essay on sexual abuse

About Sexual Assault

Sexual violence happens in every community and affects people of all genders and ages. Sexual violence is any type of unwanted sexual contact. This includes words and actions of a sexual nature against a person’s will and without their consent. A person may use force, threats, manipulation, or coercion to commit sexual violence.

Forms of sexual violence include:

• Rape or sexual assault
• Child sexual assault and incest
• Sexual assault by a person’s spouse or partner
• Unwanted sexual contact/touching
• Sexual harassment
• Sexual exploitation and trafficking
• Exposing one’s genitals or naked body to other(s) without consent
• Masturbating in public
• Watching someone engage in private acts without their knowledge or permission
• Nonconsensual image sharing

There is a social context that surrounds sexual violence. Social norms that condone violence, use power over others, traditional constructs of masculinity, the subjugation of women, and silence about violence and abuse contribute to the occurrence of sexual violence. Oppression in all of its forms is among the root causes of sexual violence. Sexual violence is preventable through collaborations of community members at multiple levels of society—in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, faith settings, workplaces, and other settings. We all play a role in preventing sexual violence and establishing norms of respect, safety, equality, and helping others.

What is consent?

Consent must be freely given and informed, and a person can change their mind at any time.

Consent is more than a yes or no. It is a dialogue about desires, needs, and level of comfort with different sexual interactions.

Who does sexual violence impact?

Victims of sexual violence include people of all ages, races, genders, and religions — with and without disabilities.

• Nearly one in five women in the United States have experienced rape or attempted rape some time in their lives (Black et al., 2011).
• In the United States, one in 71 men have experienced rape or attempted rape (Black et al., 2011).
• An estimated 32.3% of multiracial women, 27.5% of American Indian/Alaska Native women, 21.2% of non-Hispanic black women, 20.5% of non-Hispanic white women, and 13.6% of Hispanic women were raped during their lifetimes (Black et al., 2011).

Victims often know the person who sexually assaulted them.

People who sexually abuse usually target someone they know.           

• Nearly three out of four adolescents (74%) who have been sexually assaulted were victimized by someone they knew well (Kilpatrick, Saunders, & Smith, 2003).
• One-fifth (21.1%) were committed by a family member (Kilpatrick, Saunders, & Smith, 2003).

Victims are never at fault.

Choosing to violate another person is not about “drinking too much,”  “trying to have a good time,” or ”getting carried away,” nor is it about the clothes someone was wearing, how they were acting, or what type of relationship they have with the person who abused them. Violating another person is a choice.

Rape is often not reported or convicted.

A person may choose not to report to law enforcement or tell anyone about a victimization they experienced for many reasons. Some of the most common include:

• a fear of not being believed
• being afraid of retaliation
• shame or fear of being blamed
• pressure from others
• distrust towards law enforcement
• a desire to protect the attacker for other reasons

The Impact of Sexual Violence

The impact of sexual violence extends beyond the individual survivor and reaches all of society.

Impact on survivors

An assault may impact a survivor’s daily life no matter when it happened. Each survivor reacts to sexual violence in their own way. Common emotional reactions include guilt, shame, fear, numbness, shock, and feelings of isolation.

Physical impacts may include personal injuries, concerns about pregnancy, or risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. Economic impacts of sexual violence include medical and other expenses in addition to things like time off work. The long-term psychological effects survivors may face if their trauma is left untreated include post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, isolation, and others.

Impact on loved ones

Sexual violence can affect parents, friends, partners, children, spouses, and/or coworkers of the survivor. As they try to make sense of what happened, loved ones may experience similar reactions and feelings to those of the survivor such as fear, guilt, self-blame, and anger.

Impact on communities

Schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, campuses, and cultural or religious communities may feel fear, anger, or disbelief when sexual assault happens in their community. Violence of all kinds destroys a sense of safety and trust.  There are financial costs to communities including medical services, criminal justice expenses, crisis and mental health service fees, and the lost contributions of individuals affected by sexual violence.

Impact on society

The contributions and achievements that may never come as a result of sexual violence represent a cost to society that cannot be measured. Sexual violence weakens the basic pillars of safety and trust that people long to feel in their communities because it creates an environment of fear and oppression.

A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that individual victims of sexual violence incur $122,461 over a lifetime in costs associated with lost wages, health, criminal justice, and property damage (Peterson et al., 2017). Additional research shows that sexual violence can derail a person’s education and employment, resulting in a $241,600 income loss over a lifetime (MacMillan, 2000).

Sexual assault and the related trauma response can disrupt survivors’ employment in several ways, including time off, diminished performance, job loss, and inability to work (Loya, 2014).

In 2015, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alone recovered $164.5 million for workers alleging harassment (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2016). Indirect costs for employers include decreased productivity, higher turnover, and reputation damage.

Black, M. C., Basile, K. C., Breiding, M. J., Smith, S. G., Walters, M. L., Merrick, M. T., Chen, J., & Stevens, M. R. (2011). National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010 summary report . Retrieved from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report2010-a.pdf

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2016). Final Report of the EEOC Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace. Washington. D. C. Retrieved from: https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/index.cfm

Kilpatrick, D. G., Saunders, B. E., & Smith, D. W. (2003). Youth victimization: Prevalence and implications (NIJ Research Brief NCJ 194972). Retrieved from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/194972.pdf

Loya, R. M. (2014) Rape as an economic crime: The impact of sexual violence on survivor’s employment and economic well-being. Journal of Interpersonal Violence , 30 (16), 2793-2813. doi:10.1177/0886260514554291

MacMillan, R. (2000). Adolescent victimization and income deficits in adulthood: Rethinking the costs of criminal violence from a life-course perspective. Criminology, 38 (2), doi: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2000.tb00899.x

Peterson, C., DeGue, S., Florence, C., & Lokey, C. N. (2017). Lifetime economic burden of rape among U.S. adults. American Journal of Preventive Medicine . doi:10.1016/j. amepre.2016.11.014

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Sexual violence against children, sexual violence knows no boundaries. it occurs in every country, across all parts of society..

• Violence against children
• Sexual violence

Every year, millions of girls and boys around the world face sexual abuse and exploitation. Sexual violence occurs everywhere – in every country and across all segments of society. A child may be subjected to sexual abuse or exploitation at home, at school or in their community. The widespread use of digital technologies can also put children at risk.

Most often, abuse occurs at the hands of someone a child knows and trusts.

At least 120 million girls under the age of 20 – about 1 in 10 – have been forced to engage in sex or perform other sexual acts, although the actual figure is likely much higher. Roughly 90 per cent of adolescent girls who report forced sex say that their first perpetrator was someone they knew, usually a boyfriend or a husband.

But many victims of sexual violence, including millions of boys, never tell anyone.

About 1 in 10 girls under the age of 20 have been forced to engage in sex or perform other sexual acts.

Although sexual violence occurs everywhere, risks surge in emergency contexts. During armed conflict, natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies , women and children are especially vulnerable to sexual violence – including conflict-related sexual violence, intimate partner violence and trafficking for sexual exploitation – as well as other forms of gender-based violence .

Sexual violence results in severe physical, psychological and social harm. Victims experience an increased risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, pain, illness, unwanted pregnancy, social isolation and psychological trauma. Some victims may resort to risky behaviours like substance abuse to cope with trauma. And as child victims reach adulthood, sexual violence can reduce their ability to care for themselves and others.

While sexual violence is fundamentally a crime of power, it is increasingly driven by economic motives. The internet has opened a rapidly growing global market for the production, distribution and consumption of child sexual abuse materials, such as photographs and videos. When online , children may be susceptible to sexual coercion and in-contact sexual abuse by offenders who attempt to extort them for content and financial gain.

The harmful norms that perpetuate sexual violence take a heavy toll on families and communities too. Most children who face sexual abuse experience other kinds of violence. And as abuse and exploitation become entrenched, progress towards development and peace can stall – with consequences for entire societies. 

UNICEF’s response

UNICEF plays a key role in preventing and responding to sexual violence worldwide – both in emergency and non-emergency contexts – through programmes, partnerships and advocacy.

Globally, we build advocacy tools and develop technical guidance for violence prevention and response, helping to ensure services are appropriate and sensitive to the needs of survivors. We work closely with partners on a variety of global initiatives, including the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children , Together for Girls and the WePROTECT Global Alliance to End Child Sexual Exploitation Online .

At the national level, we work with governments to develop and strengthen laws and policies, and to increase access to justice, health, education and social services that help child and adolescent survivors recover. We also invest in national prevention programmes to change social norms that condone sexual violence and perpetuate a culture of silence.

Throughout all we do, we focus on supporting children and parents. We work directly with children to build their knowledge on how and where to seek help and protection; and with parents, teachers and adults to identity signs of abuse and make sure children receive ongoing care.

More from UNICEF

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Read stories about the work of UNICEF and the Spotlight Initiative to end violence against women and girls across Latin America and Africa

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UNICEF calls for urgent action to respond to alarming levels of increasing sexual violence against girls and women in eastern DRC

On world poetry day, hundreds of children affected by conflict and war share poems for peace, action to end child sexual abuse and exploitation: a review of the evidence 2020.

This evidence review documents the evidence on effective interventions and strategies to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Action to End Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

The Action to End Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation proposed a framework of action to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse and exploitation.

UNICEF Humanitarian Practice: COVID-19 Technical Guidance

Terminology guidelines for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and abuse, promising programmes to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse and exploitation  , preventing and responding to child sexual abuse and exploitation: evidence review, government, civil society and private sector responses to the prevention of sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism  , protecting children from online sexual exploitation: a guide to action for religious leaders and communities, unicef and leap: a new reality – child helplines report on online child sexual exploitation and abuse, optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, implementation handbook on the optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, child safety online: global challenges and strategies, world congress iii against sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, council of europe convention on the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, code of conduct for the protection of children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism, ecpat international, together for girls initiative to end sexual violence, un special representative of the secretary-general on violence against children, online course: action to end child sexual exploitation and abuse, legislating for the digital age: global guide on improving legislative frameworks to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse framing the future: how the model national response framework is supporting national efforts to end child sexual exploitation and abuse online.

Last updated 23 June 2022

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Sexual Abuse, Essay Example

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Words: 751

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Introduction

• Vulnerability of children predisposes many to sexual abuse
• Abuse can be physical or psychological
• Effects of physical abuse include isolation and depression
• It can also lead to inability to engage in normal sexual behavior
• Post traumatic stress disorder is a common psychological disorder among the victims
• Sexually abused children more likely to develop deviant and promiscuous behavior
• Some engage in promiscuous behavior leading to sexually leading to sexually transmitted disease
• Others are unable to form lasting relationships
• Preventive measures should be put in place to prevent abuse
• Treatment is not a guaranteed remedy for the victims
• Prevention is the best remedy

The vulnerability of children makes them the most common targets of sexual abusers. In the US, it has become a significant issue regarding public health. Child sex abuse is categorized as abuse of an individual below the age of 18. The effects can be classified as physical and psychological and occur immediately and also later in life. Changes in personality character in children are the main recognition features of abuse. Having an appreciation of the long term effects of sexual abuse is very important when ones to understand personality characters of the victims who go through the experience. For effective management of victims of sexual abuse, it is imperative that we recognize the cause of the observed disorder and determine the Adversity to the child.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among children who have been victims of sexual abuse as outlined by Kinnear (p 18). This results due the nature of the abuse. The violence that is involved during the act in addition to the pain causes is bound to have delayed reaction on the child. If the abuser is known to the child, the extent of stress is more due to frequent exposure. The signs are normally related with association of the circumstances preceding and during the abuse with any other circumstance the child is presented with. As a result, the child will avoid such situation and may appear withdrawn. Reports have shown that sexually abused children develop anxiety and deviant sexual behaviors including promiscuity.

Mental health of an abused child is also affected adversely. Owing to the heinous nature of the offense, the child is bound to become isolated and depressed. Over time, the child becomes withdrawn from society. Kinnear (19) postulated that the stigma attached to abuse of child also fosters the guilty feeling. As a result, the child enters adulthood without having experienced the challenges which normally stimulate response behavior for survival as an adult.

Physically, some victims are rendered unable to engage in normal sexual practices owing to the physical trauma to the affected organs. The abuser is obviously in a hurry to avoid being caught. The element of struggle implies that injury is bound to occur. As result, the ability to function as normal adult and fulfill their reproductive duties is greatly hampered even in the absence of psychological tendencies. The fear involved in correlating sexual activity wit abuse becomes a hindering factor hence making the individuals unable to form lasting relationships.

