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PAEDOPHILEs,
child sexual abuse and the family unit
"The
sole aim of the paedophile is to sexually abuse children. Any display of care,
affection or friendship towards the victim is always secondary to this."
Dr
Bill Glaser (Paedophilia: Policy & Prevention Conference, Sydney April 1997)
FAMILY
SUPPORT FOR VICTIMS
OF PAEDOPHILES (act) INC
PAEDOPHILE
ACTIVITY:
THE IMPACT ON THE FAMILY
"The sole aim of the paedophile is to sexually abuse children. Any display of care, affection or friendship towards the victim is always secondary to this." Dr Bill Glaser (Paedophilia: Policy & Prevention Conference, Sydney April 1997).
Having regard to this indictment against active
paedophiles, it is necessary to
explain how paedophiles think and operate and the "GROOMING" process
they use so effectively.
In order to sexually abuse a child the Paedophile:
Chooses the
child he desires and wants to sexually abuse.
Infiltrates
the family unit.
Spends time
identifying the family dynamics, its strengths and its weaknesses.
Decides on
a plan of action using the family members and the family dynamics to effect the
ultimate goal - sexually abusing the child.
The paedophile
will spend an inordinate amount of time gaining the trust of the parents,
bonding with the child and making himself an indispensable asset.
At this point the Paedophile has elicited the following
facts:
Mother
and father's marriage appears solid. Parents
are old-fashioned with strong Catholic values.
They own their own home, two cars. No
financial problems to exploit. Father
has just got promotion to a high profile job.
There could be a way of encouraging parents to increase their social
life.
Baby of 10
months. Could be a good tool:
babysitter will be needed when parents increase their social life.
The
chosen child victim was very put out by the new baby which took his place as the
youngest and Mum's favourite. Child
obviously vulnerable to acceptance and encouraging a special friendship won't be
a problem.
Teenager
of 15 adores her parents, dotes on the baby and accepts the strict curfews and
dress rules imposed on her by her parents.
Could work on this....every girl likes makeup and trendy gear!
Grandmother
- got to get rid of her. She does
the babysitting which leaves the teenager time at weekends to go visit with her
friends.
With the family dynamics identified the Paedophile now
sets about to undermine and destroy the family
environment.
He is motivated by his narcissistic goal of isolating
the child from the family unit to ensure the privacy needed to effect sexual
abuse.
The unsuspecting family has no idea that the their
family unit is about to be, or has already been, infiltrated.
They family is under siege.
What follows is the systematic destruction of the family
unit, the undermining of the parents' discipline and moral values.
It is very important to understand this fact because , in the post
disclosure, pre-trial period it is the family dynamics that the Paedophile has
manipulated and manoeuvored that become the basis of the Paedophile's defence
that family dysfunction is the cause of the children's behaviour and the
family's disintegration i.e. he
deflects the focus from himself to the family and denies all responsibility.
What happens to a family is akin to the destruction of a bomb that, when dropped, leaves buildings standing, kills the people and leaves the earth contaminated for hundreds of years.
This is how the Paedophile's plan evolves:
1. He persuades the Father to take his wife out at weekends - has seats available at the theatre or at some concerts and ballet performances. Irresistible to the parents!
2. He tells the grandmother that her daughter (the mother) confided in him that she feels threatened by the bond forming between her and the teenage daughter.
3. Grandmother removes herself, gradually finding excuses not to be able to baby-sit.
4. The Mother (grandmother's daughter) feels hurt and let down.
5. The parents now turn to the teenager to baby-sit the children.
6. The teenager becomes hostile towards the grandmother because her weekends are no longer her own.
7. The Paedophile now offers the perfect solution....Why doesn't HE baby-sit?
8. The parents can now go out; the teenager has her life back and the Paedophile can now concentrate on bonding with the potential child victim.
9. Start outings with the child victim and work on getting parents to trust him to take the child overnight, then on weekends.
Below you can see that 1-5 of
the plan are now in place:
The set up is all but complete:
The young child victim starts
playing on the situation to get attention.
This now leaves the paedophile able to start forming a bond with the
child victim. In all this chaos the
one true friend the child victim can rely on is the Paedophile.
The child starts calming down finding all the acceptance and love from
his new friend. The parents are
delighted.
§ Parents can go out knowing the children are with a reliable adult babysitter - the Paedophile.
§ The child victim is happy.
You can see that the
Paedophile has now completed 6 and 7 of his plan of action.
