How They Abuse
They take advantage of people,
especially children and teens, those who are young, or impressionable
and easy prey. They also take advantage of adults – yes, they know how
to play to adults too.
They
are accomplished liars. They know how to draw victims in with a
combination of charm and threat. They can be magically captivating. They
do not hide; rather they interact openly with their victims and
families.
They tend to be fearless and if caught they
can be convincing in their denials. If caught on video molesting a child
they can just as easily deny that it is they, despite the pictures, as
they are to blame their victims. Very few are willing to acknowledge
that they have a problem controlling their abusive tendencies, the first
and most necessary step to address their problem.
They take advantage of the fact that the
organizations they work for provide them with a pool of likely victims.
And if someone reports them to their superiors at work, they believe
that the desire to protect the school, camp, youth organization,
whichever organization they work for, will act as cover for them – for
that is the way it usually is.
They also know that if caught and confronted
they can usually slip away and go to some other organization because
traditionally no one is likely to warn anyone else.
Abusers are both so convincing and threatening
that the idea of reporting to the authorities does not usually arise.
No one can believe that such a nice person is so bad. Unfortunately, too
many people are also lured in by the idea that they should not report
to the police, telling rabbis instead. While rabbis may have the best of
intentions, they are not trained investigators.
Abusers do such heinous things that most
people simply cannot believe that this caring, sensitive teacher,
counselor, therapist, rabbi or principal can be so evil. They rely on
that image because they are accomplished actors who lure their audience
in, grooming them to believe their inherent and well-rehearsed persona.
They threaten the people they victimize so that in most cases the offended are afraid to tell what was done to them.
They are child sexual abusers. They prey on
children of all ages. Some abusers target young children. Some victimize
adolescents, some target teens or older teens. Some select young
adults. It has been estimated that these abusers usually harm as many as
100 people over the course of their predatory lives.
In spite of some very recent serious efforts
to educate, we are still naïve about the plague of sexual abuse and how
children are groomed. We still believe that we can send our children off
to school, camp, seminary, or yeshiva without doing a serious
investigation of the facility and teaching our children to properly
protect themselves.
This is not a new phenomenon. In the last
eight years, we have begun to hear more about it, not because CSA is a
new trend but because some very brave individuals are finally coming
forward and talking about what happened to them at the hands of their
abusers. I have treated and spoken with individuals in their 40’s, 50’s,
60’s and older who were abused in a school, dormitory or camp setting.
I have written extensively about this issue
and I am compelled to continue to do so. Parents are very trusting. “It
won’t happen to my child,” they say. “What can happen to my daughter in
seminary? She can take care of herself.” Summer camp has begun and
hopefully there will not be any incidents but that is unlikely.
Soon all those students spending a gap year or
more in Israel will be on their way to study and grow. If not well
prepared these young adults, aged eighteen to twenty, even older, are
all vulnerable. There is no doubt that some will fall into the hands of
abusers.
There is talk about training vast number of
educators. I have my suspicions about how effective that training may
be, particularly if it is watered down to suit the needs of misplaced
modesty.
We may not be able to stop all sex abusers but
we can certainly do more to reduce their horrific impact. We must do a
better job to train our children and ourselves with an awareness of the
reality of CSA. We must do a better job of reporting to the proper,
trained authorities as soon as we suspect. After all, that is the law,
and it is the law for a very good reason. If we do not act swiftly and
properly, we are assisting abusers to continue their offenses.
Finally, a language exists that allows us to
begin to understand and tackle the problem of CSA. It barely existed 50
years ago. We should all learn the jargon; it is the minimum necessary
to address this scourge.
An excellent article.
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