Sexual abuse is bound to lead to sexually transmitted diseases to the child. Most abusers are adults who have previously engaged in sexual activities and could thus be carriers of such diseases. Transmission rates are also higher owing to the injury sustained. As observed from most instances, such treatment for such disease is hampered by the diagnostic challenges since the victim may hide the fact they were abused Finkelman (p 41). The shame and trauma involved may prevent the child from opening up to responsible adults.

According to Kinnear (18), inclination to crime has been observed to occur in children who have been sexually abused. Their appreciation of danger is compromised due to loss of self-esteem thus propagating tendencies of disruptive behavior and conduct. Besides, the abused child is bound to feel dejected. This feeling propels most abused children to risk taking behavior. The withdrawal period also takes away valuable time for personal development and the individual may lack a source of income. Substance abuse is also rife among individuals who have been abused. This originates from the search of a coping mechanism.

In conclusion therefore, it is imperative that society protects children from abuse of any form. Sexual abuse has adverse effects running into adult life. Treatment and care of victims is not a guaranteed remedy for the victims. As a result, it is better prevention than care.

Works Cited

Finkelman, Byrgen “Child Abuse: Short- And Long-Term Effects” USA: Taylor & Francis, 1995p

Kinnear, Karen L. ‘Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Reference Handbook”, California: ABC-  CLIO, 2007

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Essay on Sexual Harassment

500 words essay on sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment refers to any form of unwelcome sexual behaviour which is offensive, humiliating and intimidating. Further, it is against the law to sexually harass anyone. Over the years, sexual harassment has taken a lot of time to be recognized as a real issue. Nonetheless, it is a start that can protect people from this harassment. The essay on sexual harassment will take you through the details.

Sexual Harassment and Its Impacts

Sexual harassment comes in many forms and not just a single one. It includes when someone tries to touch, grab or make other physical contacts with you without your consent. Further, it also includes passing comments which have a sexual meaning.

After that, it is also when someone asks you for sexual favours. Leering and staring continuously also counts as one. You are being sexually harassed when the perpetrator displays rude and offensive material so that others can see it.

Another form is making sexual gestures towards you and cracking sexual jokes or comments towards you. It is also not acceptable for someone to question you about your sexual life or insult you with sexual comments.

Further, making an obscene phone call or indecently exposing oneself also counts as sexual harassment. Sexual harassment can impact a person severely. It may stress out the victim and they may suffer from anxiety or depression.

Moreover, it can also cause them to withdraw from social situations. After that, the victim also starts to lose confidence and self-esteem. There may also be physical symptoms like headaches, sleep problems and being not able to concentrate or be productive.

What Can We Do

No one in this world deserves to go through sexual harassment, whether man or woman. We all have the right to live freely without being harassed, bullied or discriminated against. It is the reason why sexual harassment is illegal.

To begin with, the person may try talking to the offender and convey their message regarding their unwanted behaviour. Further, it is also essential to stay informed about this issue. Make sure to learn about the policies and procedures regarding sexual harassment in your workplace, school or university.

Further, try to document everything to help you remember the name of the offenders and the incidents. Similarly, make sure to save any evidence you get which will help with your complaint. For instance, keeping the text messages, emails, photos or more.

Most importantly, always try to get external information and advice from people who will help you if you decide to file a lawsuit. Likewise, never deal with it on your own and share it with someone you trust to lighten your load.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Sexual Harassment

To conclude, sexual harassment is a very real issue that went unnoticed for a long period of time, but not anymore. It is essential for all of us to take measures to prevent it from happening as it damages the life of the victim severely. Thus, make sure you help out those who are suffering from sexual harassment and make the perpetrator accountable.

FAQ of Essay on Sexual Harassment

Question 1: What are the effects of sexual harassment?

Answer 1: Sexual harassment has major effects on the victim like suffering from significant psychological effects which include anxiety, depression , headaches, sleep disorders, lowered self-esteem, sexual dysfunction and more.

Question 2: How do you tell if someone is sexually harassing you?

Answer 2: It is essential to notice the signs if you feel someone is sexually harassing you. The most important sign is if you feel uncomfortable and experience any unwanted physical contact. If your ‘no’ does not have an impact and you’re being subjected to sexual jokes, you are being sexually harassed.

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Full text of Benedict XVI essay: 'The Church and the scandal of sexual abuse'

Vatican City, Apr 10, 2019 / 15:23 pm

The following is a previously unpublished essay from Pope emeritus Benedict XVI:

On February 21 to 24, at the invitation of Pope Francis, the presidents of the world's bishops' conferences gathered at the Vatican to discuss the current crisis of the faith and of the Church; a crisis experienced throughout the world after shocking revelations of clerical abuse perpetrated against minors.

The extent and gravity of the reported incidents has deeply distressed priests as well as laity, and has caused more than a few to call into question the very Faith of the Church. It was necessary to send out a strong message, and seek out a new beginning, so to make the Church again truly credible as a light among peoples and as a force in service against the powers of destruction.

Since I myself had served in a position of responsibility as shepherd of the Church at the time of the public outbreak of the crisis, and during the run-up to it, I had to ask myself - even though, as emeritus, I am no longer directly responsible - what I could contribute to a new beginning.

Thus, after the meeting of the presidents of the bishops' conferences was announced, I compiled some notes by which I might contribute one or two remarks to assist in this difficult hour.

Having contacted the Secretary of State, Cardinal [Pietro] Parolin and the Holy Father [Pope Francis] himself, it seemed appropriate to publish this text in the Klerusblatt [ a monthly periodical for clergy in mostly Bavarian dioceses].

My work is divided into three parts.

In the first part, I aim to present briefly the wider social context of the question, without which the problem cannot be understood. I try to show that in the 1960s an egregious event occurred, on a scale unprecedented in history. It could be said that in the 20 years from 1960 to 1980, the previously normative standards regarding sexuality collapsed entirely, and a new normalcy arose that has by now been the subject of laborious attempts at disruption.

In the second part, I aim to point out the effects of this situation on the formation of priests and on the lives of priests.

Finally, in the third part, I would like to develop some perspectives for a proper response on the part of the Church.

(1) The matter begins with the state-prescribed and supported introduction of children and youths into the nature of sexuality. In Germany, the then-Minister of Health, Ms. (Käte) Strobel, had a film made in which everything that had previously not been allowed to be shown publicly, including sexual intercourse, was now shown for the purpose of education. What at first was only intended for the sexual education of young people consequently was widely accepted as a feasible option.

Similar effects were achieved by the "Sexkoffer" published by the Austrian government [A controversial 'suitcase' of sex education materials used in Austrian schools in the late 1980s]. Sexual and pornographic movies then became a common occurrence, to the point that they were screened at newsreel theaters [ Bahnhofskinos ]. I still remember seeing, as I was walking through the city of Regensburg one day, crowds of people lining up in front of a large cinema, something we had previously only seen in times of war, when some special allocation was to be hoped for. I also remember arriving in the city on Good Friday in the year 1970 and seeing all the billboards plastered up with a large poster of two completely naked people in a close embrace.

Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom, one which no longer conceded any norms.

The mental collapse was also linked to a propensity for violence. That is why sex films were no longer allowed on airplanes because violence would break out among the small community of passengers. And since the clothing of that time equally provoked aggression, school principals also made attempts at introducing school uniforms with a view to facilitating a climate of learning.

Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of '68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate.

For the young people in the Church, but not only for them, this was in many ways a very difficult time. I have always wondered how young people in this situation could approach the priesthood and accept it, with all its ramifications. The extensive collapse of the next generation of priests in those years and the very high number of laicizations were a consequence of all these developments.

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(2) At the same time, independently of this development, Catholic moral theology suffered a collapse that rendered the Church defenseless against these changes in society. I will try to outline briefly the trajectory of this development.

Until the Second Vatican Council, Catholic moral theology was largely founded on natural law, while Sacred Scripture was only cited for background or substantiation. In the Council's struggle for a new understanding of Revelation, the natural law option was largely abandoned, and a moral theology based entirely on the Bible was demanded.

I still remember how the Jesuit faculty in Frankfurt trained a highly gifted young Father (Bruno Schüller) with the purpose of developing a morality based entirely on Scripture. Father Schüller's beautiful dissertation shows a first step towards building a morality based on Scripture. Father Schüller was then sent to America for further studies and came back with the realization that from the Bible alone morality could not be expressed systematically. He then attempted a more pragmatic moral theology, without being able to provide an answer to the crisis of morality.

In the end, it was chiefly the hypothesis that morality was to be exclusively determined by the purposes of human action that prevailed. While the old phrase "the end justifies the means" was not confirmed in this crude form, its way of thinking had become definitive. Consequently, there could no longer be anything that constituted an absolute good, any more than anything fundamentally evil; (there could be) only relative value judgments. There no longer was the (absolute) good, but only the relatively better, contingent on the moment and on circumstances.

The crisis of the justification and presentation of Catholic morality reached dramatic proportions in the late '80s and '90s. On January 5, 1989, the "Cologne Declaration", signed by 15 Catholic professors of theology, was published. It focused on various crisis points in the relationship between the episcopal magisterium and the task of theology. (Reactions to) this text, which at first did not extend beyond the usual level of protests, very rapidly grew into an outcry against the Magisterium of the Church and mustered, audibly and visibly, the global protest potential against the expected doctrinal texts of John Paul II (cf. D. Mieth, Kölner Erklärung, LThK, VI3, p. 196) [LTHK is the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, a German-language "Lexicon of Theology and the Church", whose editors included Karl Rahner and Cardinal Walter Kasper.]

Pope John Paul II, who knew very well the situation of moral theology and followed it closely, commissioned work on an encyclical that would set these things right again. It was published under the title Veritatis splendor on August 6, 1993, and it triggered vehement backlashes on the part of moral theologians. Before it, the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" already had persuasively presented, in a systematic fashion, morality as proclaimed by the Church.

I shall never forget how then-leading German moral theologian Franz Böckle, who, having returned to his native Switzerland after his retirement, announced in view of the possible decisions of the encyclical Veritatis splendor that if the encyclical should determine that there were actions which were always and under all circumstances to be classified as evil, he would challenge it with all the resources at his disposal.

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It was God, the Merciful, that spared him from having to put his resolution into practice; Böckle died on July 8, 1991. The encyclical was published on August 6, 1993 and did indeed include the determination that there were actions that can never become good.

The pope was fully aware of the importance of this decision at that moment and for this part of his text, he had once again consulted leading specialists who did not take part in the editing of the encyclical. He knew that he must leave no doubt about the fact that the moral calculus involved in balancing goods must respect a final limit. There are goods that are never subject to trade-offs.

There are values which must never be abandoned for a greater value and even surpass the preservation of physical life. There is martyrdom. God is (about) more than mere physical survival. A life that would be bought by the denial of God, a life that is based on a final lie, is a non-life.

Martyrdom is a basic category of Christian existence. The fact that martyrdom is no longer morally necessary in the theory advocated by Böckle and many others shows that the very essence of Christianity is at stake here.

In moral theology, however, another question had meanwhile become pressing: The hypothesis that the Magisterium of the Church should have final competence [ infallibility ] only in matters concerning the faith itself gained widespread acceptance; (in this view) questions concerning morality should not fall within the scope of infallible decisions of the Magisterium of the Church. There is probably something right about this hypothesis that warrants further discussion. But there is a minimum set of morals which is indissolubly linked to the foundational principle of faith and which must be defended if faith is not to be reduced to a theory but rather to be recognized in its claim to concrete life.

All this makes apparent just how fundamentally the authority of the Church in matters of morality is called into question. Those who deny the Church a final teaching competence in this area force her to remain silent precisely where the boundary between truth and lies is at stake.

Independently of this question, in many circles of moral theology the hypothesis was expounded that the Church does not and cannot have her own morality. The argument being that all moral hypotheses would also know parallels in other religions and therefore a Christian property of morality could not exist. But the question of the unique nature of a biblical morality is not answered by the fact that for every single sentence somewhere, a parallel can also be found in other religions. Rather, it is about the whole of biblical morality, which as such is new and different from its individual parts.

The moral doctrine of Holy Scripture has its uniqueness ultimately predicated in its cleaving to the image of God, in faith in the one God who showed himself in Jesus Christ and who lived as a human being. The Decalogue is an application of the biblical faith in God to human life. The image of God and morality belong together and thus result in the particular change of the Christian attitude towards the world and human life. Moreover, Christianity has been described from the beginning with the word hodós [Greek for a road, in the New Testament often used in the sense of a path of progress].

Faith is a journey and a way of life. In the old Church, the catechumenate was created as a habitat against an increasingly demoralized culture, in which the distinctive and fresh aspects of the Christian way of life were practiced and at the same time protected from the common way of life. I think that even today something like catechumenal communities are necessary so that Christian life can assert itself in its own way.

II. Initial Ecclesial Reactions

(1) The long-prepared and ongoing process of dissolution of the Christian concept of morality was, as I have tried to show, marked by an unprecedented radicalism in the 1960s. This dissolution of the moral teaching authority of the Church necessarily had to have an effect on the diverse areas of the Church. In the context of the meeting of the presidents of the episcopal conferences from all over the world with Pope Francis, the question of priestly life, as well as that of seminaries, is of particular interest. As regards the problem of preparation for priestly ministry in seminaries, there is in fact a far-reaching breakdown of the previous form of this preparation.

In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries. In one seminary in southern Germany, candidates for the priesthood and candidates for the lay ministry of the pastoral specialist [ Pastoralreferent ] lived together. At the common meals, seminarians and pastoral specialists ate together, the married among the laymen sometimes accompanied by their wives and children, and on occasion by their girlfriends. The climate in this seminary could not provide support for preparation to the priestly vocation. The Holy See knew of such problems, without being informed precisely. As a first step, an Apostolic Visitation was arranged of seminaries in the United States.

As the criteria for the selection and appointment of bishops had also been changed after the Second Vatican Council, the relationship of bishops to their seminaries was very different, too. Above all, a criterion for the appointment of new bishops was now their "conciliarity," which of course could be understood to mean rather different things.

Indeed, in many parts of the Church, conciliar attitudes were understood to mean having a critical or negative attitude towards the hitherto existing tradition, which was now to be replaced by a new, radically open relationship with the world. One bishop, who had previously been seminary rector, had arranged for the seminarians to be shown pornographic films, allegedly with the intention of thus making them resistant to behavior contrary to the faith.

There were - not only in the United States of America - individual bishops who rejected the Catholic tradition as a whole and sought to bring about a kind of new, modern "Catholicity" in their dioceses. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that in not a few seminaries, students caught reading my books were considered unsuitable for the priesthood. My books were hidden away, like bad literature, and only read under the desk.

The Visitation that now took place brought no new insights, apparently because various powers had joined forces to conceal the true situation. A second Visitation was ordered and brought considerably more insights, but on the whole failed to achieve any outcomes. Nonetheless, since the 1970s the situation in seminaries has generally improved. And yet, only isolated cases of a new strengthening of priestly vocations came about as the overall situation had taken a different turn.

(2) The question of pedophilia, as I recall, did not become acute until the second half of the 1980s. In the meantime, it had already become a public issue in the U.S., such that the bishops in Rome sought help, since canon law, as it is written in the new (1983) Code, did not seem sufficient for taking the necessary measures.

Rome and the Roman canonists at first had difficulty with these concerns; in their opinion the temporary suspension from priestly office had to be sufficient to bring about purification and clarification. This could not be accepted by the American bishops, because the priests thus remained in the service of the bishop, and thereby could be taken to be [still] directly associated with him. Only slowly, a renewal and deepening of the deliberately loosely constructed criminal law of the new Code began to take shape.

In addition, however, there was a fundamental problem in the perception of criminal law. Only so-called guarantorism,  [a kind of procedural protectionism], was still regarded as "conciliar." This means that above all the rights of the accused had to be guaranteed, to an extent that factually excluded any conviction at all. As a counterweight against the often-inadequate defense options available to accused theologians, their right to defense by way of guarantorism was extended to such an extent that convictions were hardly possible.

Allow me a brief excursus at this point. In light of the scale of pedophilic misconduct, a word of Jesus has again come to attention which says: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea" (Mark 9:42).

The phrase "the little ones" in the language of Jesus means the common believers who can be confounded in their faith by the intellectual arrogance of those who think they are clever. So here Jesus protects the deposit of the faith with an emphatic threat of punishment to those who do it harm.

The modern use of the sentence is not in itself wrong, but it must not obscure the original meaning. In that meaning, it becomes clear, contrary to any guarantorism, that it is not only the right of the accused that is important and requires a guarantee. Great goods such as the Faith are equally important.

A balanced canon law that corresponds to the whole of Jesus' message must therefore not only provide a guarantee for the accused, the respect for whom is a legal good. It must also protect the Faith, which is also an important legal asset. A properly formed canon law must therefore contain a double guarantee - legal protection of the accused, legal protection of the good at stake. If today one puts forward this inherently clear conception, one generally falls on deaf ears when it comes to the question of the protection of the Faith as a legal good. In the general awareness of the law, the Faith no longer appears to have the rank of a good requiring protection. This is an alarming situation which must be considered and taken seriously by the pastors of the Church.

I would now like to add, to the brief notes on the situation of priestly formation at the time of the public outbreak of the crisis, a few remarks regarding the development of canon law in this matter.

In principle, the Congregation of the Clergy is responsible for dealing with crimes committed by priests. But since guarantorism dominated the situation to a large extent at the time, I agreed with Pope John Paul II that it was appropriate to assign the competence for these offences to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the title Delicta maiora contra fidem.

This arrangement also made it possible to impose the maximum penalty, i.e., expulsion from the clergy, which could not have been imposed under other legal provisions. This was not a trick to be able to impose the maximum penalty, but is a consequence of the importance of the Faith for the Church. In fact, it is important to see that such misconduct by clerics ultimately damages the Faith.

Only where faith no longer determines the actions of man are such offenses possible.

The severity of the punishment, however, also presupposes a clear proof of the offense - this aspect of guarantorism remains in force.   In other words, in order to impose the maximum penalty lawfully, a genuine criminal process is required. But both the dioceses and the Holy See were overwhelmed by such a requirement. We therefore formulated a minimum level of criminal proceedings and left open the possibility that the Holy See itself would take over the trial where the diocese or the metropolitan administration is unable to do so. In each case, the trial would have to be reviewed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in order to guarantee the rights of the accused. Finally, in the Feria IV (i.e., the assembly of the members of the Congregation), we established an appeal instance in order to provide for the possibility of an appeal.

Because all of this actually went beyond the capacities of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and because delays arose which had to be prevented owing to the nature of the matter, Pope Francis has undertaken further reforms.

III. (1) What must be done? Perhaps we should create another Church for things to work out? Well, that experiment has already been undertaken and has already failed. Only obedience and love for our Lord Jesus Christ can point the way. So let us first try to understand anew and from within [ourselves] what the Lord wants, and has wanted with us.

First, I would suggest the following: If we really wanted to summarize very briefly the content of the Faith as laid down in the Bible, we might do so by saying that the Lord has initiated a narrative of love with us and wants to subsume all creation in it. The counterforce against evil, which threatens us and the whole world, can ultimately only consist in our entering into this love. It is the real counterforce against evil. The power of evil arises from our refusal to love God. He who entrusts himself to the love of God is redeemed. Our being not redeemed is a consequence of our inability to love God. Learning to love God is therefore the path of human redemption.

Let us now try to unpack this essential content of God's revelation a little more. We might then say that the first fundamental gift that Faith offers us is the certainty that God exists.

A world without God can only be a world without meaning. For where, then, does everything that is come from? In any case, it has no spiritual purpose. It is somehow simply there and has neither any goal nor any sense. Then there are no standards of good or evil. Then only what is stronger than the other can assert itself. Power is then the only principle. Truth does not count, it actually does not exist. Only if things have a spiritual reason, are intended and conceived - only if there is a Creator God who is good and wants the good - can the life of man also have meaning.

That there is God as creator and as the measure of all things is first and foremost a primordial need.

But a God who would not express Himself at all, who would not make Himself known, would remain a presumption and could thus not determine the form [Gestalt] of our life. For God to be really God in this deliberate creation, we must look to Him to express Himself in some way. He has done so in many ways, but decisively in the call that went to Abraham and gave people in search of God the orientation that leads beyond all expectation: God Himself becomes creature, speaks as man with us human beings.

In this way the sentence "God is" ultimately turns into a truly joyous message, precisely because He is more than understanding, because He creates - and is - love. To once more make people aware of this is the first and fundamental task entrusted to us by the Lord.

A society without God - a society that does not know Him and treats Him as non-existent - is a society that loses its measure. In our day, the catchphrase of God's death was coined. When God does die in a society, it becomes free, we were assured. In reality, the death of God in a society also means the end of freedom, because what dies is the purpose that provides orientation. And because the compass disappears that points us in the right direction by teaching us to distinguish good from evil. Western society is a society in which God is absent in the public sphere and has nothing left to offer it. And that is why it is a society in which the measure of humanity is increasingly lost. At individual points it becomes suddenly apparent that what is evil and destroys man has become a matter of course.

That is the case with pedophilia. It was theorized only a short time ago as quite legitimate, but it has spread further and further. And now we realize with shock that things are happening to our children and young people that threaten to destroy them. The fact that this could also spread in the Church and among priests ought to disturb us in particular.

Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God. We Christians and priests also prefer not to talk about God, because this speech does not seem to be practical. After the upheaval of the Second World War, we in Germany had still expressly placed our Constitution under the responsibility to God as a guiding principle. Half a century later, it was no longer possible to include responsibility to God as a guiding principle in the European constitution. God is regarded as the party concern of a small group and can no longer stand as the guiding principle for the community as a whole. This decision reflects the situation in the West, where God has become the private affair of a minority.

A paramount task, which must result from the moral upheavals of our time, is that we ourselves once again begin to live by God and unto Him. Above all, we ourselves must learn again to recognize God as the foundation of our life instead of leaving Him aside as a somehow ineffective phrase. I will never forget the warning that the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar once wrote to me on one of his letter cards. "Do not presuppose the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but present them!"

Indeed, in theology God is often taken for granted as a matter of course, but concretely one does not deal with Him. The theme of God seems so unreal, so far removed from the things that concern us. And yet everything becomes different if one does not presuppose but present God. Not somehow leaving Him in the background, but recognizing Him as the center of our thoughts, words and actions.

(2) God became man for us. Man as His creature is so close to His heart that He has united himself with him and has thus entered human history in a very practical way. He speaks with us, He lives with us, He suffers with us and He took death upon Himself for us. We talk about this in detail in theology, with learned words and thoughts. But it is precisely in this way that we run the risk of becoming masters of faith instead of being renewed and mastered by the Faith.

Let us consider this with regard to a central issue, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Our handling of the Eucharist can only arouse concern. The Second Vatican Council was rightly focused on returning this sacrament of the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, of the Presence of His Person, of His Passion, Death and Resurrection, to the center of Christian life and the very existence of the Church. In part, this really has come about, and we should be most grateful to the Lord for it.

And yet a rather different attitude is prevalent. What predominates is not a new reverence for the presence of Christ's death and resurrection, but a way of dealing with Him that destroys the greatness of the Mystery. The declining participation in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration shows how little we Christians of today still know about appreciating the greatness of the gift that consists in His Real Presence. The Eucharist is devalued into a mere ceremonial gesture when it is taken for granted that courtesy requires Him to be offered at family celebrations or on occasions such as weddings and funerals to all those invited for family reasons.

The way people often simply receive the Holy Sacrament in communion as a matter of course shows that many see communion as a purely ceremonial gesture. Therefore, when thinking about what action is required first and foremost, it is rather obvious that we do not need another Church of our own design. Rather, what is required first and foremost is the renewal of the Faith in the Reality of Jesus Christ given to us in the Blessed Sacrament.

In conversations with victims of pedophilia, I have been made acutely aware of this first and foremost requirement. A young woman who was a [former] altar server told me that the chaplain, her superior as an altar server, always introduced the sexual abuse he was committing against her with the words: "This is my body which will be given up for you."

It is obvious that this woman can no longer hear the very words of consecration without experiencing again all the horrific distress of her abuse. Yes, we must urgently implore the Lord for forgiveness, and first and foremost we must swear by Him and ask Him to teach us all anew to understand the greatness of His suffering, His sacrifice. And we must do all we can to protect the gift of the Holy Eucharist from abuse.

