen-year-old girl tells her parents that a young man from their church sexually assaulted her. A nine-year-old boy admits that he sexually touched his five-year-old brother and that his seventeen-year-old stepsister has been fondling him for the past year. An eight-year-old girl tells her mother that her brother's seventeen-year-old best friend has been sexually abusing her for the past two years when he would come over after school or spend the night. A seventeen year old tells her parents that her older brother forced sexual acts on her and their younger son when they were 6 and 8 years.

These cases typify the reports we read about in newspapers and hear about each day on the morning and evening news. Unfortunately while childhood sexual abuse is not a new crime to children, there is new information that parents can use to help prevent this trauma to their children and keep them out of the path of perpetrators. What parents may not understand (because it is not talked about enough)is that the majority of time when sexual abuse happens this traumatic crime is being committed by a relative or someone the family knows - it is not the stranger on the street or the old man circling the playground. Yes, strangers do sexually abuse children and sadly enough there are those who kidnap or even murder a child (it is the reason we have Megan's Law !), but these criminal acts are less likely to occur than the crime of sexual abuse by a family member or other trusted adult.

These facts often make parents uncomfortable and they should. While parents seldom want to think that someone in their family is a perpetrator of child sexual abuse, women sexually abused as children know that it is a family member who commits this crime and causes this trauma to children. Another way to look at this fact is to consider that for each perpetrator on the Sex Offender Registry (and by the way after ten years they are removed from the list even though their crime can never be removed from the child they abused!) more than likely the child they sexually abused is within their family. So not only can children today identify perpetrators, each woman sexually abused in the past (and who is not allowed to seek prosecution from the legal system due to statute of limitations) is a woman who can identify a known perpetrator. Like the Sex Offender Registry, women can identify a "family sex offender " - the major difference is that this offender list wouldn't be posted on the Internet by their local police! If parents and other adults do not start to realize where and with whom the real danger lies for our children, then protecting children is not going to be possible. When family members deny, refuse to believe or resist talking about and exposing the history of sexual abuse within their family and the existence of a perpetrator they create and maintain the constant risk of sexual abuse occurring to children not only in the present but into future generations as well.

So what can parents do to keep their children safe and prevent this trauma from happening to their children? The most important step is to acknowledge that if you were sexually abused as a child and the perpetrator is within your family then neither you, your children or another child is safe around this person. That means never allow your child to be in the presence of this person nor alone with this person even when you think someone, including yourself, is there to supervise. It is always worth repeating - no child is safe in the presence of a perpetrator! Women and men have the right to expose a perpetrator and an ethical obligation to prevent this crime when possible. Whether other family members or friends believe women is up to them, but hopefully the truth will at least be considered by those who hear it.

The second step is to recognize that perpetrators do not stop their sexual abuse of children on their own. They have the ability and the access to sexually abuse several children over their lifetime and some have reported sexually abusing hundreds of children. The mistaken belief that a perpetrator has stopped his sexual abuse is still another way this trauma is passed forward in families where it has occurred. Women may also believe that after the sexual abuse to them stopped the perpetrator ended his behavior. What women eventually learn is that they were often not the only victim of this person and that the perpetrator has continued to sexually abuse other children.

Breaking the silence of sexual abuse is imperative for it to end and for perpetrators to be stopped. When a previous generation of victims are taught to keep silent about sexual abuse, they do so because this is what the perpetrator and other families members taught them to do - don't tell this secret and don't talk about family problems! It is the same conspiracy of silence that we have read about occurring within the Catholic Church. This conspiracy resulted in a number of perpetrators being allowed to sexually abuse hundreds of children over several years in different parishes while the authorities in the church continued their protection of the perpetrator and the church's reputation (i.e., the Catholic Church "family") rather than protecting the children. It is an all too familiar and similar conspiracy that happens in families where sexual abuse occurs. A family's reputation is never more important than the safety and well-being of the children entrusted to them.

Finally, parents need to learn that perpetrators establish a cycle of sexual abuse with children. This cycle begins the moment this person chooses a child to sexually abuse. People who sexually abuse children begin this cycle in various ways. For example, they can force closeness on the child, tryout certain pre-sexual behaviors on a child or parent to see what they can get away with, give her presents and money, tell her she is special, intimidate and physically threaten her, berate and belittle a child and isolate her from other family members and certainly by never admitting to being a perpetrator or telling a child what they really intend to do. Most perpetrators are "seducers" meaning they coerce and use their power and position over a child in subtle and manipulative ways with the goal of bringing a child into their abusive cycle of behavior. While some perpetrators use force and even physical violence to sexually abuse a child, this behavior usually happens to keep the child quiet, complacent and passive once the sexual abuse starts, not before it does. As the child takes on the shame of the perpetrator's behavior she is caught in the abusive cycle and her silence is almost always guaranteed.

It is difficult to disclose and confront sexual abuse within a family even when it happens today and confronting it years later is especially challenging. But if the trauma of sexual abuse is not brought into the open and the perpetrator exposed, no child is safe within a family where a perpetrator hides. When one child grows up another is found and the cycle is continued along with the silence imposed by the perpetrator. As an adult, she unwillingly continues the silent conspiracy - a silence that she was taught and forced to live when she too was being controlled by the perpetrator's behavior and the family's conspiracy of silence. Until the silence is broken and children are protected, all children are at risk of the trauma of sexual abuse.

Exposing perpetrators is what keeps children safe. It's why the supreme court upheld Megan's Law . It's the reason an Amber Alert is now heard over the radio and television. Offenders are prosecuted and placed on the Sex Offender Registry so they can be monitored and their whereabouts known (at least for a while). But having the laws, the alerts and the registry is not enough when children are allowed to be in the presence of a family perpetrator. The legacy of sexual abuse does not end until children are kept free of a perpetrator's behavior.

Women learn that through their voice and their actions they can stop a perpetrator's cycle of abuse - for themselves and their children. Women and men can take this most important step in the prevention of childhood sexual abuse and when they do their courage should be applauded and each one recognized as heroes. Parents today can benefit from the experience of this special group of women and apply what they know to the growing body of knowledge of how to stop this legacy within their families and prevent this trauma from happening to their child. Keeping children safe is the responsibility of all adults, but it is their parents that children rely on the most to keep them out of harm's way. Ignorance is not bliss, but knowledge is power. Here's hoping each parent has the power, commitment and the love to use their knowledge for the well-being of their child.

Karen A. Duncan is licensed in social work and marriage and family therapy. She recently received the Region 7 Award as Social Worker of The Year from the Indiana Chapter of the National Association of Social Work. Her recent book "Healing from the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse: The Journey for Women" was released in August by Praeger Publishers. She will be the keynote speaker at the Prevent Child Abuse Conference in Illinois on October 6, 2005 and will also be presenting at the Prevent Child Abuse Conference in Indianapolis on May 9, 2005. Ms. Duncan offers free prevention education programs to raise awareness and stop sexual abuse and violence toward children and women. "Adult Education to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse" is available at www.theright2besafe.org.

For any questions you may have, please feel free to contact Karen at karenduncan@healing4women.com.

Please note: The information in this column should not be construed as providing specific mental health or medical advice, but rather to offer readers information to better understand their lives and to encourage a path to well-being. It is not intended to provide an alternative to effective individualized therapeutic or medical assistance or the services of competent professionals who can help with healing and recovery from trauma.

Copyright © 2004 Karen A. Duncan. All rights reserved.