I was also verbally and I’d also say emotionally abused by a houseparent there for two years, and I was literally told by the staff that I was lying about it, and when my family almost sent me to public school because of it, they literally sat me down, took me out of school/class and sat me down with my teacher, the dean of students, head of the elementary department, and told me thta I’d never make it in public school, and that I was just amking a big deal about things anyway, so stop going home and telling my parents all of these things, because they were just exaggerations anyway.

And I have to tell you that that whole series of events has done a number on my self-esteem, my feelings of self-worth, etc., that I’m still in my mid 30′s trying to come to grips with.
.-= Ginny´s last blog ..Discrimination in Oakland? =-.

Yet because I am disabled he is still out there. I am stuck in a limbo of fear, because until he commits another crime, comes after me, or dies they won’t touch him. They could never find him to serve the restraining order after they let him go. I was told that I couldn’t do anything. i had to give up my life, I had to give up so much just to stay alive, because no one will believe me because I have no voice.

Of course, he turned out to have preyed upon other disabled women, I am not alone as a victim but, none of them were believed either. He confessed things to me, thinking I could never tell. Pedofilia among them. He stole money from me. He forged my signature on documents relating to the government that cost them money, but I am the one who may be held liable in a court of law if anyone is.

All because I am the victim and i am disabled.

IN fact, in the Netherlands there is some worry among legal psychologists that sexual abuse suspects are getting too little legal protection especially in situations where the alleged sexual abuse happened in power dynamics (such as at institutions). There are strict guidelines (which are not always followed) at the advice of legal psychologists on how accusations of sexual abuse in situations of power should be handled by police. These sound somewhat devaluing to the victims, but it is allegedly to prevent the increased risk of false accusations. Of course, it may seem this is the age-old “but I know someone who *really* faked!” argument.

I was in a special school for boys with behavioural problems from 1989 to 1993 and my own blog has become a sounding board for complaints about that school and another school in the 1980s and 1990s. Mostly it’s about staff brutality; I can’t afford to have people suing me for allowing others to call them paedophiles, unfortunately, but some have done. At my school, the bullying was rife (the staff pretty much encouraged it) and accountability was pretty much non-existent, and there was (what was believed to be) a sexual assault of some kind in the junior dorms in 1991. For whatever reason, the school took both boys back and told everyone to basically shut up because we didn’t know the half of it. As you might expect, rumours continued to fly around and the alleged attacker was branded a rapist and was used as the school punchbag for some time afterwards.

I’m also amazed by how short the sentences are for decrepit old child abusers when they do get brought to book. In November 2007, a former headmaster of a special boarding school in Norfolk (a county in eastern England) got a two-year suspended sentence (meaning he would serve it only if he got into trouble again) for cruelty to children, which included inducing children to fight each other in public, to destroy their own birthday presents and to eat their own vomit.

Former pupils said that the man should have gone to prison. Speaking personally, there are a lot of post-traumatic stress issues which come out of this kind of experience even if the individual incidents seem (to onlookers) fairly trivial at the time.