My book club recently met to discuss Tatiana de Rosnay’s fabulous book, Sarah’s Key. The story takes place during World War II, when thousands of Jews who lived in Paris were rounded up in 1942, forced into trains taking them to temporary camps outside of Paris, separated from their children (even babies!), and then shipped off to Auschwitz, where they were executed. The ladies in the book club were judging the Parisians harshly — How could these people watch all of those Jews being rounded up and do nothing? How could they live in such denial? My reply was to quote Edmund Burke:
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke
Then, I brought up the present-day “Holocaust” that we are facing today. I pointed out that 1 in 3 women has been sexually abused. Silence … followed by, “How do you define sexual abuse?”
Then, I asked how many of them had heard about the Protect Our Children Act. Only one of them had because she had seen Oprah talking about it. I told them that, according to the officer on Oprah, he only had the resources to follow up on 2% of the leads before this act passed. That meant that 98% of the photos and videos of children being raped, assaulted, and tortured went into a pile because there were not enough resources to stop their abusers.
You would think that, after the public learned this information, this act would have been a shoe-in, but it wasn’t. You would have thought that the outrage over this “Child Pornography Holocaust” would equal what we say today about how we would have reacted if we had been living in Paris in 1942, but it wasn’t. The Democrats wanted to tack a bunch of pork onto their version of the bill, and the Republicans wanted to include stuff in their version that the Democrats would not support. Each side was so hell-bent on having its own way that the act risked not being passed before Congress recessed for the year.
The only reason the act did pass is that Oprah got enough people riled up to make it happen. I, along with thousands of other people, wrote my Congressmen and said, “If you vote no to this act, then I am voting no to you in November.” Thankfully, the Protect Our Children Act was passed into law, and law enforcement now has the means to investigate, and hopefully stop, many of these predators.
Back to the story … I then said that thousands of children are being pulled out of their beds at night to be sexually abused, some of them on film that is uploaded on the Internet. How many go to our neighborhood school down the street? What are we doing about it?
All that evil needs to prevail is for the good people to do nothing. All child pornographers need is for us to say, “It’s not my child,” or “What can I do about it? I am just one person,” or “It’s none of my business.” Sound familiar? Who are we to judge the Parisians about not getting involved to stop the Jewish round up when we sit here today in denial of an epidemic of child abuse? Have we learned nothing since 1942?
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Thanks for what you did.
Amen……
I live in the mountains of western North Carolina, and after coming forward at the age of (37) and then only to help convict my stepfather on child pornography charges, I have been over whelmed with the information on how much abuse goes on locally, and yet still people look the other way because of shame. I am not certain what I can do to make my mark and help but I am looking and doing some deep soul searching to try and find it.
and Faith you may never know what you site does for me but know that I Love you and what you do …..
I’ve been thinking about this often of late. April was National Child Abuse Prevention Month and the only reason I know that is because I went searching for a myspace icon that listed something about stopping child abuse to put on my page. But how does one actually help? No one could help me because a) my parents pulled me out of school during my developing years because the school wanted to diagnose me with severe learning disabilities and b) I forgot everything. Also, abuse runs rampit in my family so its not really not the norm where I come from. Abuse is common, (sad and angry as that makes me) and its common that where one is abused there are several others as well. How does one stop it? I feel as powerless to help others now as I do to help myself back then. I can’t go report every child I think has been abuse, I may destroy a perfectly good family if I made a mistake. Kids get do get blue and withdrawn for more reasons than just abuse…and lets face it, as a general rule kids aren’t going to talk about the severe stuff whether it’s because of shame (that was me) or because of threats of life or the lives of their siblings or other parents…some how its kept silent. I’m not saying this to attack what you are saying, I’m saying this because I want to help…I just don’t know how. I intend to become a child advocate as soon as Autumn is older and have even thought about becoming a Big for big sisters/brothers but I have temper issues so not so sure that is the best thing for me now…any other thoughts?
Faith,
This is so tough. I agree with everything you’ve said Faith, and yet I also see things from Tawny’s point of view as well. This problem is so systemic and multi-layered that it’s hard to know what is a “right course of action’ as an individual and as a society. I also think we tend to want to solve the whole big picture all at once because it is so abominably wrong and horrific.
To answer you question about how people can judge others about the holocaust… my belief is that it is largely a response to feelings of helplessness and a way assuage guilt about issues in their own lives. (“At least I’m better than that!”) While there are are many similarities and limited options/solutions in both cases (abuse and holocaust) the biggest difference is that the holocaust was not a secret. Child abuse may be very tricky to detect, because of the secrecy and fear on the part of the child, but because even if it is happening, we also know that being in the “the system/ foster care can be as bad or worse than the family of origin.
The part that gets me is the unwillingness of the world society to even address this issue and make it a priority. Thankfully we are starting to get better at recognizing the signs and formulating effective ways of working with children to help them and heal them. Tip of the iceberg, and we have a LONG way to go. At least change is beginning to happen, now it’s a matter of creating momentum. Thanks for all you do Faith.
Peace,
pf
Thank you Faith for this post. I find myself often paralyzed by the magnitude of things. Good grief, my h doesn’t even want me talking about the abuse! But, my heart will not let it alone. When I am working through something horrific a portion of the pain is in knowing some little girl at that very moment is suffering something similar. It breaks me and mobilizes me. Then I get overwhelmed and feel like sitting down ’til the urge passes because “what can I do?” For me, involvement is very slow because I am still fairly fractured and because of the fear barrier. But I have three things I am learning to do a) notice…I am learning to stop turning my face away for fear they will see into my life and know my secret, b) touch…when I see pain in a person, especially a child I try to touch it…that is even if it’s just to smile kindly or listen about a worm or hug (if it’s allowed) or “be with,” it makes that one not alone and if there is more I can do, I will see c) act, even if it’s a small thing…when I learn what the pain is about. Right now I can’t do big things, but I am the confidant and advocate for 3 sisters with an abusive mom. We are approaching resolution. It’s all I can do.
I know this is long. I’m sorry, Faith…again! I’m not a saint. I don’t notice more than I do notice. I fail a lot. But every little bit adds up when we all do something, a letter, a comment on this blog, etc.
Thanks for this blog…it’s such a life-line to sanity for me.
Ruby
I, too, have been thinking on this subject quite a bit of late… with the same level of frustration I see here! When will the world wake up and realize that our children ARE our future and that we are keeping our children and our nations from reaching their FULL potential by not acknowledging and stopping abuse in all forms from happening? How many potential young Picassos, Einsteins and Mozarts have withered away in the corner, mired in shame and fear and unable to break free? Worse yet, how many have died? And how is the human race going to evolve without them?
Reading through the comments made me think about the starfish story:
http://www.starrbrite.com/starfish.html
We cannot change the world, but we can change the world for one child. Every act of kindness matter. Every time we speak out about abuse, it makes a difference. Each time we share a kind word or smile with a hurting child, we make a difference.
We cannot give up because the need is too great. We make a difference one child at a time. If you suspect child abuse, report it. Adopt a child out of foster care. Mentor a child. Tutor a child. Volunteer at a school, a crisis pregnancy center, or a rape counseling center. Serve on a jury and convict the abusers. Write to your congressmen and insist that the laws change to protect the children.
The more we talk about child abuse, the more society will have to step up and listen. I have written to the editors of newspapers that provided wrong information about child abuse survivors. I write this blog. I also write a blog for adoptive parents of abused children adopted out of foster care.
None of us has the ability to save the world, but each of us has the potential to make a difference. Lots of little differences, over time, changes the world.
- Faith
I know how much internal iron it takes to speak up in a room on non-survivors and bring up these issues. It needs doing, but when I do it I know it takes a lot out of me, so I wanted to recognize you for your guts. Congratulations.
I often feel this despair – what can one person do? One of the most inspiring answers I’ve found is Eve Ensler’s Ted Talk. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/eve_ensler_on_security.html
I cry every time I watch it, but it also gives me so much hope.
I was amazed at how difficult it was for me to report something recently. I ran into a situation where a child said something to me, and I felt I needed to report abuse. What shocked and disturbed me is my hesitation… I didn’t know if I was making a big deal of nothing… OMG did that sound familiar! Here I have been an advocate for so long, and then when the rubber met the road, I had to struggle. But it brought to light many things for me in my own healing journey… and I DID make that call for that little boy. A call no one else really wanted to make. It was scary in many ways for me… because when I told when I was young, and an element of authority got involved, it was horrific for me… the system didn’t do the right thing… and to be honest, I don’t always know what the right thing to do always even is! but I just knew that this boy’s life would change, and I wasn’t sure it was for the best or not? But the one thing I knew I could do was make a statement for him, that he was important, and what happened to him MATTERED… no matter what happened afterwards… someone thought he mattered!
Each child is worth fighting for individually… we don’t have to fight for all of them at once to have it be worth something huge.
thanks for this post, sometimes I really need to be reminded!
~Hope