I’m so happy to welcome Twindaddy from http://stuphblog.wordpress.com/ as a guest poster on my blog. This is a powerful and chilling message.
Victims of abuse aren’t just victimized by their attackers, but sometimes they are also victimized by the system. The very system that is supposed to protect them.
Nine years ago I was devastated to find out that my stepson, who had just returned home from a two-year behavioral rehabilitation program, had molested his sister. We found out the hard way. He hadn’t even been home a week when he, my stepdaughter, and the twins were all playing in the basement when I heard my stepdaughter begin yelling, “Stop!”
When I questioned why she was shouting she told me her older brother was trying to force her to sit in his lap. That struck me as very odd, but at the time it didn’t set off any alarms. I mean, the boy was only 13. I called him upstairs and put him in his room until his mother came home from work.
His mother, however, suspected something was amiss. Having been molested when she was a child she knew that something else was up and she questioned her daughter intensely only to find out that her son had molested her daughter multiple times BEFORE he was put into behavioral rehab two years ago and it appeared he was attempting to pick back up where he left off. That means at age 11 this boy was molesting, and at least once, sodomized, his 7-year-old sister.
My wife was devastated. I was devastated. I was stricken with guilt because all of that had happened in MY house and I hadn’t known about it. Not a clue. We immediately took the boy to the sheriff’s department where he was interrogated by a detective, and admitted to everything his sister had accused him of.
The first instance of the system failing, or at least attempting to fail, my stepdaughter was the court appointed attorney defending my stepson. He attempted to argue to the judge that my stepson’s admission of guilt should be dismissed as we clearly didn’t have his best interests at heart in taking him to speak to the detective. THAT pissed me off. How dare you, sir? So we should hold the interests of the child who admitted, essentially, to raping his younger sister over the interests of the child who was abused? It took everything I had not to deck that attorney right there in the middle of the courtroom. Luckily the judge dismissed his request and my stepson was brought up on charges and taken into state custody for another behavioral rehabilitation program.
Me, my wife, my stepdaughter, and even the twins (who were five at the time) all had to attend a sexual abuse course. The twins learned about inappropriate touching. My stepdaughter’s course was one of grief and dealing with the feelings of having been abused by a family member. My wife and I were put through an educational program and taught what signs to look for and how to help our little girl recover.
Then the system truly failed. The court appointed case worker, who was the same case worker my stepson had previously, outlined a rehabilitation plan for my stepson with the end goal of him returning to our home. Let me repeat that again for emphasis. The case worker wanted to eventually return to our home a person who had sexually abused our little girl. He wanted them to live in the same house again. Uh uh. No way. I went off.
You are not putting a child molester in a house with three other children! You’d arrest our asses if we knowingly brought a sex offender to live in our house! If he was over 18 and we let him live there you’d take the children away! How on earth are you going to expect a victim to live with her attacker! What the fuck is wrong with you?
My anger-fueled tirade, and a rant from my wife, fell on deaf ears and a heart of stone. In the end, to prevent him from being placed back in our care, my wife had to give up parental rights to her son. She choose to relinquish custody of him to the state. It is a decision that haunted both of us, but it absolutely destroyed her. It was the right thing to do and she knew it was the right thing to do, but what kind of system puts that choice on a mother? How is Child Protective Services protecting that young little girl by expecting her to live with the monster that assaulted her? How can you expect any sane parent to be okay with her daughter being forced to live with her attacker?
Social Services is a joke. Law enforcement, unfortunately, is sometimes not much better. Victims continue to be victimized simply because they were victimized and it’s sickening.
There is hope!