The Paedophile now sets the next part of his plan into
action: isolating the child from
the rest of the family.
The teenager is the next victim.
The Paedophile befriends the teenager and starts talking to her about
boys, make-up and sows seeds in her mind that she's missing out on something
because her friends do things that her parents won't allow her to do.
He starts giving her little gifts.....nail varnish, lipstick, a revealing
top....with a finger to his lips "S-h-h-h-h!
Don't tell Mum or Dad - it's our secret."
The Paedophile is carefully setting the scene for the
inevitable showdown between parents and what is fast-becoming a rebellious
teenager. The teenager is grounded,
making her available to look after the baby.
This now leaves the Paedophile to suggest that he
involve the child victim in some external activity like Little League or Cub
Scouts.
Phase 9 of the plan is going very well:
The Paedophile now has the child victim alone, if only
for a few hours. Gradually, over
time the child victim is allowed to stay overnight, then for a weekend.
The child victim is now completely isolated from his
siblings, his parents, friends and extended family members.
The sexual abuse of the child victim now begins.
This can involve:
v
a gradual seduction process;
v
several children to show the child what is expected;
v
the use of adult or child pornography;
v
using the child for pornography in various sexual acts with
children, adults or animals;
v
the use of drugs and cases of torture have been known
(especially in ritual abuse cases);
v
the use of bodily functions (faeces and/or urine);
v
masturbation
v
oral sex
v anal or vaginal sex
What is commonly known as the The Child Sex Tourism Act makes provision for what constitutes and sexual activity with children and attached is an excerpt from the book An Investigation into Paedophilia.
When a child
discloses sexual abuse at the hands of someone the parents entrusted with the
child they need to talk to someone to check the reality of what they are dealing
with. They need to seek counselling
for the child and for themselves as individuals and as a family unit.
On page one of Dr
Glaser's paper which is Attachment 1
Paedophilia:
The Public Health Problem of the Decade he states:
"The
scourge that we are speaking of is child sexual abuse.
It has accounted for probably more misery and suffering than any of the
great plagues of history, including the bubonic plague,
tuberculosis
and
syphilis. Its effects are certainly
more devastating and widespread than those of the modern-day epidemics which
currently take up so much community attention and resources: motor
vehicle accidents, heart disease and, now, AIDS.
Yet the public response to child sexual abuse, even now, is fragmented,
poorly coordinated and generally ill-informed.
Its victims have no national AIDS Council to advise governments on policy
and research issues. They have no
National Heart Foundation to promote public education as to the risks of smoking
and unhealthy lifestyles. They do
not have a Transport Accident Commission to provide comprehensive treatment and
rehabilitation services for them."
Families
are simply left to cope the best way they can with what has happened to the
young child victim. The muddle through with no support, with blame and
accusations as to the health of the family unit that allowed the abuse to
happen.
If an adult family member is struggling to cope with
child sexual abuse of their own as a result of this latest disclosure, they are
further hampered in their ability to appropriately parent and re-establish a
stable base for the young child victim to heal in.
These unrealistic expectations of the
co-abused family by external government and non-government service providers
often lead to denial of the entire child sexual abuse issue.
We deal with this important issue next.
COST-EFFECTIVE
PREVENTION
What needs to be realised is that the family members are
co-victims of the crime. They have
been used and manipulated to enable the sexual abuse of one of its own members.
As well as being co-victims, therefore, the family members often perceive
themselves as co-abusers.
The aftermath of disclosure for parents whose children
are five years old and under is a series of interviews with Police, Welfare,
doctors, child at risk assessment teams...the message is clear:
has, over time, become fragmented and dysfunctional:
v The once stable marriage fell apart because Dad couldn't cope with his high powered job and the now dysfunctional family dynamics.
v Mum now goes out to work.
v The teenager is openly defiant and hostile and blames the brother (child victim) for the family breakup.
v
The toddler is being sexually abused by the 5 year old child
victim whose learned behaviour patterns are not understood or recognised.
This situation can evolve very quickly if parents are
not aware of the child's learned behaviour patterns.
It has been our experience that children as young as two
(2) can sexually abuse older siblings. It
is for this reason that importance of the dynamics that the Paedophile has
carefully manipulated to his own ends (i.e.
the eventual sexual abuse of the child victim), are recognised and
understood.
In the past three years that we have operated Family
Support for Victims of Paedophiles, we have found that families want to know and
understand what happened to them. They
express the need some kind of closure and, above all, some recognition of the
fact that they, too, have been severely damaged by the betrayal of the
paedophile. It is for this reason
that we are seeking specialist counsellors to become involved in healing the
individual members of the family unit as well as the family as a whole.
