Incest Survivors healing each other

Press, 21 June 1984, Page 15

Incest Survivors healing each other

What was done to “Elizabeth” was not legally incest, because the culprit was not her father, brother, or grandfather. But it is regarded as the same crime by people in the Incest Survivors’ Group and the Rape Crisis Centre. The child was living in the man’s family on the week-ends and holidays when she was molested, and should have been receiving his care and protection. She was entitled to trust him as she would trust her own father.

Linda Morgan, of the Incest Survivors’ Group, has come across many cases like “Elizabeth’s,” where a woman has been to the police about incest that happened years ago, and nothing could be done. Members of the group have suffered the whole range of sexual abuse, from touching to all kinds of sexual activity imposed on them as children by adults. “About 89 per cent of offenders are known to the child, from fathers to honorary uncles,” says Ms Morgan. “Lots of abusers are step-fathers, de-factos, and uncles.” Incest Survivors’ began in November, 1981, as a very small support group for six women whose objective was to heal themselves of the long-term effects of the sexual

abuse they suffered as children. They met once a week for 12 months and worked through their feelings together. As a result of what they learned, they presented a paper "to a national symposium on child abuse in 1982.

Today, the group’s role is mainly educational. Members talk to professional groups and social welfare agencies about sexual abuse. “We are able to say this is how we felt as kids, and tell them how they can pick it up in other kids,” says Ms Morgan. They have talked to nearly 500 professionals in the last 18 months.

The group also gets a lot of calls from women, many of them referred by doctors and psychiatrists. “They feel a lot more understood by other women who have been through it.” Every six weeks they have an open meeting for incest survivors who have made contact with the group, and those women form other support and healing groups. Linda Morgan estimates that at least 70 Christchurch women have been in touch with the original group since it decided at the end of 1982 to become an educational and contact group for others. These are mainly women now in their 20s to

Children who suffer sexual abuse — and about a quarter of all New Zealand women have been sexually molested, usually by someone they know, by the age of 18 — can be seriously affected in their emotional, sexual, and social development. GARRY ARTHUR completes a series begun yesterday with an account of ‘Elizabeth’s’ ordeal by talking to a representative of the Incest Survivors’ Group about child sexual molestation, and asking a psychologist why some men commit such assaults.

40s who want to do something about how they feel.

Where should victims of sexual molestation turn for help? Linda Morgan recommends Childhelp-line (66-944), Social Welfare, and the police, but she says it is very difficult and unusual for most girls to take the step of reporting what has been done to them.

“They are too scared in case they are not believed, or in case the molester may be taken away and the family broken up. The girl feels guilty too. It takes a strong, brave young girl to go to someone in authority.” Similar problems face the mother if she is told by the child. “It’s a bombshell for most mothers,” says Linda Morgan. “They don’t know what to do or where to go for help, or what the effect will be on the child. “A woman is told, too, that if she was a good wife he wouldn’t be at his daughter. That’s rubbish. They do it because it gives them a sense of power. It’s an abuse of their authority — the way they feel good.”

As well as survivors, the Incest Survivors’ Group is now getting calls from women saying that their daughters are being abused and asking what to do. They are also getting calls from Social Welfare asking them to support people who have come to their attention.

“We have to educate the public that it’s going on and that every child has the right of protection, and must report it,” Ms Morgan says. Incest Survivors’ note that these cases rarely go to court, and when they do the sentences seem light. Linda Morgan adds that offenders get no treatment in prison, and when they come out they frereoffend. “There are good treatment programmes overseas, for victims and offenders, and for other members of the family, but we are nowhere near that here.” Members of the Incest Survivors’ Group know from personal experience the effect of sexual molestation on children. Linda Morgan says they are left with a lack of trust, feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness, an inability to talk about their feelings, and difficulty in relating sexually to men. She says they wVJ confuse affection with a sexual Adolescent girls who have been molested

will seek out affection, but the only way they know is sexual. “Some will sleep around a lot to get a father figure,” says Ms Morgan, “and to get affirmation for themselves that they are O.K. “And of course they don’t get it. They get used by the users who are out there.

“They distrust anyone getting close to them. Their experience affects every single relationship. They distance themselves from their family because they are holding this secret — so it affects their whole life.

“Although a victim will seem normal and successful, appearing capable and confident and coping, it is often a facade. Underneath they have a lot of problems. At the other end of the scale, victims turn into alcoholics, drug addicts, and manic depressives, or develop many different kinds of ailments. “A victim’s basic self-worth is affected by the experience, and she never realises her potential. It’s blocked from the time of the abuse.”

If the justice system fails to deal

with child sexual abusers, what can be done?

Linda Morgan says she can understand the temptation to take the law into your own hands as the vigilante women did in Auckland when they grabbed an alleged rapist and tied him to a tree. But short of that, she says family pressure can be effective, where the family gets together to ostracise the offender. They can also take the practical step of keeping the children or grandchildren away from him.

“They should always confront him, and make him see what he has done,” she says. “It is paramount that he — not she — take responsibility for his actions. “The single most healing thing for the victim is for the offender to say ‘l’m sorry, I was wrong; it is not your fault and you are not to blame.’ Then there would be a lot less damaged women around. It would go a long way towards the victim getting better. “We encourage women to confront their molester in some way. Often they still have contact with him as adults. Just to say ‘You know, I’ve never forgotten what you’ve done to me, and I’m watching you.’ “It is part of the healing process to put the guilt back where it belongs. That also may stop him from molesting other members of the family who are at risk. As long as they keep it a secret it will continue.”

Linda Morgan regards the high incidence of child sexual abuse in New Zealand as a “statement” about our society. ‘lt says what our

society is — bloody sick,” she says. “For any woman it’s a normal childhood thing, to be molested in some way in her childhood. Get women talking about it, and there’s always something they remember.” There is so much of it that Linda Morgan calls it an epidemic. “We don’t want to face the fact that so many of our daughters are being abused, and so many of our men are doing it.”

She conducts self-defence classes at intermediate schools, high schools, and elsewhere, and finds that many of the girls have been molested. The basis of her lessons is to make children feel strong, and to know that they have the right not to be touched in the wrong way. “I explain that there’s good and bad touching, and I give examples. “We must teach kids from the age of four that they have a body that is theirs and to look after it. They know what’s comfortable, and what’s nice and what’s not nice.” She teaches them that if some drunk or dirty old man puts his hand on their knee in the back of the bus they should push his hand away and make a lot of noise — “so that the driver stops the bus and the lady in front turns round and pokes the man in the eye with her brolly.” Linda Morgan want women who need support for problems arising from childhood sexual abuse to know that they are*not alone, and that they can get that support from the Rape Crisis Centre or the Incest Survivors’ Group, both of which can be reached through the Citizens’ Advice Bureau (68-413).