Articles

Articles by Rebecca Mitchell on sexual abuse

If your child were sexually assaulted or raped would you expect them to go and have tea with the perpetrator? And yet that is often the church's response to the often unacknowledged and untalked about epidemic of sexual abuse that our world experiences. We are shocked and outraged when celebrities are strewn all over the tabloids because they have been caught looking at child pornography on the Internet yet often have very little resources to give to the victim who is often deeply suffering other than — “you must forgive”.

Simple answers to a very complex problem come cheaply to many Christians “forgive and forget” or “its all in the past” are often accompanied with the much quoted verse from Paul “Forgetting what is behind and straining to what is ahead” (Philippians 3 v 3). And yet this is not the context of this verse. Paul was actually talking about his own traumatic past  and re—evaluating his life in the light of his relationship with God — not pretending his past did not exist.

Perhaps the worst example of Christian naiveté is a young woman who told me her church had told her to go round to the father that had molested her for years and tell him she forgave him. She obediently but reluctantly returned to her old home where he took her in and raped her. 

Child Abuse and abusers are very much in the news today particularly after the tragic death of Sarah Payne in Summer of 2000 and subsequent action by the media; for example the “News Of the World” ran a “Name and Shame” campaign which led to vigilante attacks on peadophiles — some on  people who were innocent. TV Personalities are exposed in the tabloids for their secret  abusive pasts or murky presents and demonised by the media as perverts and monsters but this is not the case. In fact if only the problem were that easy to deal with!

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Abusers appear no different to any other man or woman and come from every social strata — builders, doctors, teachers or pastors. Many of the people I have counselled over the years have been abused by Christians, often family members and also frequently in Christian leadership. The chances are that you are sitting or have sat next to someone in your own church who is involved in some way with child abuse.

And even more probable someone who is suffering the effects of being abused.

Research also shows that most abusers are not only known to the victim but related to them. They are not strangers at all. In fact the majority of teenagers who phoned Childine between 1991 and 1992 for help for physical or sexual abuse cited their father as the perpetrator.

Just think about that for a moment. Imagine the implications of how you'd feel if you knew your partner was having an affair. Now picture how you'd feel if you found out the other party was your best friend, someone you had trusted, confided in — loved even. Would you expect yourself to continue to enjoy a deep relationship with that person?

How widespread is Sexual Abuse?           
The figures are very alarming. In 1991 a survey was done by the Child Abuse Studies Unit of North London and revealed that one in two girls (59%) and one in four boys (27%) will experience child sexual abuse by the time they are 18.

Sadly, it is not a problem that is just confined to the West. In South Africa some surveys suggest that up to a third of South Africans believe that having sex with a virgin will cure the body of AIDS. This belief has led to rape of many babies. The Bangkok based international child protection campaign group (ECPAT — End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) has said that marriage contracts can be found all over the Middle East and South Asia to be a cloak for child abuse.

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2 Samuel 13 charts the story or Tamar, a young daughter of King David — she was raped by her older brother Ammon at the probably age of 13 or 14. The resulting chaos that followed led to the eventual death of Ammon and the heir apparent Absalom. Tamar is never mentioned again, but we are left in no doubt that her life was ruined.  No man would marry her now.

Child sexual abuse may have been with us throughout the ages, but it has remained hidden, and it is only relatively recently in the UK that legislation protecting the victim has been implemented. Because sexual abuse was not seen it was believed to not exist. It is has only been since the 1980s that professional attention from social workers to GPs to teachers have been mobilised to look more closely at child sexual abuse. The ball actually started rolling after a survey was taken in 1986 by the BBC Programme “That's Life” asking viewers for their help in an investigation into child abuse. Three thousand adults completed the survey and 90% of them said they had experienced child sexual abuse. They also found that children today were suffering as much as had their predecessors.

As a direct result of this child care professionals and the voluntary sector established of “Childline” a confidential help-line for children. When it was first launched in 1986 in the first year of the operation 6,000 of its 23,000 calls were received from victims of sexual abuse. It seems that after this highly publicised media event our society at last sat up and took notice that sexual abuse was happening — and was happening now.

There are however a number of factors involved in the increase of child abuse today:

Child Pornography
Involves minimal chance of being caught or persecuted, therefore serves as an optimal means of increasing stimulation. David Middleton of the West Midlands Probation Service: “Most of the men we work with who have abused children have started with pornography. We believe there is a definite link” (The Independent 10th May 2000).

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Abandonment and Breakdown of Marriage
In Queensland, Australia studies were done exploring the link between step families, blended families and lone parent families and child abuse. They found out that although natural parent families accounted for 74% of families they were only responsible for 20% of child abuse. Families which were single parent or had become step families accounted for two-thirds of child abuse.  The study also found that  where a woman is cohabiting with a man who is not the natural father of her child — the child is thirty three times more likely to be abused. (Statistics from “The Men's Agency Network”).

How Abuse Affects A Person
The legacy of untreated sexual abuse on our society is devastating:

Homelessness and Prostitution
A report in 1992 by CHAR (Campaign for Homeless People) found that over

40% of homeless girls were fleeing from sexual abuse. An associated problem is prostitution. Children who run away from home are often forced into selling their services. A proportion of teenage pregnancies are the result of child sexual abuse and Doctors are recommended since 1988 by the DHSS to consider the possibility of child sexual abuse for all teenage pregnancies where the father is not known.

Needless to say other repercussions on victims today may be less dramatic but are personally just as devastating. The after affects in adult life can range from depression and loneliness through to dangerous addictive behaviours with drugs and alcohol to suicidal feelings, and perhaps even more worrying the tendency to find an equally abusive partner and so the pattern continues. 

Relationships – Trust
Relationships with others/self/God are all severely affected by sexual abuse. Why? Simply, because relationships are ultimately about trust and the one fundamental issue about abuse is it is a betrayal of trust. As we have seen earlier the closer the person was to you the deeper the betrayal. That trust has been broken at a very fundamental level means it is very difficult to trust anyone again. A lot of the work we do in the group is around looking at trust issues.

Distrust and betrayal leads to extreme loneliness and pain and people begin to look for ways out of their pain  to addictive behaviours — such as drinking or using drugs or even food just to be relieved from the internal pain they feel.

Feelings of Powerlessness and Fear
Abuse often leaves people feeling they don't have any power in life — they have been made to feel so powerless that they can go through life feeling that they have no real choices and often can't seize control of their life.  This can lead to re-victimisation by simply not knowing you can say no.  Dan Allender, the deeply respected author and counsellor calls this the “Trail of Tragedy” as an abused person goes from one abusive situation to another never able to really see that they have rights and dignity as a person.

Christianity is about empowerment through the Holy Spirit and confidence in God, but abused people often cannot lay proper boundaries for themselves and so lead a life where they are re-victimised by the same kind of people — for example marrying someone who is very controlling or abusive.

Also because of the sheer terror and fear of what they have experienced some women suffer from panic attacks and experience intense feelings of fear at times especially during relationships with men — which makes it very difficult for them and of course their partner.

The other side of this is that some victims become incredibly controlling in relationships and won't let anyone fully access them or their world, because they feel they have been stripped of power before and don't want it to happen again. Obviously this does not  lead to healthy relationships.

Feelings of Shame
Shame is the big issue with abuse. Shame is why people stay silent and don't come forward for help. Shame is all around abuse because its about sex firstly and to experience a sexual abuse is somehow seen as much more shameful than to experience a physical or material abuse or loss.  And yet the sad thing is that the very person who should not carry the shame of the abuse — the victim usually does. The person who has instigated the abuse is more likely than not in denial about it and so does not alleviate any of these feelings for the victim. Abused people tend to live their lives in secret and not share their pain with others for fear that they will be blamed and the other person's perception of them will change.

How we can help people who have been sexually abused.

Acceptance
Being accepted no matter where you or what you are feeling is incredibly healing. We may look at the outward appearance of someone or their behaviour and make judgements but this often is not the real issue. “Man looks at the outward — God looks at the heart”. (1 Samuel 16 v 7) We often need to give people time, space and support to change and grow. As Matthew tells us in Chapter 3 v 10 we need to look not just at the appearance but the inside of a person — “Lay the axe at the root” — and try and understand  what is driving the behaviour and not just judge the behaviour itself. 

Acknowledging the harm done
Jeremiah 6 v 14 says “they dress the wounds of my people as though they are not serious“ Many times I have heard that Christians have felt condemned  by others for not being “over it“ already. They are also often made to feel they are  making too much of it and yet the world sees sexual abuse as a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment. Society takes it seriously and as servers of a God of Justice so should we. 

Being sensitive around forgiveness
We need to understand that forgiveness for some people takes time and like holiness can be a long term event. When we look at Joseph he said to his brothers “You intended to harm me...but God intended it for good.”  (Genesis 50 v20) Joseph fully acknowledged the harm done and did not minimise it and from that point of view gave a full and deep forgiveness.

We also need to understand there is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. As Christians we walk towards forgiving everyone but  we need the discernment to know that some people are unrepentant and that we cannot then be fully reconciled to them. We can only be reconciled to people if they acknowledge the harm done and have fully faced the consequences of their sin which often requires counselling and close accountability. Restoration of relationship, even with someone who has been an abuser, is possible but only if the person has shown a deep accountable and repentant change.

Role Modelling
The church is the ideal place for people who have not experienced good family life to see how to run a healthy relationship where there is respect and equality. Having a healthy and happy open home to others is an incredibly powerful very natural way that Christians can be part of the healing and restoration process.

Although of course ultimately our primary relationship is with God  we need other people to be part of the healing process — after all for most people it was a relationship in which they were damaged so it is in relationships that restoration and repair takes place. 

Into The Light
I started the support and recovery group I run in 1993. As a victim of abuse myself  and having received some growth I wanted to provide a safe place within the Christian Community for healing to begin for others. I went onto train as a counsellor and am surprised to find myself still running the group ten years later.

The group I run  has six core aims:
• To be bought into a closer walk with God
• Remove blocks in Christian life
• Put the past in perspective
• Reclaim damaged parts of personality
• Develop better relationships
• Serve others better

I realise of course that my work is so small compared to the enormity of the problem. I can only help a handful of women each year. It is a dark area, an area many Christians avoid  yet it does not have to be an area where hopelessness and despair have to dominate, with insight and God’s strength the church can be the beacon of light to those victims inside and outside his Kingdom who have “wounds and bruises and open sores not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil” (Isaiah 1 v 6). Rob Parsons of “Care” consistently inspires me with his courageous statement on our role in this world. He said “The task ahead is daunting but with God’s help we need not be discouraged. All the darkness in the world cannot hide the light of a single candle.”

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