A Voice for the Silent Victims of Abuse

By Dan Lucas
Statesman Journal
January 2, 2014

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20140102/OPINION/301020017/Lucas-voice-silent-victims-abuse?nclick_check=1

Kelly Clark, an Oregon attorney who brought lawsuits against some large organizations on behalf of the victims of sexual abuse, died recently. As well as being a champion for victims of sexual abuse, he also was a self-acknowledged sexual victimizer several decades ago.

He worked to bring justice to victims of abuse within “institutions of trust” such as “the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and school districts.”

I’m writing this to recognize all of the other victims — of all forms of sexual abuse and sex crimes — who are still awaiting justice. The victims whom no one has stood up for yet. The victims who tried to get help from those who are supposed to help and were let down. The victims whose painful stories have not been told yet. The victims who’ve blocked out the painful memories and the victims who’ve succumbed to drugs, alcohol and even suicide because they couldn’t see hope through the pain and hopelessness.

My own brief experience researching and dealing with sexual predators in Oregon politics has shown me that for every known victim, there are many more unknown victims. Unknown to the public anyway.

A February article in Willamette Week cited a 2010 survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that found Oregon has the second-worst rate of rape and sexual violence against women in the nation. The Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) reports that “60 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to police.” The Parents for Megan’s Law and Crime Victims Center estimate there are 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in America (almost one in five Americans), and they cite FBI statistics that indicate only 1 percent to 10 percent of child molestation crimes are ever disclosed.

How many victims in Oregon are stifling a silent scream?

Sexual predators are like the sea lions at the fish runs — they go where the victims are. They also know how to spot unsupported and unprotected victims, and the predators often are drawn to positions of power and influence to better suppress their victims. Writing about Neil Goldschmidt’s victim in February 2011, Dick Hughes of the Statesman Journal wrote that sexual predators “rely on the victim to live in self-blame and self-denial, and the rest of us to ignore the signs of what happened. Too many people in our society have an aversion to knowing the truth about sexual assaults, especially when they involve relatives, friends or other powerful people.”

There is so much more that needs to be done to help these victims. The odds are still very much stacked in favor of the predators in our legal system, the media and our culture. We need to change that dynamic. We need to make it where the predators are the hunted. Where predators are the ones living in fear every minute of every day — fear of being exposed, fear of being caught, fear of being brought to justice.

Dan Lucas of Salem is an independent researcher and policy advocate, and the chief editor for the blog Oregon Catalyst. Follow his work at www.dan-lucas.com or contact him at dan_lucas@ymail.com