The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Sexual violence in the family - study: "My father put fear in my cradle"

2021-09-07T13:11:09.960Z


In a study on child abuse, victims use disturbing accounts of their traumatic experiences. According to the experts, those affected often have to suffer for a long time - because the environment does not intervene.


Enlarge image

Child with cuddly toy (symbolic picture)

Photo: imago images / Kirchner-Media

The family is generally the place where a child feels safe and secure.

Protected from the injustice of the outside world.

But if violence reigns in this inner world, if the people who should love the child instead torment and humiliate him, then trust is lost forever.

Children and adolescents are most often abused in the family environment.

From fathers and stepfathers, mothers and new partners, from grandparents, uncles or siblings.

The Independent Commission for Coming up with Child Sexual Abuse today presented its latest study on sexual violence in the family.

1041 people had entrusted themselves and their fate to the commission founded in 2016.

870 cases from 1945 to the present day were examined for the report.

These are stories that get under your skin, some of which should be quoted here, not to serve voyeurism, but because it took a lot of strength for those affected to put their worst experiences into words.

And because it is supposed to remind you that something similar is happening somewhere in Germany today, at this moment.

And that not only the families themselves, but also society must take on responsibility - a declared aim of the authors of the study.

The person concerned, Anja, told the commission about the constant feeling of being followed and cornered by the perpetrator:

“When I tried to lock myself up in my room, I often found that my father had stuck small wooden blocks in the slits in the door so that I couldn't lock the door.

I mostly noticed it and removed it.

It was so terrible for me to see that he tried by all means to take my last security.

If I forgot to lock the door to my room, my father would be in the room.

Every day and always he tried to get up to me and touch me, to bare himself, to corner me and kiss me.

«

One finding of the study is that sexual violence in families often goes hand in hand with other forms of violence - as with Anja.

“Once at table we had conflicts again. At some point in the course of the argument I yelled at my father that I wished he were dead. After that, my father beat me up so badly that my mother thought I would be dead soon. But she couldn't beat him. I screamed out loud "Sorry" to make him stop. He was mad. I hated myself for having to apologize. But I feared for my life. I was a good twelve or thirteen years old at the time.

«

89 percent of those affected by abuse in the cases analyzed were women, while men were the most frequent perpetrators.

Fathers made up the largest group among them at 36 percent.

Eight percent were mothers.

If you add foster parents and step-parents, 48 ​​percent of fathers and ten percent of mothers committed sexual offenses.

Reports of accomplices

The reports about mothers who did not become perpetrators - but accomplices because they remained silent or suppressed the situation are shocking.

One of the victims reported that her mother always used a kind of "vote of confidence" by leaving the children alone with the abusive partner.

And that was a Sunday or something, a weekend, when she went running in the woods. And although she knew that I was alone in the house with him. And then he let in a bath and then I had to sit in there and he would lay down on me and his member there, etc. And then in the forest it must have somehow occurred to her that it was not a good idea and came back. And ... she forgot the key and rang the bell. And this ringing made him so panicked because I was wet, he was wet and maybe he didn't know - I don't want to explain it now, but - how to explain it. Then he decided to take me around the corner. So then soaked me until I was gone.

«

There is talk of a killing attempt to cover up the crime, but it failed.

The authors of the study recapitulate how perfidious the abusers tried to evade their exposure through threats:

  • A father turned the neck of his daughter's stuffed bear and said that this happened to children who talked too much.

  • Another threatened that he would drown his victim like kittens in the toilet if it told anyone about it.

  • One perpetrator worked as a detective on a homicide squad and was able to access pictures of dead children.

    He showed this to his victim from early childhood on, saying it would end like this if it said something.

Enlarge image

Sabine Andresen, Chairwoman of the Independent Commission for Coming Up With Child Sexual Abuse

Photo: imago / Metodi Popow

Others made death threats or strangled the children, starved them, and imprisoned them.

Still others lured people with gifts and privileges promised redemption, even lavage through rape.

Of the 870 cases treated, 141 could be assigned to a ritualized and / or organized structure within which children were passed on to third parties and thus profits were made.

The authors show that sexual violence has to do with the humiliation and humiliation of the weaker, including racism, sexism and marginalization.

And that there is a language that humiliates.

A language that conveys: If you talk about the abuse, you are dead.

Such threats are having an effect, and most of the victims have been silent for many years.

The abuse is almost always accompanied by a systematic devaluation of children and young people.

For those affected it is difficult to differentiate between humiliation and sexual assault, between emotional violence and sexualised language, between physical abuse and rape.

One of the victims rejected the alleged voluntary nature of sexual acts, often cited by perpetrators, with a devastating rejection

:

»

My supposed harmony with my father, my supposed voluntariness, were always dictated by nameless fear. (...) This fear made me freeze, switched off my brain and let time stand still. This fear is not a fear of pain, of violence, although of course I have it there too, but this fear is mobilized when the idea of ​​tenderness. Tenderness that my father showed me like an adult, although I was still a child, neither flirtatious nor cunning, neither seductive nor slutty, neither sensual nor erotic. But the fact that my father believed that I was the way he always attributed it to me out of his sickness (...) is the core of my fear.(...) My father gave me fear in the cradle and it will stay with me until the end of my days.

«

At the crime scene of the family, the basic conflict arises between private space that is worthy of protection and the right of children to be intact: »The Basic Law assigns parents the right and the duty of upbringing.

Only in the event of their failure does the state's guardianship come into play, «says co-author Sabine Andresen, who is the chairwoman of the commission.

"But before the family is interfered with from outside, children and young people have to suffer for a long time in many cases." People in the family environment all too often shy away from intervening: "They think it is none of their business Front door is going on. "

"Child sexual abuse is not a private matter"

The study reports a shockingly high number of victims who turned to youth welfare offices themselves and who were not believed nationwide for decades.

It is said that the willingness of social education professionals to believe the assurances of mothers and fathers is widespread.

The basic attitude still prevails that ultimately one's own family is the best place for a child.

The demands of the experts: neighbors, teachers, educators, doctors, employers, siblings or friends and acquaintances should formulate their suspicions earlier.

The processing should not be left to those affected alone - witnesses and relatives would have to take responsibility and share their knowledge.

"Child sexual abuse is not a private matter," says Andresen.

In the area of ​​tension between autonomy and dependency, it is particularly difficult within the family to break free.

"You can't shake your family off, you can't leave it like you would from a club," the study says.

In any case, this is only a possibility for older people affected.

In almost half of the cases examined, sexual abuse occurred before the age of six.

Infants and young children were also among the victims.

"I was sexually abused by my grandfather at an age when I couldn't speak," says one of the victims.

"So it was a very long way to discover this and develop a language for it."

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-09-07

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-29T13:13:37.579Z
News/Politics 2024-02-29T14:24:06.943Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.