Dear Editor,
Ms Geralda Dennison’s recollection of an unreported case of child abuse in the early 1950s (Letter: “Child abuse is not new in Guyana,” SN Nov. 19, 2007), should jolt the collective memories of those of her generation about similar unreported, but whispered, incidents.
I strongly suspect that child abuse then was as endemic as it is now, but because of social embarrassment, disbelief of the victim’s story and ignorance in handling such cases, the abuses were rarely reported. So it was not a case that “in those days child abuse was rare,” but rather, “in those days reports of child abuse were rare.” Cover-up was the order of the day.
This is why the cycle of child abuse has been perpetuated from one generation to the next. At a child abuse workshop I attended three years ago, I learned of a man who sexually abused three generations of females in his family. The paedophile is often a trusted person: parent, family member, teacher, community/national leader, member of the clergy, officers of the law and the like.
It is only in recent times that reports of child abuse have been surfacing and secular institutions such as UNICEF have been educating the world about child abuse. Religious institutions, on the other hand, have no tradition of preaching against child sexual abuse. Bold preachers seem afraid to tread on taboo grounds, even though those grounds might be the genesis for all adult sexual misconduct. If religion and the churches are as serious about sexual misconduct as they claim to be, then they must preach against child sexual abuse, as this is the ultimate cause of adult sexual perversions. Pruning the leaves and branches of the tree is not enough; they will simply sprout elsewhere. The axe must be laid into the root of the tree. Religion and the churches must join in the battle against child abuse.
“What has been done to you, poor child?”- Sigmund Freud, letter to Wilhelm Fliess, Dec.22, 1897, citing Goethe, after relating his patient’s memory of having been raped by her father at age two. Freud himself recalled having been sexually molested as a little boy by his nurse, who forced him to perform sexually and, he reported, “complained because I was clumsy.” She also washed him in water that contained her menstrual blood.
I notice that letters that denounce child abuse are not as numerous as those against other disapproved practices. Why are persons so reluctant to discuss and deal with child sexual abuse? Is it because they themselves were once abused as children and are afraid and ashamed to face children who have experienced similar trauma? Is it because they themselves are abusers? Is it that our history is founded upon the abuse of children and we are afraid to face our true history? If we truly want to save ourselves, our children and our future we will have to be courageous enough to behold the horror.
The cycle of child abuse must be broken, and all institutions, religious and secular, must stamp it out, or it will stamp us out.
Yours faithfully,
M Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett
