Thursday, March 18, 2010

Victims of Child Abuse

The trouble that pedophiles cause is almost incalculable. The harm they cause to children is ungovernable.

Yet the world does little to stop them.

It is true that some are caught and jailed, but that rarely solves the problem.

For a start, jail does not rehabilitate them. More often than not, they get to indulge their perversions socially with others of a similar ilk. They emerge better trained and more able to carry out their abuses with even less chance of detection.

Then, of course, pedophilia is a crime but one highly related to a mental sickness. The sexual desire of children is a mental health issue - so punishment is not going to change it.

Perhaps most importantly, no real effort seems to go into understanding why people turn out to be sexual predators of children. The 10 year old angel turns into Mr Baldy or Mr Nasty - but why? What causes this degradation in their moral, ethical and/or sexual nature? Find out and maybe we can stop it.

We need to understand and so prevent rather than trying to apply band-aid after-the-event solutions.

But not all victims of child abuse are children.

Consider the case of Sarah Monahan who claims abuse on the set of the TV show 'Hey Dad'.

Read the above link and you'll see the key points are:

* Man "fondled and exposed himself"
* Won't say if man was cast or crew
* Didn't talk for fear of job loss

Because (for various reasons and probably most of them quite justifiable) she will not identify the perpetrator, the other members of the show are now suspects.

Without being arrested, without a court hearing and without a sentence being handed down, all other males in that show - on camera or off - are now suspected pedophiles.

In fact, they are all (except one) VICTIMS OF CHILD ABUSE. Because their characters and their careers and their private lives are now on the burner, fingers are pointing, relationships are at risk.

The pedophile (I am assuming the assertion to be true for the moment) has not only impact that poor child but also all those around her.

The Victims of Child Abuse are more than just the children.

Parents accused of abuse but found innocent (or worse, unproven) are victims. Family friends are now suspects - even when no abuse is reported. The man who bends to a child crying in the street is now at risk.

We must do something about these perverts who are pedophiles.

We must find out WHY they are and then implement safeguards so that we do not create more. It is not sufficient to just lock people up.

We need to spend the money. For our kids, for ourselves, for our future.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The problem with the whole case is that now it is being tried by the media.

Justice by journalism isn't justice at all.

What chance does he have of a fair trial.

The interviews have proven that the cast and crew KNEW she was in peril and ultimately sat by and watched it happen.

Sarah fails to realise that making a complaint to the police NOW is very difficult indeed. She will need both times and dates of the alleged abuse. Unlikely that she has these two key ingredients to ensure a conviction.

She says she was offered the chance to leave and she declined because she was the sole breadwinner. At no stage does she say her parents were unaware of the alleged abuse. So they also assumingly sat by willingly and enabled the alleged abuser so she could support the family.

I abhor paedophiles. I think they should be disposed of, and as a victim of such a crime I have an intimate understanding of this topic. However, making allegations 20 years later, well.....they ought to have been made at the time of the acts.

It just seems that everyone was more concerned about lining their pockets and not about the welfare of the girl. Had any of them spoken up perhaps the show would have been axed. They seemingly chose profit over right.

The whole situation is appalling but trying him in the media 20 years later after such a long silence is also unsatisfactory.