Family, Ritual and Networks
The Outreau abuse trial started in 2000 and lasted until December of 2005 where over 66 adults were accused of raping, sexually abusing and prostituting 45 children between January 1999 and February 2002. The incidents took place on a poverty stricken council estate “in a chronically deprived community.” 1
Many of the accused were said to have been innocent of the crimes, with just four of the 17 men and women originally charged found guilty. What was deemed as evidence was later said – perhaps conveniently – to be no more than the imaginings of Myriam Delay and the wild inventions of other children. As well as crucial evidence that was never heard in court which would have exonerated many of the accused, most of the 13 suspects who continued to plead their innocence were placed in detention in 2001. In the beginning of 2006 President Jacque Chirac called the case of the Outreau 13 “…as an unprecedented judicial disaster…” 2
France has been repeatedly criticised by the European Court of Human Rights and campaign groups for its pre-trial detention that can last up to five years. Many lost their jobs and saw their children taken into care.
The case has revealed serious flaws in France’s judicial system, which should never have allowed most of the cases to come to court. This can only benefit those who commit the crimes and serves to feed the idea that much of the organized paedophilia and sexual abuse are children’s fantasies. It underlines just how difficult it is to obtain prosecutions of high level networks if isolated groupings within society are loaded with problems. It remains disturbing however, that Miriam Delay on 10th day of her trial, suddenly admits to fabricating much of the story concerning tales of gang rapes and a child prostitution ring based in her home.
After a trial that shattered lives of 18 people accused in case, with one committing suicide and others losing custody of their children it begs the question was it all lies? The answer is no. There were cases of abuse. Delay’s retraction appeared to prove that no “commercial” bartering of “services” was organised.
Yet what are we to make of the trial that followed a few months later and which bore a remarkable resemblance to he Outreau trail? It was “one of the country's biggest criminal trials, and the largest paedophile trial held in France” 66 men and women faced “charges of rape and child sex abuse on 45 children, some of them their own. The abuse is alleged to have taken place over three years between 1999 and 2002 in the western town of Angers.”
The Deputy public prosecutor Herve Lollic told the AFP news agency: “We are certain of not having identified all the victims and it is probable that we have not identified all the aggressors,” which doesn’t inspire the greatest confidence that justice would be done. However, by July 2005 videotaped testimony of the children provided “horrific details of abuse” which took place between 1999 and 2002. Charges were brought against an intra familial paedophile ring in a poor area of a town in western France. ‘These were people in difficulty, excluded from normal society, who found each other. And for them, everything was sexualised,’ said one local news journalist. Another expert at the trial mentioned that ‘these were people who were unable to manage their sexual impulses. And nobody told them these things shouldn't be done …’ 3
After so many cases of abuse in the last 20 years it is almost understandable that social workers are trying to cultivate due caution but at the same time suitable vigilance. This may have accounted for the fact that 21 of the 23 families in the case had been monitored by French social workers after the first report in 1999, but the investigation only began in earnest in 2002. This seems to be yet another instance of gross mismanagement or criminal apathy in light of the severity of the abuse. The Deputy public prosecutor said “…I fear that these things do not just happen in Angers…”
With such painfully slow realisations forming at this late stage it is no wonder that intra-familial abuse and other forms of exploitation continue to rise in society. Where cases of intra-generational abuse occur, how does one penetrate the wall of secrecy set up as a natural course by the victims and perpetrators alike? When these walls are finally broken down, the methods adopted often lead to fatal flaws that see the wrong persons accused and caught up in the ensuing and very slippery shadows, which then causes suspicion and accusations to all, regardless of tangible evidence.
From the UK to the US and things are no better. Children are suffering unnecessarily as victims only to become further victims of court ineptitude and cultural and personal bias resulting in families being broken up and effectively destroyed. Meanwhile, the real abusers continue to get away quite literally, with murder.
From a series of life history interviews conducted by Sara Scott PhD from the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the University Liverpool, UK, the stories from one particular family detail a history of “violence, cruelty and sexual abuse.” One interviewee responded to a question about her uncle and abuse:
… once I was at boarding school he used to have to pick up us up from the airport and stay over night and going back to school and things like that; he used to abuse then a fair bit…. My uncle in many ways was like my dad. He’d come across as a very nice bloke, good laugh and a joke. They managed to do what my parents had done, build up and image of everything’s fine, nothing’s wrong… ‘We’re the perfect family.’ My uncle has a daughter and four grandchildren – at least one I know that’s been abused. I’m almost certain he’s abused his own daughter, he abused my sister, he abused my dad… very much into abusing people.
He abused you dad when he was young?
Yeah, from what I can gather from what my sister’s told me from when he was fairly young until his teens. Quite badly abused my dad, because of the 18 years [between them]. 4
Scott goes onto emphasize the “ordinary” and “routine” nature of such abuse which existed in these families. Abuse began when the children were infants where it was so much part of their formative years that it became normalized:
[Kate]: Yeah, I can remember what I call normal abuse… which basically didn’t have any cult meaning, it was just my father. That was pretty much a regular occurrence as much as eating my meals actually. I can’t really distinguish particularly… It would happen at home or used to take me for walks in the park… anywhere really… I don’t think it really bothered him at all. […]
[Sinead:] As soon as I saw my mum each day I would get bath. And my mum used to pay particular attention to my private parts. She would wash me quite roughly and insert her fingers inside me. Sometimes my dad would help and he would help, and he would do the same thing. That must of gone on since I was born really. I do remember my dad would quite often insert things inside me, his hand was a favourite. It got to be normal, I just used to relax, it didn’t hurt so much. It was so ordinary, I didn’t think: ‘O, my God, what are they doing?’ That went on till I went to school. 5
It seems to be true with many cases of intra-familial abuse that emotional cruelty and degradation also featured to a greater or lesser degree. In the case of the above middle class English family such instances included: “….pissing on me when I was in bath and putting my head down the toilet and putting faeces in my mouth. Nice, you know, nice things like that… I hate him.” 6
Far from being merely a product of dysfunctional family, incest is obviously carried out most often by parents committing rape upon their own child which tends to cut through the psychoanalysis double-speak of “parents loving too much” or the “failure of family obligations.” 7
If we look to the internet there are ample opportunities for those to find others who are attempting to make incest acceptable along with paedophilia. As with most forms of deviancy of the kind that includes bestiality, Sadomasochism and fetishes of all types the internet provides a homogenous and anonymous entry into all manner of fantasy that is attempting to slip from pathology to normalcy. There are even chat-rooms and websites that are de facto support groups for people engaged in incest. Ideas that advocate a better understanding of consensual sex between “kin”, blur the line yet again between the complexities of father-daughter relationships for example, where perhaps the only way to find a proper relationship is to give in to the adult’s manipulations - sex being the only way to gain attention or “love.” However, our concern here is for the child for whom the idea of consent, when confronted by the father or mother in such cases is a cruel abstraction devoid of any meaning. It can only be a form of parental rape at this stage and it must be prosecuted as such.
In the UK the old offence of incest was replaced with a more modern law that prohibits sexual relations between children under 18 and their blood relations, adoptive parents and siblings, step-parents, foster carers and those in a position of responsibility in the family. The “position of responsibility” covers people such as a friend of the child's mother, a relative by marriage, such as an uncle, or another adult that lives in the same household. Whereas in the New York, US, the penalty for those who molest an unrelated child differs greatly with the penalty for those who molest children to whom they are related. One may ask what is worse? A stranger who rapes a child or the child’s own father committing the crime? There is surely something even more abhorrent about a father or mother betraying such trust which is, after all, about satisfying their own desire at the expense of their own flesh and blood.
Not so, overseas. Sex with a child under the age of 11 is a Class B felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. If, however, the sexually abused child is closely related to the perpetrator, state law ensures significantly more lenient treatment, to the extent that the prosecutor may choose to charge the same acts as incest. The problem being this is not listed as a sex offence, but as an “offense affecting the marital relationship,” 8 It is therefore a Class E felony, whereby even a convicted offender may be granted probation.
Imagine how useful a political tool this has become for the high-flying family man with a supercharged career and a penchant for abusing his children as he climbs the ladder to the top? Find the right lawyer, pay the money and rely on incest loopholes to finish the job. Such inconsistencies are not so surprising when we look at some of the definitions of sexual practices in law.
In the State of North Carolina orgies are defined as “7 people in a closed room with their feet off of the ground.” Necrophilia (sex with corpses) was not illegal in Iowa until the late 1980s, then it is little wonder that child abuse and the courts are in such chaos. Similar eccentric laws exist in many Southern States.
Regardless of the precise statistics of each category we can be sure that the prevalence of familial abuse and sexual abuse in general, is not decreasing, though crime in general may well be on the decrease. Either way, if we go back to the US in 1970 the results of one study recorded 86,324 persons arrested for sexual offences. In 1986, 168,579 persons were arrested for sexual offences which are almost double the number. The United States Department of Justice recorded in 1981 and 1989 respectively, that from 1970 to 1979 the rate of increase for sexual offences, other than forcible rape and prostitution was 5 percent. From 1979 to 1988 the rate of increase for these offences was 44.5 percent. 9 Therefore, we can make the tentative observation that the single largest group in our prison population may be those convicted of sexual offences, second only to drug offences.
It is also worth noting that the high rate of physical and sexual abuse (including rape and violence within the family) will induce post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children in particular, especially where genital pain is involved. This becomes understandable when we realise that an estimated 61percent of violent sex offenders in State prisons have a prior conviction history and a further estimate of 1 in 4 imprisoned rape and sexual assault offenders with dominant past histories of violent crime, with 1 in 7 having been previously convicted of a violent sex crime. 10 Child abusers who have been known to re-offend as late as 20 years following release into the community, this is not a problem that will disappear with sporadic under-funded, community-based supervision and management. This is a problem that goes very deep indeed into all aspects of social systems: economics, politics, and education.
Female sexual abuse is another taboo. Women in society are seen as the carers, nurturers and protectors. To accept that some women also abuse, whether sexually physically is therefore a strong taboo and all taboos have a paucity of research and data. As always, this too creates tensions between child advocates, agencies and feminist groups who fear that it will feed into the already difficult plight of women in society generally not least the arena of abuse.
With the use of force and coercion to maintain power, women will, to some degree necessarily be a part of that, albeit in significantly lower figures than the male. Women are largely still barred from positions of responsibility and influence where patriarchy still dominates over gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical and mental health. Therefore, the suppression of the feminine as we have seen is almost an unconscious given.
There is one theory that suggests that women frequently abuse children physically rather than sexually. This is the most readily available individual, or individuals to whom the abuser can claim to exert control and retain that power normally denied to them, especially within a fragmented and disintegrating home environment where pathologies tend to manifest. 11 This however, could be a case of social science being too flexible. Perhaps it is a simple case of sadistic narcissism or psychopathy exerting its will.
Examples of female sexual abuse fall into distinct categories including: teachers who are involved with adolescent and/or pre-pubescent boys or consider themselves “in love” and/or want to teach them about sex; 12 Women who are coerced into offending and who are initially abuse dependent i.e. allows another male to initiate the action but can end up abusing on their own; # and abusers who have been sexually abused themselves from a very young age and go on to inflict the same abuse towards their own children. This may not be necessarily aggressive, threatening abuse, rather “a cry for emotional intimacy.” 13
Psychopathy may also play its part where cases are just too pathological to be classed as anything else. The case where a mother feared she would “lose her boyfriend while she recuperated from surgery arranged for her 15-year-old daughter to have sex with him” could be viewed as one example. 14
Though the above suggests there are important differences between male and female abuse, this type of offending, despite the cultural stereotyping of young boys “enjoying it and wanting it” can be just as detrimental creating concerns regarding masculinity, deep-seated anger, fear, betrayal, helplessness, negative attitudes towards relationships with the opposite sex and continuing occurrences of self-blame and guilt. In other words, female sexual abuse, like male abuse, has long term psychological effects that can ruin lives.
Social service and mental health professionals are unused to the idea that females can and do abuse children making the detection and of such crimes even more difficult. This means that children remain vulnerable to continuing and undetected abuse of this kind. There are estimates that 5 percent of girls and up to 20 percent of boys that have been abused are perpetrated by women, though the tiny amount of data available is less than definitive. 15
One programme to broach the subject of female abuse aired in the UK almost ten years ago. “The Sexual Abuse by Women of Children and Teenagers” by the BBC’s social and current affairs series Panorama raised several taboo issues. 16 The programme suggested that though female abuse may still be lower than male abuse, it was vastly underestimated in scope and frequency with up to as many as 250,000 having been abused as children by women in the UK alone.
Children are not only becoming victims within the family but are also manifesting narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies which have been inflicted upon them. Time and time again within the democracies of so called enveloped countries the young are absorbing and enacting the pathologies of a world that has been forced and coerced into losing its way. There can be no greater barometer than by looking at the plight of children under globalization. There is something very wrong indeed in our institutions and social systems if the very core of the family is exhibiting symptoms of emotional decay and psychological disorders to the extent that parents, siblings resort to abuse, torture and murder. And when this is discovered serves as a convenient cover for much more extreme networks of abuse within the Establishment classes. This is further exacerbated by a climate of fear placing pressure on parents who are made to feel hypersensitive and over protective of their own children. The child abuse industry shows no signs of slowing.
Notes
1 ‘French paedophile ring case turns into judicial fiasco’ The Guardian, December 2, 2005.
2 ‘Outrage over innocent 13 jailed in sex abuse scandal’ The Times, January 20, 2006.
3 ‘Child abuse gang horrifies France’ By Sarah Shenker, BBC News, July 27, 2005.
4 The Politics and Experience of Ritual Abuse: Beyond Disbelief By Sara Scott, 2001, published by Open University Press.ISBN 0-335-20419-8. p.66.
5 p.67 (Scott, 2001)
6 Ibid.
7 Systemic treatment of incest: A therapeutic handbook. T.S Trepper and M. J Barrett, New York: Brunner/Mazel. (1989).
8 ‘The Incest Loophole’ By Andrew Vachss, The New York Times Op-Ed, November 20, 2005.
9 U. S. Department of Justice (1981). Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics-1981. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D. C. /U. S. Department of Justice (1989). Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics-1989. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D. C.
10 US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, February 1997.
11 'Unspeakable Acts', Trouble and Strife 2 I (Summer), I3 p. I5 by L. Kelly. 1991.
12 Bridget Mary Nolan , a former Australian teacher was convicted in December 2005 of having sexual intercourse with an underage student at her school. She was sentenced on March 1, 2006 to two years and four months but the which led to a suspended sentence after Nolan entered a $1,000, three-year good behaviour bond. The sentencing judge justified his decision not to hand down a jail sentence due to her showing "genuine remorse." The Australian, January 2006, p. 5./ The Australian. 2 March 2006, p. 3.
13 A woman told investigators that she was “…coaxed into raping her 6-year-old son when her husband threatened to leave will spend the next 16 years in prison….The woman's 30-year-old husband was sentenced …to two concurrent life.” published in The Akron Beacon-Journal, October 5, 2002.
14 ‘Breaking the last taboo: child sexual abuse by female perpetrators’ By Renee Koonin, Australian Social Work journal, Volume 30, No 2. May 1995.
15 A paper: Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research, 'Women as Perpetrators,’ by D. Finkelhor, and D. Russell New York: Free Press. (1984).
16 The Sexual Abuse by Women of Children and Teenagers UK TV Programme, Panorama, BBC1, 10 pm Monday 6th October 1997.
16 The Sexual Abuse by Women of Children and Teenagers UK TV Programme, Panorama, BBC1, 10 pm Monday 6th October 1997.
- Sex, Lies and Society Part I
- Sex, Lies and Society Part II
- Sex, Lies and Society Part III
- Sex, Lies and Society Part IV
- Sex, Lies and Society Part V
- Sex, Lies and Society Part VI
- Sex, Lies and Society Part VII
- Sex, Lies and Society Part VIII