(3) And finally, there is the Mystery of the Church. The sentence with which Romano Guardini, almost 100 years ago, expressed the joyful hope that was instilled in him and many others, remains unforgotten: "An event of incalculable importance has begun; the Church is awakening in souls."

He meant to say that no longer was the Church experienced and perceived as merely an external system entering our lives, as a kind of authority, but rather it began to be perceived as being present within people's hearts - as something not merely external, but internally moving us. About half a century later, in reconsidering this process and looking at what had been happening, I felt tempted to reverse the sentence: "The Church is dying in souls."

Indeed, the Church today is widely regarded as just some kind of political apparatus. One speaks of it almost exclusively in political categories, and this applies even to bishops, who formulate their conception of the church of tomorrow almost exclusively in political terms. The crisis, caused by the many cases of clerical abuse, urges us to regard the Church as something almost unacceptable, which we must now take into our own hands and redesign. But a self-made Church cannot constitute hope.

Jesus Himself compared the Church to a fishing net in which good and bad fish are ultimately separated by God Himself. There is also the parable of the Church as a field on which the good grain that God Himself has sown grows, but also the weeds that "an enemy" secretly sown onto it. Indeed, the weeds in God's field, the Church, are excessively visible, and the evil fish in the net also show their strength. Nevertheless, the field is still God's field and the net is God's fishing net. And at all times, there are not only the weeds and the evil fish, but also the crops of God and the good fish. To proclaim both with emphasis is not a false form of apologetics, but a necessary service to the Truth.

In this context it is necessary to refer to an important text in the Revelation of St. John. The devil is identified as the accuser who accuses our brothers before God day and night (Revelation 12:10). St. John's Apocalypse thus takes up a thought from the center of the framing narrative in the Book of Job (Job 1 and 2, 10; 42:7-16). In that book, the devil sought to talk down the righteousness of Job before God as being merely external. And exactly this is what the Apocalypse has to say: The devil wants to prove that there are no righteous people; that all righteousness of people is only displayed on the outside. If one could hew closer to a person, then the appearance of his justice would quickly fall away.

The narrative in Job begins with a dispute between God and the devil, in which God had referred to Job as a truly righteous man. He is now to be used as an example to test who is right. Take away his possessions and you will see that nothing remains of his piety, the devil argues. God allows him this attempt, from which Job emerges positively. Now the devil pushes on and he says: "Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But put forth thy hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face." (Job 2:4f)

God grants the devil a second turn. He may also touch the skin of Job. Only killing Job is denied to him. For Christians it is clear that this Job, who stands before God as an example for all mankind, is Jesus Christ. In St. John's Apocalypse the drama of humanity is presented to us in all its breadth.

The Creator God is confronted with the devil who speaks ill of all mankind and all creation. He says, not only to God but above all to people: Look at what this God has done. Supposedly a good creation, but in reality full of misery and disgust. That disparagement of creation is really a disparagement of God. It wants to prove that God Himself is not good, and thus to turn us away from Him.

The timeliness of what the Apocalypse is telling us here is obvious. Today, the accusation against God is, above all, about characterizing His Church as entirely bad, and thus dissuading us from it. The idea of a better Church, created by ourselves, is in fact a proposal of the devil, with which he wants to lead us away from the living God, through a deceitful logic by which we are too easily duped. No, even today the Church is not just made up of bad fish and weeds. The Church of God also exists today, and today it is the very instrument through which God saves us.

It is very important to oppose the lies and half-truths of the devil with the whole truth: Yes, there is sin in the Church and evil. But even today there is the Holy Church, which is indestructible. Today there are many people who humbly believe, suffer and love, in whom the real God, the loving God, shows Himself to us. Today God also has His witnesses ( martyres ) in the world. We just have to be vigilant in order to see and hear them.

The word martyr is taken from procedural law. In the trial against the devil, Jesus Christ is the first and actual witness for God, the first martyr, who has since been followed by countless others.

Today's Church is more than ever a "Church of the Martyrs" and thus a witness to the living God. If we look around and listen with an attentive heart, we can find witnesses everywhere today, especially among ordinary people, but also in the high ranks of the Church, who stand up for God with their life and suffering. It is an inertia of the heart that leads us to not wish to recognize them. One of the great and essential tasks of our evangelization is, as far as we can, to establish habitats of Faith and, above all, to find and recognize them.

I live in a house, in a small community of people who discover such witnesses of the living God again and again in everyday life and who joyfully point this out to me as well. To see and find the living Church is a wonderful task which strengthens us and makes us joyful in our Faith time and again.

At the end of my reflections I would like to thank Pope Francis for everything he does to show us, again and again, the light of God, which has not disappeared, even today. Thank you, Holy Father!

--Benedict XVI

Translated by Anian Christoph Wimmer. Quotes from Scripture use Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE).

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Unsubstantiated: An Essay of Sexual Violence

Susan straight on what it really means to believe women.

There is no documentation for these narratives. Call them what you wish. This cannot be fact checked. There are no police reports/medical examinations/official statements/newspaper stories. No proof in the way that you want proof. No paper trail. Only story. That’s what women have had forever. How can we ascertain whether any of this is true? Where did your friend/cousin/sister/teammate tell you this? She told me in the bleachers/near the lockers/in the gym/in my car/in the dorm room/with the candles lit/in the driveway/on the train/in the parking lot.

This is not he said/she said, because we said these things only to each other. Every day, in the southern California city where I was born and still live, I drive past the places where we were attacked. Passing the parking lots where my friends and I were in cars, I remember the silver mushrooms of the door locks. We took rides home from football games and house parties. Gas, grass or ass—no one rides for free. I remember the bumper sticker on vans, cars, trucks. Does this hurt? Does this hurt ? What about that? Not murmured in apology, but in anticipation. We were 14. We did not ride for free. We were told if we walked home, worse could happen to us.

I drive past the bleachers at the park where my brothers played Little League. I worked the snack bar because girls didn’t play baseball. We sold snacks. In the dark storage room behind the bleachers. I was 12. The two boys only a year older. First base and you can go . Do boys still use that term now?

I write this because women asked me to. Last year, I finally put into narrative form some stories of my life and my friends, cousins, relatives. I was told the essays could not be published because they could not be fact checked, and the phrase I learned as a college journalist, even as men were groping and attacking me then, came back like a finger poked against my spine. The details we remember? Insignificant. The events themselves, if we told someone, if we asked for help, would have been deemed insignificant, because we were insignificant as girls, and then women. Now years have passed, so the details cannot be verified. But we told each other. What we remember is rooted in the body and the senses: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford remembering her bathing suit, E. Jean Carroll remembering the lace of the underwear she was holding, the young women remembering the exact painting on the wall of the “massage room” of Jeffrey Epstein, and now that he is dead, there is no he said/she said . There is only the bravery that they told someone what happened.

I am 58 years old. Weekly I drive past the parking lot where at a broken cement stop, my 15-year-old friend and I sat side by side, our knees before us in our shorts, as it was summer, while she told me about the boy who’d raped her the night before. He was two years older than we were. He knew exactly what he was doing. He gained her trust over weeks. He talked more than any other boy we knew. She put her forearms on her knees and put her face into that cradle and I remember the back of her neck. That was 1976. I believed rape inevitable, and I didn’t want to have a baby by someone who attacked me, so I went to Planned Parenthood.

In their testified memories, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was 15, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh 17. They spoke quite separately, their sentences braiding together in vividly different threads. They grew up in the same place. They have friends and acquaintances who brought forth their own memories. It seems undeniable that something happened, on that night. The only written record was a calendar kept by a high school boy. Often, men confronted with the memories of sexual violence recalled by women deny them altogether, as if we fabricated not only the hurt but the entire night or series of weeks or months or years. That never happened. I was never there. She is mistaken. Her very existence is called into question. It’s as if two cars collided, both were damaged, but one driver insists he and his vehicle were never even at the scene, though the other car is smashed and dented and sometimes, completely totaled.

What were you wearing/drinking/thinking/expecting/when you went to the party? What did you say to make him think that’s what you wanted/what was he led to believe? We were in the wrong place of our own accord: meaning we entered a structure while alive and expecting nothing. I remember strange details about one house party. New Year’s Eve, 1977. My future husband and I were high school seniors. The house in a neighborhood wealthier than ours, abutting the foothills of our southern California city, more than a hundred people, dancing inside, moving through the kitchen, congregating to drink in the front yard.

A man staggering across the street toward us, maybe 25, older, with black hair in long wings down his face and neck, bellbottom jeans, blood covering his right hand, dripping from a cut. I was the kind of girl who corralled him quickly before he could get in trouble with the athletes, including my boyfriend. We were black, white, Mexican-American, Japanese-American. He was olive skinned, delirious, mumbling. I steered him inside the house, into the bathroom. I remember the beautiful gilt-edged mirror, so 1970s. I propelled him by the elbow toward the sink, and quickly he turned, locked the door, and grabbed my breasts, covering the front of my white sweater, featuring thin gold-thread horizontal stripes, with bloody handprints. (My first thought: Damn, I paid $17.98 for this sweater! Most of my paycheck for the week!) (My second thought: He’s going to rape and kill me.) He broke a perfume bottle on the sink and stood there, daring me to move. I don’t remember what he said, because I didn’t look at his mouth, only at the blood dripping on the white shag rug and the jagged glass thrust toward me.

I remember this distinctly: the music was so loud no one would have heard me scream. After what seemed like hours, the hand holding the glass slanting back and forth like a cobra’s head, boy pounded on the door shouting, “Who the fuck is in there? We gotta drain the lizard! Are you girls in there putting your fuckin makeup on? Open the door!” Then they broke it open with their shoulders. Baseball players. I still see the face of the first baseball player, golden brown, and his curly natural; I still see him now and then in my city. He saved me. They punched the man, dragged him outside and called the police. But none of the officers asked me anything. They took him away without speaking to me. My future husband was angry that I’d been so stupid. Someone gave me a letterman jacket to cover the blood on my breasts, because he said it made him feel sick. But I had to give it back before my future husband took me home. If we were in a car or workplace accident, or military battle, or natural disaster, we would be “in shock.” My teeth chattered in the silence. At home, I washed my sweater that night. Dried blood is hard to get out, but I had three brothers. I was good at bloodstained laundry. I wore that sweater for years.

I remember the places. Sewer pipe on the elementary school playground/back seat of a car/front seat of a car/stairwell in college/dorm room/office of a teaching assistant/lab of a chemical engineer at work. I remember the college-educated chemist 30 years older than me, as I was 20, held the back of my bra as if it were a harness and I a small horse merely trying to get across the room to do my work. He was out to prove I couldn’t leave until he allowed me to. He said, every time, that he was merely checking to make sure I was wearing a bra. That reminded me so vividly of sixth grade I didn’t even know how to react, and then I just refused to go into that workspace and was disciplined. I do not remember the dates, or the floor of the building. I remember the beakers on the counter.

What room of the house/seat of the car/kind of carpet/part of the couch/area of the yard/end of the pool/section of the bleachers/corner of the store/row of the theater/where the alleged assault took place? Was it a twin bed/queen/king? What was the day/week/year/time? What was the make and model of the car/truck/van/camper? The address of the house? Which bedroom? How many bedrooms were there? (Did we girls ask that question the minute we arrived at the party? Did someone give us a tour, so we could identify the master bedroom, the bedspread, the bathroom? Should that be standard?) How many people were there? (Guest lists, also standard?) What time were you taken/forced/carried/or did you voluntarily go into the bedroom/bathroom/garden shed/kitchen/basement/closet/office/laboratory? Who saw you enter that place? Who saw you leave? If you were hurt, how were you able to walk?

Every time I hear the song “Sexual Healing,” by Marvin Gaye, and it is played often, I remember another high school friend in my car, angry and then weeping. The song was new. She reacted violently, telling me to turn it off. She said the lyrics were disgusting. She whispered the words that made her cry. You’re my medicine/Open up and let me in. An adult in her family had forced his way into the place where she slept, and raped her. She was so shaken hearing those words, and I was so shaken when she told me, that I turn the song off, even now.

