UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 27, 2014
Child protection officials in Rotherham, England are facing worldwide scorn for saying that they did not report the sexual abuse of 1400 children because they feared being branded “racists.”
The child victims were horrifically molested and trafficked by men of Pakistani descent over a 16-year period. At the time, government officials knew about approximately a third of the abuse allegations … and did nothing (or impeded arrest and prosecution).
The news and subsequent fears of “racism” made by police, child protection officials, and other social service workers are appalling and disgusting.
Unfortunately, it’s not surprising.
For victims, the cry of “racism” is only the latest of a stream of obstacles that children face in seeking justice, accountability, and—in this case—rescue from gang rape and sex trafficking.
Child sex abuse is a crime of shame and secrecy. It is a crime of power. It is a crime of dominance. In the vast majority of cases, the children who are abused lack the ability or the words to describe what happened to them. They live in fear of their perpetrators, whom, they believe, will come after them and hurt them for telling. They are helpless, which is why child sex predators are often confident that they will never be caught or prosecuted.
And this is before children are betrayed by the system. The next hurdle they face is fear. Not their own fear, but the fear and cowardice of adults who should have reported the abuse.
We have seen this in the Catholic Church, where for decades, witnesses and church officials didn’t report abuse because they feared that the church would punish them or that they may besmirch the name of a “good priest.”
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