The act of sexual abuse of very young children by active
paedophiles whilst being against the law, leave the victims with no protection
or direction other than that provided in the family home by the custodial
non-abusing family. That is why
help for families to deal with the aftermath of disclosure is so vital.
While the main focus for prevention is on young men
(please see Attachment 2 Young Men, Sexuality and Sexual Offending), we
believe that providing appropriate and timely assistance for the family and the
child sexual abuse victim from specialist counsellors and behavioural
psychologists, will do much to prevent the child victim from abusing children in
his own peer group. We have seen it
work time and again where parents have, with a clearer understanding of what
they are actually dealing with gently, but firmly, ensure that the child victim
doesn't overtly display inappropriate behaviours in the bathroom, shower, toilet
or bedroom with other children.
"Sex
before 8 or it's too late" is a saying attributed to various paedophile
groups. Eight years old is deemed the age beyond which child victims
are most likely to disclose sexual abuse. Child
victims are getting younger and some are able to articulate as early as two
years old what has happened to them. This makes early intervention, family support and appropriate
behavioural reprogramming a very real timely preventative measure.
The family unit has
a vital role to play in the healing process of any child that has been sexually
abused by an active paedophile. Professional
support and parental assistance in effectively stopping the next generation of
abusers is, we believe, worthy of encouragement, as is age-appropriate sex
education.
When you take
this in the context of the broader picture and with the full understanding that
Paedophiles are serial sex offenders known to have as many five or more children
in various stages of seduction within their local community, you can see the
implications for the health of the local community.
Multiply this
throughout a community that has no knowledge or understanding of how paedophiles
infiltrate family units and manipulate innocent and vulnerable family members
with the sole purpose of isolating the child victim to enable sexual abuse to
take place, and what you have is a community of families unable to effectively
protect their children and recognise symptoms of abuse.
Family Support
for Victims of Paedophiles (ACT) Incorporated has a telephone line which is
available 24 hours a day for parents to ring and talk about the issues and
problems they are facing.
At paragraph 8.130
of the attached pages you will see
that "ECPat Australia believed that while the Australian child sex
tourism legislation was only part of the solution, the mobility of predatory
paedophiles and child molesters who travel interstate or overseas allowed their
previous offences to go undetected because of the inadequate transferral of
information to relevant agencies. They
suggested the creation of the national data base on convicted child molesters to
help alleviate some of these problems."
When Prime
Minister Howard went to the polls on issues of law and order in 1998 he
undertook to institute a paedophile register.
Paedophile
activity has been recognised as a problem warranting the investment of thousands
of tax dollars in CRIMTRAC which now houses the first paedophile register in
this country.
Much is being
done behind-the-scenes at State and Federal level to attempt to bring about
changes that will see a more National approach to child sexual abuse and the
protection of children from predatory paedophiles.
"A massive public health
problem like child sexual abuse demands a massive societal response. This
conference is hopefully about formulating such a response. But firstly, we need
to acknowledge and understand the problem itself, and this is, sadly enough, a
task which both professionals and the community have been reluctant to
undertake, despite the glaringly obvious evidence in front of us."
Dr Bill Glaser (Paedophilia: Policy
& Prevention Conference)
Sydney 1997
THE
PACSE MISSION IS TO DISSEMINATE INFORMATION
TO HELP REDUCE THE RISK OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE.
In keeping with our objects we have been given
the right to sell the electronic version of
this book written by Michelle Smith and Colin Chapman.
"This investigative book originally began as a
compilation of the collective knowledge and research of a group of eight
individuals, who shared a common interest in the field of investigating,
preventing and treating victims and perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
This group had a depth of knowledge in their individual specialist areas,
and found it beneficial to their own fields of work to share this knowledge of
the abusers, the victims, and the impact of the abuse.
The cumulative knowledge each member provided contributed to a deeper
understanding of the perpetrators and their behaviours.
Two of the group are licensed Private Investigators, one
is a barrister, one is a Psychiatrist, one a Psychologist, another is a Doctor,
another a Journalist and another a Police Officer. They have been involved in over 14 years of active research
and investigation into paedophilia and organised child abuse in over 17
countries."
The electronic version is available in Word format
(email or 1.44 disk) from PACSE at a cost of only $15. Please ring Angela Hanbury-Sparrow on (02) 6292 9164 for
details.