Every time I enter my kitchen, I remember a woman sitting at the maple table my mother bought when I was three. Eight years ago, both of us grown, she told me how her mother had been assaulted repeatedly by an adult man when she was a girl. Ten years old. Her mother told no one, until one morning the girl couldn’t walk to school. She had advanced syphilis. The woman said, “They never told us who he was! And later same thing happened to me. But I told! I told them!” She told only her mother and grandmother.

Why didn’t you report this? I did. Who did you report it to? My sister/mother/aunt/grandmother/cousin/friend. What did that person do? She listened/cried/hit me/hugged me/washed me/cried/combed my hair/washed sewed dyed dried burned my clothes/cried/shook her head/said she knew/said that couldn’t be true/said she’d kill him/said he’d kill me/said get in the car/said we’ll never tell anyone/said I love you.

We could tell you: the smell/gum/whiskers/one finger/two fingers/three/fingernails/rings/song/engine/bedspread/the smell/carpet like stiff worms/carpet like cement/burns on our shoulders/above our hipbones/our tailbones/astroturf/leather / vinyl/Naugahyde/grooved metal bleachers/asphalt/jeans/zippers/metal teeth drawing blood/human teeth drawing blood/braces/bracelets/dog tags/Irish Spring/cologne/four fingers a solid gate over our mouths/French fries/hot sauce/motor oil/there is no name for the inside of a knuckle pressed hard on our lips.

Last month, I sat with a cousin in the dim light of her living room, 100 degrees outside, security screen door letting in the noise of the street. We talked about house parties. She told me about the night when she was 12, at a house party a few blocks from where we were, and an older boy, maybe 19, bumped and bumped against her while they danced until she was in a hallway and then in a bedroom. Having been raised in Los Angeles during the Black Panther movement, she talked him out of assault by bringing up unity, the violence already done to her school and family by police, and his responsibilities to her as a young black man she called brother. That was 1970.

I told her about the 1977 house party and the sweater. We laughed about the sweater. I told her about the dorm room two years later, where a large athlete lay on top of me, threatening rape, and that I invoked our male cousin, who had an Uzi, and would arrive in the morning to shoot off the athlete’s testicles. If I told. I didn’t tell anyone, because the man removed his forearm from my throat and got up, and I left.

Then I told her about the doctor. He might have been 50. Sixty. I was 13. I remember only: glasses shining like small lakes in the bright reflection of the high-powered light. Does that hurt? Does that? What about that? I am lying on a table. No clothes. Shivering uncontrollably in the frigid air. A tube. He stands in the doorway watching. Maybe he was filming, I realize now. Maybe just watching. My mother is in a waiting room far away. She thinks I have a bladder infection. The bare metal table is swimming with my tears, running into my hair and down my neck. He tortures me for a long time, or for half an hour. Was I restrained—by equipment, or by obedience? I have no details for that.

This is what my cousin did not say. Let’s review/Let’s make sure you have your story straight/Let’s go over this again/Let’s assume you’re not exaggerating/misremembering/dreaming/telling tale tales/being dramatic because you were a teenaged girl/menstruating/hysterical/looking for attention.

I had never told anyone, not my mother or anyone else. But this year, writing about my childhood, I remembered. I have always been afraid to go to doctors, or to the hospital. But at an appointment with a nurse/practitioner, for a possible minor surgery, the first time we’d ever met, I told her why I was afraid of even minor procedures, why I had never spent the night in a hospital since my third daughter was born, in 1995. I had that child 17 minutes after arriving in labor and delivery because I didn’t want to go inside.

I avoided doctors for so long that I got severe anemia, detached retinas, and other illnesses. We sat two feet from each other, our knees companionable. She told me that when she was four, in the rural place where she was raised, a boy had threatened her with a knife and told her to pull down her pants. She told me that when she was 12, in a field across from her house, a man pulled up in a car and asked for directions, opened the door and said things so shocking and dirty that she ran into the fields to hide. She told me that when she was a young nurse, a physician had casually affixed a sticker to her uniformed breast. She protested vehemently. Though she saw him pull other nurses onto his lap, and affix stickers to them, he never approached her again. I cried, just a little, with this woman I had known for 20 minutes. She tended to my physical ailment. I went home, grateful. That night, I picked apricots from my tree and took them to my cousin, and we sat in the heated dark room on her couch for three hours. We told stories of our aunts, our grandmothers, of razors slashing clothes, of guns pulled from coats, of girls who survived and told only each other. We might never tell anyone else. We told someone. We told a woman. We are alive. It is documented in our mouths.

———————————————

Susan Straight’s memoir,  In the Country of Women   is now available from Catapult. 

Susan Straight

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Sexual Abuse

Building a new narrative on child sexual abuse prevention, it's child sexual abuse prevention month, and there's still a lot of work ahead..

Updated April 28, 2024 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• What Is Sexual Abuse?
• Find counselling to heal from sexual abuse
• April is Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month in the United States.
• The field has made progress, with new research and practice showing that child sexual abuse can be prevented.
• There needs to be better balance between prevention, support for survivors, and accountability for offenders.

This month, a growing community of researchers, policy makers, and front-line practitioners is celebrating a Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month like none other.

It’s been 41 years since April was proclaimed in the United States as the month to advance the more general cause of child abuse prevention, and over time, the focus was broadened to sexual assault . The specific emphasis on the prevention of child sexual abuse—especially perpetration prevention—is still relatively new, reflecting a growing body of research and practice showing that prevention of child sexual abuse is possible and that the most effective, humane way to deal with the multi- generational trauma of child sexual abuse is to stop it before it occurs.

Prevention, healing, and justice are all essential components of a comprehensive approach to tackling child sexual abuse. Right now, the lion’s share of resources go to important work for justice, with not nearly enough to support survivors and pursue strategies to prevent future abuse. We don’t need to redistribute existing resources, we need more resources.

That balance is beginning to shift. And none too soon because it leaves some deeply important questions unanswered:

• As long as resources devoted to child sexual abuse programming are inadequate and devoted mainly to interventions after the fact, what opportunities for better health and prosperity are we letting slip through our fingers?
• What will it take to deliver adequate funding for prevention and additional support for survivors while continuing to hold people who offend accountable?
• How can institutions, policymakers, and decision-makers do a better job of understanding the different circumstances and drivers of perpetration and develop tailored interventions to prevent abuse?

It’s a tough challenge that runs headlong into some of our society’s deepest assumptions and fears. But we’re making progress. This year, Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month is an opportunity to celebrate a decade of notable, sometimes spectacular success. And, even more importantly, to lay the foundation for another 10 years of hard work to bring prevention to the top of the policy and action agenda on child sexual abuse.

In late June, the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse will be convening colleagues and partners from across the United States and around the world to share the latest advances in the effort to stop child sexual abuse in its tracks. Some of the most significant emerging storylines include:

• The understanding that we can’t arrest our way out of the problem of child sexual abuse, in the words of Simon Bailey, former child protection lead with the UK National Police Chiefs’ Council
• An update on an ambitious global initiative to rigorously evaluate promising prevention interventions
• A report on the successful steps that youth-serving organizations are taking to keep children and young adults safe and what more they can do
• Insights on how a landmark child maltreatment study from Australia can inform the future of child sexual abuse prevention
• A frank conversation with the director and producer of Great Photo, Lovely Life , a critically acclaimed Home Box Office (HBO) documentary that chronicled one family’s history with child sexual abuse
• Reflections from Moore Center founders Dr. Stephen and Mrs. Julia Moore on 10 years of progress in the prevention of child sexual abuse and what lies ahead

As the public narrative on child sexual abuse shifts and awareness of prevention becomes more widespread, we so often hear the same question from survivors and their families:

How would life have been different if we’d know then what we know now about how child sexual abuse can be prevented?

It’s a wrenching question that we can only answer with compassion and support for anyone who’s been there and a determined commitment to bring prevention to the center of child sexual abuse research and practice.

We’ve learned so much and progressed so far over the last decade. We still have a lot of ground to cover. But we know enough to say definitively that prevention can make a decisive difference in people’s lives. And we’re just getting started.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/moore-center-for-the-prevention-of-child-s…

Elizabeth Letourneau, Ph.D. , is the inaugural director at the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Child Sexual Abuse: Impact and Consequences Essay

Research has proven that cases of child sexual abuse are on the rise. In most of these cases, perpetrators are persons whom the children are well acquainted (Itzin, 2000). This has often complicated the process of getting justice for the victims. In fact, most cases of child abuse involving close relatives go unreported.

This is because the abused children fail to talk about their ordeal due to threats or fear of consequences that the assailants may face (Itzin, 2000). However, it is every person’s responsibility to protect children from abuse or to report such cases to the authorities.

The Child Protection Law imposes the duty to report cases of child abuse on teachers by virtue of being public school employees. Since children spend most of their time in school with teachers, it is highly likely a teacher will be the first to notice any changes in their behavior. Therefore, as a teacher, I am morally and legally obliged to report any case of reasonable suspicion of abuse.

The burden of proof of actual abuse, rest on investigating officers. The law further stipulates that failure to report such suspicions may lead to criminal and civil proceedings. Cynthia and Rowena (2011) say that talking to a sexually abused child requires a lot of precaution and wisdom. This is because the child may not be willing to talk about the abuse.

Due to the adverse consequences of sexual abuse, efforts to have Jody share her ordeal and get immediate help would be my priority. The first thing I would do is to create a conducive environment for our discussion. Therefore, I would choose a place within the school compound that she is familiar with. This would ensure that she is comfortable to talk and not subjected to any environmental stress.

Additionally, I would find out from her friend what she likes, candy, sweets, chocolate and bring it during the discussion to enhance our relationship. Secondly, I would take the immediate opportunity to reassure Jody that she can trust me and that it is not her fault to be abused.

Since most abusers tell their victims that they are responsible for their abuse, it is prudent to relieve her of any guilt related to that. If she would be willing to talk, I would ensure that I listen to her attentively, remain calm, be supportive and never force her to disclose any information she is not comfortable revealing. After listening to her story, I would ask her how she thinks I could be of help. This would help me know the best course of action to take. Some children may request that the information remains secret.

Because of her safety, I would go ahead and report the case, but would inform her of my decision. The immediate visible effects of child abuse are nothing compared to its future impact (Bryant-Davis, 2011).

The consequences of the experience can last a lifetime. According to Itzin (2000) the long-time consequences vary from one individual to another and depend on factors such as, the child’s age, frequency of abuse, and the relationship between the abuser and the victim. Such consequences fall in three categories, psychological, physical, and behavioral.

As a victim of sexual abuse, Jody could suffer from physical consequences, which according to Bryant-Davis (2011) may include, “…impaired brain development, poor physical health, and shaken baby syndrome.” Secondly, she could suffer from long-term psychological problems such as, anxiety and depression, low self-esteem, suicide attempts and poor relationship life leading to divorce and separations.

Behavior wise, Jody could have a high chance of involving in criminal behavior, poor academic performance, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and delinquency. In conclusion, I can say that child abusers are beasts who deny their victims the happiness of childhood and prospects of a bright future. Therefore, every individual should be morally responsible and stand against this vice.

Bryant-Davis, T. (2011). Surviving Sexual Violence: A Guide to Recovery and Empowerment. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Cynthia Franklin, Rowena Fong. (2011). The Church Leader’s Counseling Resource Book: A Guide to Mental Health and Social Problems. New York: Oxford University Press.

Itzin, C. (2000). Home truths about child sexual abuse: a reader. New York: Routledge.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, July 8). Child Sexual Abuse: Impact and Consequences. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse/

"Child Sexual Abuse: Impact and Consequences." IvyPanda , 8 July 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Child Sexual Abuse: Impact and Consequences'. 8 July.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Child Sexual Abuse: Impact and Consequences." July 8, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse/.

1. IvyPanda . "Child Sexual Abuse: Impact and Consequences." July 8, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Child Sexual Abuse: Impact and Consequences." July 8, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse/.

• Jody Sparks in Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
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• African American Studies. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Hurston
• Wyeth’s Contribution to Rawlings’s winning novel The Yearling
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The impact of sexual abuse in regional Victoria

by La Trobe University

La Trobe University, in partnership with the Center Against Sexual Violence Central Victoria (CASA-CV), has released the findings of an important study published in the Australian Journal of Social Issues highlighting the struggles of rural and regional victim survivors in the pursuit of justice.

This research, conducted in a collaboration between the two organizations, highlights the unique experiences and obstacles that survivors in regional and rural areas face.

Recent La Trobe Ph.D. student Dr. Emily Corbett conducted the comprehensive industry-based study to examine the sexual revictimization of rural and regional women, and her findings will inform future research, practice and policy recommendations.

Dr. Corbett said that while research shows women subjected to child sex abuse had a higher risk of suffering sexual abuse in adulthood, little research has been done on this topic in non-urban areas.

"We know from existing research that experiences of violence in childhood and adulthood are frequent among non-urban women, and that women who experience family or sexual violence when they are young, often experience violence again in adulthood. Our study sought to better understand why this revictimization occurs," Dr. Corbett said.

"We found that many regional and rural women face significant structural disadvantage including low levels of employment and income, limited-service sector resources, unsafe family environments, and exposure to community violence.

"Violence can be perpetuated due to social isolation , lack of transport options, and limited awareness and education about sexual or family violence. The close-knit nature of small communities can create barriers to women seeking help," Dr. Corbett said.

This research is the culmination of a three-and-a-half-year study conducted by Dr. Corbett.

"We are pleased to share the results of this significant study, which not only contributes to the evidence base but also has real-world implications for preventing and supporting survivors of sexual violence in regional and rural Victoria," said Kate Wright, CEO at the Center Against Sexual Violence Central Victoria.

"This research would not have been possible without the crucial contribution from the women who participated in the research. We thank them for sharing their knowledge and experiences."

Provided by La Trobe University

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Expanding clergy sexual abuse probe targets New Orleans Catholic church leaders

FILE - This Dec. 1, 2012 file photo shows a silhouette of a crucifix and a stained glass window inside a Catholic Church in New Orleans. In April 2024, Louisiana State Police carried out a sweeping search warrant at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seeking a long-secreted cache of church records and communications between local church leaders and the Vatican about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - This Sept. 21, 2019, file booking image made from video and provided by the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office in New Orleans, La., shows George F. Brignac. Litigation involving Brignac turned up thousands of still-secret emails documenting behind-the-scenes public relations work that New Orleans Saints executives did for the archdiocese in 2018 and 2019 to contain fallout from clergy abuse scandals. (Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)

FILE - In this March 27, 2019, file photo, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond speaks during an interview at the archdiocese office in New Orleans, La. In April 2024, Louisiana State Police carried out a sweeping search warrant at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seeking a long-secreted cache of church records and communications between local church leaders and the Vatican about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse. (David Grunfeld/The Advocate via AP, File)

FILE - Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including Richard Windmann, left, and John Gianoli, right, hold signs during a conference in front of the New Orleans Saints training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday Jan. 29, 2020. In April 2024, Louisiana State Police carried out a sweeping search warrant at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seeking a long-secreted cache of church records and communications between local church leaders and the Vatican about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Authorities have expanded an investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans to include senior church officials suspected of shielding predatory priests for decades and failing to report their crimes to law enforcement.

Louisiana State Police carried out a sweeping search warrant last week at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seeking a long-secreted cache of church records and communications between local church leaders and the Vatican about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse.

The search signaled a new phase of the investigation that will seek to determine what particular church leaders, including Archbishop Gregory Aymond and his predecessors, knew about claims that the warrant describes as “ignored and in many cases covered up.”

“The Archdiocese of New Orleans has been openly discussing the topic of sex abuse for over 20 years,” Bill Kearney, an archdiocese spokesman, said in a statement. “In keeping with this, we also are committed to working with law enforcement in these endeavors.”

The warrant contained several new details about the sex-trafficking investigation, including claims that some victims were sexually assaulted in a seminary swimming pool after being ordered to “skinny dip.” Separately, the warrant says, predatory priests developed a system of sharing victims by giving them “gifts” that they were instructed to pass on to clergymen at other schools or churches.

“It was said that the ‘gift’ was a form of signaling to another priest that the person was a target for sexual abuse,” state police investigator Scott Rodrigue wrote in an affidavit in support of the warrant.

The warrant sought an exhaustive range of personnel records, “files contained in any and all safes” and documents showing the extent to which the archdiocese continued supporting clergymen even after they were added to the so-called credibly accused list of suspected predators.

The warrant also confirmed a parallel FBI examination of clergy sexual abuse reported by The Associated Press nearly two years ago. That investigation has examined whether priests took children across state lines to molest them.

“No one and no institution is above the law, especially when we are talking about protecting children from the horrors of child sexual abuse,” said Kathryn Robb, executive director of Child USAdvocacy, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of child sexual abuse accusers. “This warrant is the necessary muscle of the criminal system to protect children.”

Many of the most explosive church records surfaced in a flood of sexual abuse lawsuits that drove the archdiocese to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection four years ago. The documents chronicle years of abuse claims, interviews with accused clergy and a pattern of church leaders transferring problem priests, but they have been shielded under a sweeping confidentiality order in the bankruptcy case that has long hampered the state and federal investigations.

“We have been forced, against our own professional obligations, to keep them secret,” said attorneys Richard Trahant, Soren Gisleson and John Denenea, who represent the accusers.

The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday and rarely weighs in on developments in local clergy abuse cases. But for decades, the message from Rome to local church leaders was to keep clergy abuse files in the secret archives.

To date, the Vatican still has not required abuse cases to be reported to police around the world, though it now says local church leaders should comply with whatever civil reporting laws are in place. In addition, as the clergy abuse scandal has continued to cause a credibility crisis for the Catholic hierarchy worldwide, Pope Francis in 2019 removed the top-level secrecy that covered abuse cases, known as the pontifical secret.

Prior to that, local church leaders regularly invoked the pontifical secret as a reason to resist criminal subpoenas. In theory, the removal of the secret removed any official barrier to such cooperation.

In New Orleans, the search could deepen the legal peril for church leaders, exposing them to potential state court prosecutions even as the U.S. Justice Department has struggled to identify federally prosecutable crimes related to clergy sexual abuse.

Last year, an Orleans Parish grand jury indicted Lawrence Hecker, a now-92-year-old disgraced priest, on charges accusing him of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1975 — an extraordinary prosecution that prompted the broader search of the archdiocese last week.

Hecker has pleaded not guilty to counts of rape, kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft. He is accused of choking the teen unconscious under the guise of performing a wrestling move and sexually assaulting him.

The archdiocese failed to report Hecker’s admissions to law enforcement while permitting him to work around children until he quietly left the ministry in 2002. Church officials reassigned Hecker even after he was sent to a psychiatric facility in Pennsylvania and “diagnosed as a pedophile,” the warrant says.

“Hecker was not the only member of the archdiocese sent to receive psychiatric testing based on allegations of child sexual abuse,” Rodrigue wrote in the warrant.

The age of the Hecker case presents legal and evidentiary hurdles for prosecutors, who also face the political sensitivity of prosecuting a longtime clergyman in heavily Catholic New Orleans. Many predator priests have escaped criminal consequences in Louisiana for those reasons, making the scope of last week’s search even more notable.

One high-profile exception came in 2019 in the case of George F. Brignac, a longtime deacon and schoolteacher charged with sexually assaulting a then-altar boy in the 1970s. Brignac died in 2020 while awaiting trial at the age of 85. He had pleaded not guilty.

Litigation involving Brignac turned up thousands of still-secret emails documenting behind-the-scenes public relations work that New Orleans Saints executives did for the archdiocese in 2018 and 2019 to contain fallout from clergy abuse scandals.

Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield contributed from Rome.

Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected] or https://www.ap.org/tips/

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Victims of harassment by federal judges often find the judiciary is above the law.

Carrie Johnson

Federal judges have enormous power over their courtrooms and their chambers, which can leave employees vulnerable to abuse, with few ways to report their concerns anonymously. Chelsea Beck for NPR hide caption

Federal judges have enormous power over their courtrooms and their chambers, which can leave employees vulnerable to abuse, with few ways to report their concerns anonymously.

Four years ago, Olivia Warren made a choice that would change her life.

Warren described to Congress how Stephen Reinhardt, a prominent federal appeals court judge who died in 2018, left a drawing of women's body parts at her desk, demeaned her appearance, and questioned her husband's masculinity while she served as his law clerk.

Looking back now, Warren said, she would not recommend others follow her path and speak out about abuse by federal judges. In fact, she said, she advises young lawyers not to pursue elite clerkship opportunities, because she thinks the risks are too great.

"I don't think anything has changed," she said. "I still have not received an apology from the judiciary about what happened to me. I no longer expect one. I'm not holding my breath."

Above the law?

Millions of people who experience harassment on the job enjoy workplace protections, whether they report to private companies, nonprofit groups or even the U.S. Congress. But that's not the case for some 30,000 people who work for the federal judiciary. That branch of government is largely exempt from the civil rights law that protects workers and job applicants from discrimination.

When judges get free trips to luxury resorts, disclosure is spotty

"I think the judiciary sees itself in a lot of ways as above the law," said Gabe Roth, executive director of the watchdog group Fix the Court, a group that advocates for more transparency and accountability in the federal court system. "It sees itself as separate and different."

Jeremy Fogel, who served as a state and federal judge for 37 years, explained why judicial employees have been considered different.

"The history of that distinction is separation of powers and the concerns for judicial independence and worrying that Congress would over-regulate how the judiciary conducts its business," Fogel said.

Fogel, who now runs the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said he does not think Congress necessarily needs to act.

"But I think if you don't legislate something, then the judiciary has to be proactive," he added.

Office monitoring complaints hampered is by staffing

In 2017, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed a working group after #MeToo allegations emerged in the federal courts. He also created the Office of Judicial Integrity to monitor workplace issues and serve as a source for what he called confidential guidance and counseling.

Today, that office has just three employees. Its leader, Michael Henry, came from SafeSport, the nonprofit group formed to help reduce sexual abuse in Olympic sports programs but which has drawn controversy over its actions and effectiveness .

Peter Kaplan, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, declined to identify the other employees at that office, except to say one is an "administrative analyst," and defended the courts' response to #MeToo complaints.

The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C., houses the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Andrew Harnik/AP hide caption

The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C., houses the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

"The Judiciary has long-standing, enforceable policies protecting its employees against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation consistent with federal employment discrimination statutes applicable in the executive and legislative branches," Kaplan said in a written statement.

The judiciary publishes annual reports about complaints against judges. Usually those reports contain no names, just numbers. For the last few years, the number of sexual harassment complaints has vacillated between zero and six. It can take a long time for the court system to say what those judges did, and to tell if any of the complaints has merit.

"Whatever disciplinary measures are happening, ethics training, being temporarily taken off cases...it's almost impossible to find out because...it's very easy for the judiciary to bury it and the public to maybe never even learn about it," said Roth, of Fix the Court.

'A band-aid over a bullet hole'

A rare glimpse into the process emerged last month, when the courts resolved a two-year-old complaint from a law clerk.

An unnamed federal judge agreed to receive counseling and watch training videos after a clerk reported a hostile workplace environment. The clerk was offered the chance to transfer into another job. A subsequent investigation by the judiciary uncovered concerns about the judge being "overly harsh" to other clerks, too.

Aliza Shatzman, who advocates for law clerks, said transferring to a new judge is not an option for some of them, for financial or logistical reasons.

"It's a band-aid over a bullet hole," she said. "That's not solving the problem."

Shatzman said the court system's typical practice, which does not identify judges involved the disciplinary process, could expose more unwitting young lawyers to more abuse.

The system for reporting problems can vary depending on where in the country a judge is based, a tangle of rules and procedures that can be hard even for trained lawyers to navigate.

Shatzman told NPR she's heard of officials around the nation who are designated to receive complaints dissuading people from filing them, because "not enough clerks" are reporting abuse, or because the judge's behavior "doesn't meet the standard for abusive conduct."

Glenn Fine, who served as inspector general at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, said the judiciary needs an independent watchdog, too.

"Self-policing is not working," Fine said. "It is hard for judges and anyone to investigate their colleagues."

The toughest sanction against a federal judge is impeachment. But it's been 14 years since a judge was impeached and convicted for corruption and false statements.

Most discipline issues of the judiciary are handled by the judiciary. It's common for judges to resign while they're under investigation, which generally stops the probe, and allows them to collect retirement benefits.

In 2017, Alex Kozinski abruptly retired from the 9th circuit appeals court, after more than 15 women accused him of sexual harassment. At the time, Kozinski partially apologized for his behavior, noting he "had a broad sense of humor and a candid way of speaking," but that it "grieves me to learn that I caused any of my clerks to feel uncomfortable; this was never my intent."

Kozinski collected his pension and is now practicing as a lawyer in the same courts he once dominated as a judge.

Alex Kozinski, then-chief judge on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, stand inside the James L. Browning Courthouse in San Francisco in 2009. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images hide caption

Alex Kozinski, then-chief judge on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, stand inside the James L. Browning Courthouse in San Francisco in 2009.

Warren, who complained about a different 9th circuit judge, has shied away from even filing briefs in that court where she once clerked. She said she continues to hear harrowing stories from clerks all over the country, who are too afraid to report judges.

Those judges enjoy lifetime tenure and operate with few limits on their power, while the young lawyers who clerk for them could be blocked from other job opportunities in the legal world after they air concerns. So a judge's word of recommendation, or word of warning, carries enormous weight that extends decades into a lawyer's career.

Since her testimony, Warren said things have gotten worse because of what she calls "window dressing" by the judiciary.

Congressional legislation stalled

Congress has considered legislation, but failed to act so far, to make judges more accountable. Lawmakers are awaiting the results of two reviews of the judiciary's workplace policies and actions due out this summer, including one from the Government Accountability Office.

But there are public hints the judiciary has been less than forthcoming with those independent audits. A House Appropriations report for 2024 noted "the Committee expects the Judiciary and the Federal Judicial Center to provide regular and appropriate access to all necessary information requested by GAO and the National Academy of Public Administration so that their work can be completed in a timely manner."

The Administrative Office spokesman said in the statement that they are "working cooperatively" with the GAO.

Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., wrote the courts this month to express urgent concern about how little public data is available about the judiciary's systems to prevent abuse of employees.

"With no process, there is no due process; without strong systems in place to protect the vulnerable, the Judiciary will fail in its duty to protect judges and employees in the workplace," Torres wrote.

Congressional sources told NPR a new push for legislation could come later this year.

NPR Investigative Correspondent Tom Dreisbach contributed to this report.

Were you harassed or bullied by a federal judge or do you know someone who was? We want to hear about your experience. Your name will not be used without your consent, and you can remain anonymous. Please contact NPR by clicking this link .

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U.S. Rowing Rescinds Ted Nash’s Honors After Abuse Investigation

A law firm examining accusations that Ted Nash sexually abused Jennifer Fox — when she was 13 and he was her 40-year-old running coach — found that her claims were credible.

By Juliet Macur

A 16-month investigation made public on Tuesday determined that child sexual abuse accusations against Ted Nash, a two-time Olympic medalist and nine-time Olympic coach for the United States who had mythic status in his sport over decades, were credible and that his main accuser had no motive to lie about the abuse.

The 154-page report by the law firm Shearman & Sterling, which U.S. Rowing, the sport’s governing body in the United States, asked to examine claims against Mr. Nash, found that Jennifer Fox, now 64 and a filmmaker who lives in Manhattan, was believable when she said that Mr. Nash had sexually abused her more than 50 years ago. Ms. Fox claimed that he had groomed her for a sexual relationship and sexually assaulted her multiple times when she was 13 and he was her 40-year-old running coach.

The abuse, which lasted several months and included his coercing her to have sex with him multiple times, ended in 1973, said Ms. Fox, whose 2018 film “The Tale” depicted her memories of the abuse but did not name Mr. Nash. He died at 88 in 2021.

Jan Nash, his widow, did not immediately respond to voice messages and texts seeking comment. Last year, she told The New York Times that she was shocked and saddened by the accusations and said that “it’s just not fair” for Ms. Fox to name Mr. Nash now that he can’t defend himself.

The report specifically stated that the law firm was not tasked with finding evidence that met any legal standard of proof for the abuse. But after the firm interviewed approximately 47 witnesses who interacted with Mr. Nash or Ms. Fox, it said its inquiry corroborated many of her allegations against him. Also, the investigation did not find evidence that “expressly refutes” her accusations or a motive for her to lie about the abuse, the report said.

“I’m thrilled because this is what I hoped for,” Ms. Fox said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “This whole process has been really, really hard and the result is like removing a lifelong festering tumor from your body.”

She added that the report had given her a sense of closure and that it would send a strong message to people who commit sex crimes against children.

“Even if we don’t get you in life, we will get you in death,” she said, referring to Mr. Nash’s death. “Your legacy can be ruined.”

The accusations against Mr. Nash, who had served as a father figure to many of his athletes over the years, both on and off the water, were made public in 2023 when Ms. Fox told her story to The New York Times .

Ms. Fox’s claims shook the sport and, according to the report released Tuesday, led a former elite female rower to come forward to the law firm to describe a sexual advance by Mr. Nash when he coached her nearly two decades ago. The report refers to this rower as Anna, explaining that she didn’t want to be fully identified because of her “highly credible” concern that she would be harassed in the rowing community for participating in the investigation.

Anna was over 18 and Mr. Nash was more than 35 years her senior, the report said, when he visited her apartment after one morning practice under the guise of bringing her some home décor. He grabbed her by the neck and tried to kiss her, the report said.

Anna found his actions and the boldness of them “totally shocking,” according to the report, because Mr. Nash was like a grandfather to her. She told investigators that she assumed that he had previously made sexual advances on other athletes because it seemed like “he was doing what he always did.”

“That was the feeling that haunted me for decades,” she said in the report.

“I immediately wondered how such an encounter may have gone for other women athletes over the years,” she told investigators, adding that, “other women in his younger days probably acquiesced because they wanted to pursue their athletic goals the same way I did, and/or found themselves on the subordinate end of the power dynamic.”

On Tuesday, as a result of the law firm’s findings, U.S. Rowing rescinded the honors it awarded Mr. Nash, including the 2005 Man of the Year and its highest honor, the Medal of Honor, given to him in 2013 for “conspicuous service” and “extraordinary feats” in the sport.

A statement on U.S. Rowing’s website said: “While we understand that this outcome may be difficult for some members of our community, our commitment to a safe environment, free of abuse for the rowing community, is unwavering.”

The future of Mr. Nash’s Olympic medals — a gold in 1960 and a bronze in 1964 — remains uncertain. The International Olympic Committee, which is based in Switzerland, did not respond to an email requesting clarification.

Lyft and Uber say they train their drivers to spot human trafficking. Abusers sometimes bypass the system.

Some people accused of being sexual abusers have used Lyft or Uber to transport unaccompanied teenagers or children to their doorsteps, according to criminal court records and lawsuits filed by the families of accusers. 

NBC News identified 10 instances since 2017 in which adults who were alleged to have planned sexual abuse hired Uber or Lyft drivers for the purpose of taking teens or children to homes or hotel rooms, according to court records.

The findings come after the FBI issued an alert in 2022 warning of “reports of rideshare services being used to facilitate child abduction.” The FBI said that it appeared potential abusers believed “rideshare services afforded more privacy from potential witnesses than traditional modes of transportation.” And while the incidents are rare, the FBI said they also have a high impact on victims.

Uber and Lyft have made some changes in recent years to try to reduce the potential for abuse and increase safety for minors, including new training materials for drivers on how to spot abusive situations and a new Uber program aimed at allowing teens to take rides if approved ahead of time by a guardian.

Lyft and Uber said separate statements that they were committed to making their platforms safe and to providing resources to drivers and riders who are in vulnerable positions.

In six of the 10 instances, court records say a teen or a child took the ride unaccompanied, which would be a violation of the apps’ terms of service. In a seventh case, an abuser found a driver on the Uber app but then arranged the ride off the app, according to allegations in court records. In the three other cases, adults ordered Lyfts or Ubers thinking they were transporting teens or children, which would violate the terms of service, but they were instead communicating with undercover agents, authorities say. 

While the incidents represent a small fraction of all Lyft and Uber rides, they are another example of the dangers teens and children face as the internet has created new ways for sexual abusers to find and lure vulnerable targets. The problem appears to have persisted for years, according to an NBC News review of cases, with the most recent alleged incident occurring in January. 

How to stop human trafficking has been a subject of discussion and advocacy throughout the travel and tourism industries from airlines and train operators to hotels and casinos. Worldwide, 320 companies and organizations including Uber have signed on to an industry code of conduct to end child exploitation including through employee training, while Lyft and others have partnered with the Department of Homeland Security on an anti-trafficking effort called “ Blue Campaign .”

The 10 instances are distinct from related issues facing Lyft and Uber, including hundreds of reports of sexual assault against passengers and against drivers, as well as the fatal shooting of an Uber driver in March by, investigators said, an Ohio man who told them he thought she was scamming him. 

Four of the 10 instances involved Lyft drivers, and six involved Uber drivers. In three of the 10 instances, the families of the accusers sued Lyft, claiming the company and its drivers were negligent. The company settled one lawsuit, and two others are pending. Neither Uber nor Lyft has been accused of criminal wrongdoing.

Michael DiPasquale, a lawyer for a Kansas teenager who said she was transported via Lyft when she was 13 years old, said Lyft and its driver should have picked up on numerous flags in her case to stop potential abuse. He also said Lyft had failed for years to put in place measures that might deter child sex exploitation, such as verifying riders’ ages. 

“The more safeguards they put in place, the harder it is for them to gain users,” said DiPasquale, an attorney at the firm DiPasquale Moore. The status quo, he added, is “good for their bottom line, but it’s not good for users.” 

In their written policies, both companies stop short of requiring drivers to act. Lyft’s policy says that a driver “may” ask to confirm a passenger’s age and that a driver “may also let a passenger know that the driver will have to cancel the trip if the passenger is indeed under 18.” Uber’s policy says that drivers “should decline” if they believe a passenger is a minor and that they “may” request verification. 

But drivers have complained for years that they’re in a challenging situation. The Lyft and Uber apps don’t require passengers to verify their ages in most cases, so in practice, drivers end up as the front-line enforcers of corporate policies. Drivers are expected to be trained professionals who can spot a variety of suspected criminal behavior, but they are generally low-paid contractors, not employees, and there is a pervasive perception in the driver community that enforcing certain rules, such as those about unaccompanied minors, could result in negative consequences for drivers. 

Several people on driver message boards have written that they’ve been penalized or have faced negative consequences after they turned down ride requests for unaccompanied minors, through lost time , retaliatory customer reviews or failure to receive cancellation fees. NBC News reached out to 16 of the people posting. None agreed to an interview. 

Several people on driver message boards have written that they’ve been penalized or have faced negative consequences after they turned down ride requests for unaccompanied minors.

Lyft and Uber declined to make any executives or employees available for interviews. 

Uber said in a statement that it has worked to stop human trafficking in multiple ways. It launched an education program for its drivers in 2018, and its training materials include a 19-minute video with tips for how to identify victims. It gets advice on its training from multiple nongovernmental organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. In 2016, it signed on to a travel industry code of conduct to end child exploitation; companies are required to report annually on six criteria , including efforts to train employees. 

“While we are not experts in this space, Uber is committed to doing what it can to combat the societal problem of human trafficking as we recognize that it can present itself on our platform, and we partner with organizations who are experts in this space to help accomplish this goal,” the company said. 

“We do recognize that at any given time, there are thousands of eyes on the road and want to do as much as we can to arm drivers with information and resources and encourage them to be vigilant while driving,” it said. 

NBC News sent the court cases to the companies for comment. A representative for Uber said two of the incidents were stings in which no minors were involved. In a third, the driver called law enforcement after having dropped off an unaccompanied minor — leading to an arrest, though not in time to stop an assault, prosecutors say. In a fourth, the abuser, who has since been convicted, used Uber to find a driver willing to travel 700 miles to pick up a victim but then paid in cash and with a money-transfer app, not through the Uber app, according to court documents. 

A representative for Lyft didn’t answer written questions about specific incidents or about the lawsuits against the company. 

Lyft will require account holders to verify their identities if there are “multiple reports for appearing to be underage,” according to company policy . A representative didn’t respond to a written question about how often that has happened. 

Lyft said in a statement that “safety is fundamental” and that it constantly works “to make Lyft an even safer platform.” It continued: “We don’t allow passengers under the age of 18 to take Lyft rides without an adult. Drivers should report requests to transport unaccompanied minors to our support team so we can take appropriate action.”

Neither Uber nor Lyft responded to written questions about why their corporate policies use the word “may” in describing a driver’s responsibility not to transport a suspected minor. Both companies say they have on-call staff members available to assist drivers with safety concerns. 

Like Uber, Lyft offers videos about human-trafficking awareness to drivers, and in February it said it was partnering with the Homeland Security Department to supplement its existing tutorials. 

Neither Lyft nor Uber responded to written questions about how often drivers watch their training videos or for how long. 

If teenagers and children are taking rides unaccompanied, that might be a sign that drivers aren’t getting enough training, said Yvonne Chen, director of private sector engagement at PACT, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting child trafficking. PACT has a partnership with Uber in which it provides Uber with training materials. Chen said she didn’t know how often drivers see that material. 

Many of the trafficking instances started the same way, with potential abusers meeting teenagers or children online through social media and then persuading them to meet in person. 

The youngest reported victim was an 11-year-old girl. The man accused of abusing her called her a Lyft late on a Sunday night in 2018, and she got in the vehicle unaccompanied wearing pajamas and a child’s backpack, according to a lawsuit filed by a parent. The driver didn’t ask why she was using the man’s account, the lawsuit says. The alleged abuser had entered an address for the wrong hotel, so he ordered a second Lyft, and the second driver also didn’t ask, according to the lawsuit. The suit says that the assault happened after the second ride and that, during a third Lyft ride the next morning, a third driver also didn’t intervene. 

All three drivers later said in depositions that they were unaware of Lyft’s ban on unaccompanied minors, said Nadeem Bezar, a lawyer at the firm Kline & Specter who represents the girl’s family. 

“On three occasions, the perpetrator of the sexual assault contacted a Lyft for her to be transported. So she was transported on another person’s account without an adult in the car,” he said. 

“Could you create another scenario that sounds more sinister?” he said. 

Lyft and a co-defendant, the Days Inn motel chain, agreed last year to pay $9 million collectively to settle the lawsuit. Days Inn didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

The man accused in that case, Bernard Rogers, was 23 years old at the time. He was charged with rape and other crimes, court records say. Court records don’t say whether he has entered a plea or whether he is still in custody. 

Lyft’s terms of service prohibit people under age 18 from using the service unless adults are with them. Uber’s terms of service also prohibit unaccompanied rides by minors unless they’re 13 or older and have signed up ahead of time for teen accounts, which need a guardian’s permission and are available only in some cities. 

Despite those restrictions, many teens have routinely used Uber and Lyft, including to go to school in the morning, according to multiple news reports . When an NBC News reporter recently signed up for accounts with both services, neither asked for a date of birth or proof of age or identity. The apps require agreeing to the terms of service, which include the 18-and-over requirement.

In at least one documented case of an unaccompanied minor, a ride-hailing driver intervened, leading to an arrest. In 2019, an Uber driver in Alabama became concerned about a passenger after having dropped her off and called police, according to state and federal authorities. The passenger had said she was 18 but turned out to be a 15-year-old girl, federal prosecutors said. The man who arranged for the Uber pleaded guilty to interstate travel for sexual contact with a minor. 

Scrutiny has been increasing. Last year, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators said they were investigating how Lyft and Uber ensure their apps aren’t used for human trafficking. The senators cited a 2018 survey by Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, that found that 9% of victims or traffickers used ride-hailing services such as Uber or Lyft during their exploitation, that traffickers used their own vehicles in 81% of cases and that taxis were used at some point in 47% of cases. (Survey respondents could select multiple options.) 

In September, a Texas law took effect that requires ride-hailing companies to provide drivers with annual training in how to spot human trafficking. The training must include a video that’s at least 15 minutes long, the law says . 

Some people accused of being sex offenders are alleged to have hired ride-hailing drivers to transport teenagers long distances. Federal prosecutors said a New Jersey man used the Uber app in 2022 to find a driver willing to pick up a 15-year-old girl from Indiana and take her 700 miles to New Jersey. The man, Arnold Castillo, then paid the driver $1,000 in cash, prosecutors said. Last year, Castillo pleaded guilty to transporting a minor for criminal sexual activity and to coercion of a minor, and a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison. 

In 2019, a Lyft driver picked up a 13-year-old girl from Kansas near midnight and drove her alone more than 150 miles to the Nebraska home of a man she had met online, according to state prosecutors and a lawsuit filed by the girl’s family. 

The lawsuit alleges that Lyft “was aware of unaccompanied minors using its Lyft app to obtain rides and knowingly allowed it to occur, consciously choosing not to take the steps necessary to prevent unaccompanied minors from using its Lyft app, in order to preserve and increase its revenues.”

Chad Lucas, who represents the girl’s family along with DiPasquale, said the company should adequately train drivers to verify the ages of riders at pickup. 

“Lyft is putting the drivers in a bad position — in a no-win position — and then when something bad like this happens, they say: ‘It’s all the driver’s fault. Sorry,’” said Lucas, an attorney at the firm Kuhlman & Lucas. 

Lyft is putting the drivers in a bad position — in a no-win position — and then when something bad like this happens, they say: ‘It’s all the driver’s fault. Sorry.’

“She’s a kid when this happens — she’s 13 years old — and going through that sort of trauma at that age is something that you hope your kid never has to deal with,” he said. 

The Nebraska man, Nicholas Avery, pleaded no contest in 2020 and was sentenced to 60 years in prison. The family’s lawsuit against Lyft is pending. 

Lyft and Uber have faced questions since their early days about how they enforce their restrictions on unaccompanied minors. In 2016, they sent written plans to California regulators, saying their enforcement largely consisted of disclosing their terms of service and publishing information on websites. 

Uber used to ban unaccompanied minors as Lyft does, but last year, it began offering a ride service aimed at teenagers called “Uber for teens,” expanding into a growing market of apps that offer transportation for teens. It’s available in parts of 50 states with the consent of legal guardians, according to an Uber website for the program. Guardian must have accounts already, and they are notified when teens request rides, the website says. Teens also must complete a safety course before they request their first unaccompanied rides. All but one of the alleged incidents reviewed by NBC News occurred before the debut of “Uber for teens.”

An Uber representative said the company had no information to share about how many people have signed up for teen accounts. 

The service isn’t available to Uber’s U.K. customers, who must be at least 18 years old to ride unaccompanied. “An under 18 taking a trip alone is a safety concern,” an Uber website says. 

Robotaxis — autonomous vehicles that don’t have human drivers present — could complicate the situation further. Waymo, which operates robotaxi services in California and Arizona, says it prohibits unaccompanied minors and may use cameras to enforce the policy if necessary. 

“We respect and protect the privacy of our riders, but we do have safeguards including interior cameras that allow us to identify violations of our terms of service or for fraudulent activity,” Waymo said in a statement. “If potential violations of our policies are detected, we will confirm and suspend the account.” 

Since 2018, the FBI has charged at least three people in sting operations in which the defendants were alleged to have used Uber or Lyft to try to transport people they thought were teenagers or children. In each of the cases — in Pittsburgh ; Louisville, Kentucky ; and Los Angeles — the defendants were communicating online with undercover agents, authorities said. 

In at least one case, Lyft has pushed back against the suggestion that its driver could have identified a 14-year-old girl as a minor. In 2022, a man used Lyft to call a ride for the girl from a street corner in Connecticut to his home 150 miles away in New York City, where, she says, he sexually assaulted her, according to a lawsuit filed by her mother . At the pickup, the girl wore pajama pants and a hoodie and carried a book bag, it says. 

Lyft lawyers argued that the suit should be dismissed in part because it included “no facts demonstrating that the driver knew or should have known that Jane Doe was a minor.” The lawyers added: “As both minors and adults can wear pajama pants, hoodies and bookbags, this allegation is hardly sufficient to establish that the driver knew or should have known that Jane Doe was a minor.” 

In February, a judge denied Lyft’s motion to dismiss and allowed the lawsuit to proceed. 

David Ingram covers tech for NBC News.

Mother denies livestreaming sons' sexual abuse, says her ex 'brainwashed the boys'

Editor's note:  This story contains descriptions of child sexual abuse that readers may find disturbing.

WEST PALM BEACH — A mother accused of livestreaming her children's sexual abuse has denied the accusations and lobbed a few of her own. In a recent court filing, the woman said a vengeful ex-boyfriend "brainwashed" her sons into reporting her to police without cause.

The woman has remained in the Palm Beach County Jail since her arrest in early March, denied bail by a judge who said he'd never heard allegations as shocking as those against the 38-year-old mother and her suspected accomplices. The Palm Beach Post  is not identifying the defendants in order to protect the identities of the two minor children.

During an FBI raid of their home in suburban Boca Raton, investigators found the sex toys, cameras and other recording equipment they believe were used to broadcast the boys' abuse to a paying audience online. The brothers were removed from the home in late November, after they visited their father for Thanksgiving and reportedly told him of the abuse that began five years earlier.

What led to her arrest: Brothers removed from Boca-area home describe yearslong sexual abuse at mother's hand

Defense attorneys Marc Shiner and Heidi Perlet filed a motion for pretrial release on the woman's behalf last week. In it, they accused the children's estranged father — whose call to police triggered the investigation and subsequent arrests — of "twisting the minds" of his 14- and 7-year-old sons in hopes of gaining sole custody over them.

"His intent was clear," the attorneys wrote. "Have her arrested so he could move into her home with the couple's two minor children."

Allegations against Florida mom born out of jealousy, attorneys say

Shiner said that years before her arrest, the boys' mother ended her relationship with their father and evicted him from their home. The man made several attempts to rejoin the household anyway, Shiner said, including having his mail rerouted to the old address and threatening to falsely accuse the woman to police if she didn't break up with the man who took his place.

The woman did not break up with the man — a 42-year-old IT specialist later charged with sexually abusing the children — but agreed to let her sons visit their father in North Florida for Thanksgiving. Shiner said the father refused to bring the children back to Boca Raton, prompting their mother to file a parental kidnapping complaint with law enforcement.

"It is only after (she) tried to bring her children back to Palm Beach County that these horrible allegations of abuse were made," the attorney wrote.

'I want revenge': Serial sex offender threatened to hunt victims who testified against him

Shiner and Perlet said the older of the two brothers is autistic and easily influenced by his "jealous and bitter" father. The younger brother, they said, is easily swayed by the older one. The attorneys said the father fed lies to the older boy about his mother, causing him to become violent and angry toward her and ultimately culminating in the abuse allegations.

Shiner wrote that neither boy agreed to be medically examined by authorities, which "certainly would have confirmed or refuted" the allegations of extensive abuse. He added that the Florida Department of Children and Families asked a judge to terminate the woman's parental rights soon after her arrest, but withdrew that request last month. It did not offer a reason why.

Shiner said he suspects that the agency "recognized that these allegations were fabricated."

DCF attorney Rachel Cohen declined to comment on the case when reached by The Palm Beach Post on Friday. She referred questions to the DCF communications department, which did not issue a statement by the time of this story's publication.

Sex toys, deleted videos and repeat payments among evidence against Florida couple

Though authorities did not find footage of the abuse, they did find evidence that on the day after their investigation began, someone erased 33 videos from an online account linked to the couple. The website that hosted the since-deleted videos markets itself as a "moral-free" site for users to "upload your goodies."

Investigators also found repeated payments to the adults' accounts ranging from $35 to $200. Most had no description listed, with the exception of one recurring transaction labeled "Tech support."

While agents mined the couples' internet history, deputies interviewed the boys on numerous occasions, their statements consistent each time. The children described the flash of a camera that accompanied the alleged abuse and the nightmares they continued to have.

More: Child's secret Snapchat recordings help convict mother's boyfriend of yearslong sex abuse

The boys said that in addition to sexual abuse, the adults hit, slapped, cursed and spit at them, sometimes yanking them hard enough to leave a bruise. One son recalled holding onto his younger brother's arm while their mother pulled the other arm, intent on dragging him into her room.

"I was crying and sobbing," one boy said. He recalled a particular incident as "the longest night of my life."

His mother is scheduled to appear in court on May 10 to ask Circuit Judge Sarah Willis to release her from jail. Her boyfriend is also seeking pre-trial release, maintaining that the allegations against him are the byproduct of a child-custody dispute.

The Palm Beach Post attempted to reach the children's father for comment. However, the phone numbers contained in his public records were out of service.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, the Palm Beach County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center can help. Reach their helpline at 561-833-7273, or toll-free at 866-891-7273.

Hannah Phillips covers criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at  [email protected] .  Help support our journalism and  subscribe today .