Now in her early 30s, Sophie spent years in therapy, earned a PhD in counselling psychology and went on to work with other survivors of abuse. Sophie’s mother, herself a victim of abuse, had proven incapable of protecting her children. Her biological father was taken away when she was three because he had sexually abused another sister, Rose, although he never harmed Sophie. There was further abuse in Sophie’s family. He also sexually abused my half-sister, his own biological child.” He controlled my every move and everything my mum did. “I’d hope and pray that he wouldn’t come in and pull the blankets back. “I remember Gerard always wore these cowboy boots, and my little heart would beat faster when I’d hear him coming down to my room,” she says. Sophie was four when her stepfather, Gerard, started to sexually abuse her. If we are to keep children safe we may have to gain a new understanding of the problem and make some unpalatable changes to the way we deal with it. Our current image of child sex abusers in Ireland, and our approach to them, may be putting young people at risk. Most abuse is carried out by family members or people known to the victim. James’s case highlights some stark facts that are not always understood about child abuse. It creates a perpetual anxiety for the survivor which is hard to put to rest.” “It’s hard for the survivor, for the other siblings, for the extended family. In many cases, James says, nobody wants to ruin the family image. A family member who abuses is always a family member, and how does the family cope with that?” “There’s a lot of focus on priests, rightfully: the abuse and the cover-up were despicable. I think people need to find the language to talk, at home and in schools, about good and bad intimacy. “Now I have a good relationship with my mum, but during my 20s she seemed to downplay it. When I told her what had happened she thought I was confused.
When I was 18 my mum brought me to a psychiatrist. I carried self-loathing, humiliation, fear and shame.
“During my teens there was a deep and profound sadness that I couldn’t shake, so I drank a lot and took drugs. It went on for about three years, until shortly after my dad died. He told me that if I ever told anyone we would both go to prison. “It began with gentle interference but, over time, became more serious and specific. When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online.“I was about eight when my brother started coming into my room,” James says. Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers Other steps you can take to protect your children are: More information about the RTA Label and compatible services can be found here. Parental tools that are compatible with the RTA label will block access to this site. We use the "Restricted To Adults" (RTA) website label to better enable parental filtering. Protect your children from adult content and block access to this site by using parental controls. PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography).