Thursday, June 12, 2008

Rav Moshe Sternbuch, shlita - Guidelines for calling the Police VI - the stigma of being molested

While the focus of my previous postings on this subject have been the legitimacy of calling the police - there is in fact a bigger problem. It is not the concealment and denial of the rabbis and community. It is rather the concealment and denial of the parents of the abused children.

People have greater fear of the stigma of their children being labeled as molested - then of the molesting itself.

Someone just told me of the case of a well respected member of the community who has molested more then 10 of his neighbors kids. The police were called in - but not a single family is willing to press charges! They don't want their kids being labeled as abused because it will be a problem for shidduchim - not only for the molested kids - but the rest of his/her family.

The local rabbis have dealt with the situation by assigning him a mashgiach or supervisor. According to a psychologist I consulted it is not unusual for families of molested kids to refuse to press charges. Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz provided a link to ABC news Nightline article which noted that in a case in which Jewish and non-Jewish kids had been abused - not a single Jewish parent had pressed charges but only the non-Jewish ones.

Would you want your son to marry a girl who had been molested or raped? Would you want your daughter to marry a young man who was continually abused from the time he was 8 years old? If the answer is no - then the molested child will be hurt again and again.

5 comments :

  1. "Would you want your daughter to marry a young man who was continually abused from the time he was 8 years old? If the answer is no - then the molested child will be hurt again and again."

    Whether someone is comfortable with such a situation is not for us to judge imho. I've made such a decision.

    The point is that one cannot stand by the blood of his brother. Such a person is a rodef and if you can stop such a person and don't....

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  2. The Rabbi/Principal of the Bais Yaakov asked my daughter to stay after school one day to help in the office with a mailing.

    He tried to touch her.

    My husband and I went to our Rav and were told that yes, the Rav is aware of this Rabbi and what he does to girls. But we were told that if we brought him to Beis Din all that would happen is that we would stigmatize ALL of our children for shidduchim.

    We were told that reporting him to the Police would be even worse for our family.

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  3. Whatever happened to Tzedek tzedek tirdof?

    Besides, if covering up the problem is how it's being dealt with, odds are that the daughter in question was probably also molested and no one knows about it.

    That's a way to run a society?

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  4. I don't see why this question is different than any other mental illness or debilitating psychological trauma.
    The fact that this mental trauma was brought upon by an outside act of a molester does not make the trauma less problematic for future normal intimate living with a potential spouse.

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  5. Blogger Freelance Kiruv Maniac said...

    I don't see why this question is different than any other mental illness or debilitating psychological trauma.
    The fact that this mental trauma was brought upon by an outside act of a molester does not make the trauma less problematic for future normal intimate living with a potential spouse.
    ===============
    But that is my point. If a child is bipolar or depressive - do you conceal this to facilitate marriage? When parents refuse to press charges - not only does it increase the number of victims - but it increases the number of problematic marriages and consequently more kids with problems

    ReplyDelete

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