Child Abuse Victims Usually Go Undetected

We detect only a small percentage of the victims of child abuse.

Despite all we know of child abuse, the experts say we've seen just the tip of the iceberg.

The abuse we speak of is far more rampant than most people suspect, and what statistics indicate. The majority of abused children say nothing about the horror they endure. No one knows, so nothing gets done.

Here is a direct quote from a newspaper back in December 2, 1998, "As many as one in five boys is sexually abused, according to an analysis that tries to put the best number yet on a crime that often goes unreported…it concluded that sexual abuse of boys is underreported and undertreated…"

Also, back in March second, 2003, there was an article titled, "18,000 child abuse inquiries in '02". The article stated, "It is the rare case that results in…action. Almost 91 percent of similar allegations of abuse investigated by the department last year were unsubstantiated…" On the same date in the same paper, there was the following article, "Three notorious cases that slipped through the cracks"

In that article we learned, "Social workers visited the Redlands home of 15-year-old Zachary Moore just months before he stabbed his 14-year-old brother to death in 1996…Zachary, who was profiled last year in a newspaper series, said his parents cleaned the house and put on an act for the social worker. Zachary said he lied to protect what he considered family business…"

Whenever a child is abused, their abusers quickly intimidate them into their silence. They often threaten the child's life. The victims are so terrified that they live in a state of abject fear. There are psychiatric terms that describe this fear. Professionals have learned of a process termed "The Stockholm Syndrome".

In 1973, four Swedes held in a bank vault for six days during a robbery became attached to their captors, a phenomenon dubbed the Stockholm Syndrome. The captives begin to identify with their captors. Victims kept on defending the robbers even after their captivity was over. Just recently there was a case where a young girl named Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom. The kidnapper took her up to some local hills just behind her home. There, searchers came looking for her. She heard her uncle's voice, but was too intimidated to call out for help.

Long-term captivity builds even stronger attachments. Driven by terror, abused children endeavor to both please and protect their abuser. Alone, without hope, they would never tell on their abuser.

Articles about abuse, and the manifestations of abuse are in my local newspapers almost every day. Recently, there was an excellent series titled, "Teens Who Kill". But it wasn't the first such series to address the abuse issue, nor will it be the last. Back in August the second of 1998, there was another excellent series titled, "Focus on Kids, Silent Crisis". From a great article titled, "Growing Plight, Growing Concerns", I quote an experienced professional from the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Crimes Against Children unit, "We're catching more of these cases, but I think it's just the tip of the iceberg…"

Although the majority of child abuse is committed by someone the child considers a close friend, or family, there are many abusers who become counselors, therapists, day-care workers, and aimless drifters like Brian Mitchell, who abducted Elizabeth Smart. As we can see from the recent articles about the Catholic Church, even priests are suspect.

On 1-12-03 I read a really excellent article with the title, "Church abuse survey reveals some patterns" in my local paper. A quote from that article is as follows, "The sexual abuse crisis that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church in the last 12 months has now spread to nearly every American diocese and involves more than 1,200 priests…4,268 people…have claimed publicly or in lawsuits to have been abused by priests, though experts say there are surely many more who have remained silent…"

Pedophiles often devote years of their lives worming themselves into such institutions. Every vocation where there is an opportunity to hurt children has some of these 'individuals'. We've all read about abuse in hospitals, in schools, and in orphanages.