When a Culture of Keeping a Good Reputation Fails Those More Vulnerable in Society
How much do you remember at the age of 3 or 4?
I remember the dolly that when I pushed one of her legs the other moves forward, oh what a wonderful memory, you are walking together… What else can I remember? The grass in the back garden is long and dry, a black shed collapsing in a corner opposite to the place where I lie face down. The floor is hard and dry and dusty, debris is surrounding me, I feel like I am holding tight a brick or a rock, it is hard, that’s all that I remember, a sensation. The fire, the grass burning, I am clearing the garden making it look nice again. I get the wire that is attached to the old shed and I start to pull it, one, two, three, pull, one, two, three, pull, one, two, three, pull! The shed is dead over the scorched soil.
You don’t understand you are broken until someone comes along and reads in your face the brokenness that never heals. There comes the train again and again over the rails and a child lonely in the platform fails to hear its noise, fails to feel the rushing of the wind in her face. It is the rush hour but the station is empty to her eyes. A child stands on the platform, the clock hanging from a metal rafter stops its tick-tock, the child is an adult on the platform where the clock has stopped its tick-tock.
It is time to move on “All aboard”, shouted the controller of the platform. The light starts to fade, the clock doesn’t move and the child is being moved along. Along with a big void where people are just silhouettes in the landscape. Move along in the darkness, the cold the heat. Move along in the time but the clock has stopped. “All aboard”
Christianity teaches us that we can find love and security in God’s presence. Also teaches us that not all who say “Lord, Lord” will be really serving him and trusting him and imitating him. So, equate that God and religion go always hand by hand is a miscalculation. Nevertheless, we look as Christian to be able to live, be part, and belong to a fellowship of light-minded people that help each other, support each other, love the Christ, and love fellow humans.
The Law given to the Israelites through Moses said in Leviticus 19:14
Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but thou shalt fear thy God: I am Jehovah.
As Christians, we may not be always responsible for the brokenness of others but we are responsible for the way we behave towards that brokenness. Special responsibility fell upon those in a position of authority. For instance, among Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization we can point to elders and ministerial servants in the congregation, circuit overseas, branch office officials, and ultimate the Governing Body. Their hierarchical structure determines their degree of accountability in regard to their teachings and policies when dealing with their members.
In the subject of Child Sexual Abuse, it is unquestionable that this organization has the moral obligation to protect and support the victims, disclose the perpetrator to the relevant authorities, and redress the survivors. If they fail in doing so, they are really failing to God.
To what extent children’s vulnerabilities put them a greater risk of sexual abuse? To what extend children abused sexually put them a greater risk of even more and continuos sexual abuse?
I can only answer the above questions with my own personal experience as a victim of child sexual abuse. The abuse doesn’t finish with a particular perpetrator or in a particular time or place. The abuse continues as long as we are unaware of how to deal with it. And we can not deal with it if we can not identify it first of all. The abuse just metamorphosizes in other areas and in the hand of other perpetrators. For instance, as a young adult, I suffer the most terrifying sexual assault in the hands of a relative of a Jehovah’s Witness. Without entering into detail I will say that I went to find support in the local elders of the congregation but I was received with complete silence. Worse, the raper was received with enthusiasm into the congregation, sometime after he got baptize without any concern about his crime against me. Nobody approached me or encourage me to go to the police. Why I didn’t go to the police, after all I was an adult by then. Why did I go back to the place where the assault took place? Why did I feel so guilty?
Identification of abuse comes with knowledge and understanding of information. We need a clear definition of abuse, one that is real, based on demonstrable facts, that can be verified and scrutinize. The following extract is from Awake magazine produced by the Watch Tower Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses which show the instruction I received (millions of its readers as well) as a member a few years before my attack:
“The intended victim should remember that the rapist is a human. No doubt there are circumstances in his life that have precipitated his behavior. So although a woman should not cower in fear and permit a rapist to intimidate her, at the same time she should treat him understandingly, as a fellow human”. Awake!-1984 2/22 pp.24-27
The same article also said:
“But the rapist is asking a person to break God’s law by committing fornication. Under such circumstances a Christian is obligated to resist”.
REALLY?
So I must remember to say please and thank you to the raper and offer him some counseling after? Maybe a cup of tea will do.
Maybe I need to go to my knees and ask God for forgiveness after being brutalized, humiliate and rob of dignity? Maybe I need to be disfellowshiped from the congregation after all.
LUDICROUS?
Bee (Beatriz Brooks)
