Stop Incest Now

Rape & Incest: Islamic Perspective
Uzma Mazhar

Incest and rape are not new in this day and age; these problems have always existed and will continue to exist if not confronted face on. If you have ever worked with an incest, sexual abuse or rape survivor you will never be able to forget the devastating impact it has on all aspects of their life, nor will you be able to sit back and do nothing about this issue. These are serious crimes that corrode the fabric of family and society and cannot go un-addressed, since these problems do exist in Muslim families it is about time that we address it openly and take action to put an end to it.

To fully understand this issue we need to examine what Islâm teaches us about the value of human life

Islâm views human life as a sacred gift from God. The Qur’ân repeatedly stresses the sanctity of life (hurmat al hayat). The life of every single individual regardless of gender, age, nationality or religion is worthy of respect. In verses referring to the sanctity of life, the term used is ‘nafs’ (soul, life); and there is no distinction made in that soul being young or old, male or female, Muslim or non-muslim.

Sûrah al An'am 6.151:
"Do not take any human being's life, (the life) which God has declared to be sacred - otherwise than in (the pursuit of) justice: this has He enjoined upon you so that you might use your reason."
(Also check: Sûrah al Isra 17.33 & Sûrah al Ma'idah 5.32

Qur’ânic teachings encompass every aspect of life; hence it does not limit the definition of life to the physical body only, but includes the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects as well. There are about 150 verses that define the term ‘nafs’ in various ways making it clear that the concept of ‘life’ is not limited to mere physical existence

Historically, Islam has addressed serious issues openly and sought to correct actions that constitute harm or ‘zulm’ (ie: cruelty and abuse) to the dignity of humankind. Human life and respect for it has been stressed unstintingly, regardless of age or gender. As a general rule, Islâm forbids all ‘zulm’, be it physical, mental, emotional or spiritual

Sûrah al An'am 6.120
”Abandon all harm (ithm), whether committed openly or in secret.”
(Check Sûrah al A`raf 7:33)

Sûrah al 49:11-12 points out categorically that emotionally abusive language and behavior is not acceptable.
"You who believe do not let one (set of) people make fun of another set. Do not defame one another. Do not insult by using nicknames. And do not backbite or speak ill of one another."

In the last address to his community, the Prophet (saw) said: "Your lives and properties are forbidden to one another till you meet your Lord on the Day of Resurrection… Regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust… Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you... You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity." The Prophet (saw) did not prohibit only the unlawful encroachment of one another’s life and property, but also honor and respect.

Considering that human life is to be valued and cruelty is forbidden, what is the Islamic perspective on incest and rape?

According to Islâm, a woman has to be respected and protected under all circumstances, whether she belongs to your own nation or to the nation of an enemy, whether she follows your religion or belongs to some other religion or has no religion at all. A Muslim cannot outrage her under any circumstances. All promiscuous relationships have been forbidden to him, irrespective of the status or position of the woman, whether the woman is a willing or an unwilling partner to the act. The words of the Holy Qur’ân in this respect are: "Do not approach (the bounds of) adultery" (17:32). Heavy punishment has been prescribed for this crime, and the order has not been qualified by any conditions. Since the violation of chastity of a woman is forbidden in Islam, a Muslim who perpetrates this crime cannot escape punishment. (Maudoodi)

The Quran has, in various ways and in different contexts; impressed on men that they must observe the limits set by God (Hudûd Allah) in respect to women and must not encroach upon their rights in either marriage or divorce. In all situations it is the men who are reminded, corrected and reprimanded, over and over again, to be generous to women and to be kind, compassionate, fair and just in their dealings with women. Even in divorce, when the chances of anger and vindictiveness are high, it is stressed that men are to separate with grace, equity and generosity and women is apparent from rulings against female infanticide and rights of inheritance given even to an unborn child; and the kindness mandated even when divorcing your wife. There are numerous ahâdîth about the rights of children to respect and dignity. The same holds true for respect and the unprecedented rights given to women.

Relevant verses from the Quran:
Sûrah an Nâs 4.119
'O you who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will...'

Sûrah an Nûr 24.33
'... And do not, in order to gain some of the fleeting pleasures of this worldly life, coerce your slave women into whoredom if they are desirous of marriage, and if anyone should coerce them, then, verily, after they have been compelled (to submit in their helplessness), God will be much forgiving, a dispenser of grace (to them).

During the time of the Prophet (saw) punishment was inflicted on the rapist on the solitary evidence of the woman who was raped by him. Wa'il ibn Hujr reports of an incident when a woman was raped. Later, when some people came by, she identified and accused the man of raping her. They seized him and brought him to Allah's messenger, who said to the woman, "Go away, for Allâh has forgiven you," but of the man who had raped her, he said, "Stone him to death." (Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud)

During the time when Umar (raa) was the Khalifah, a woman accused his son Abu Shahmah of raping her; she brought the infant borne of this incident with her to the mosque and publicly spoke about what had happened. Umar (raa) asked his son who acknowledged committing the crime and was duly punished right there and then. There was no punishment given to the woman. Islamic legal scholars interpret rape as a crime in the category of Hiraba. In ‘Fiqh-us-Sunnah’, hiraba is described as: ‘a single person or group of people causing public disruption, killing, forcibly taking property or money, attacking or raping women (hatk al ‘arad), killing cattle, or disrupting agriculture.

The famous jurist, Ibn Hazm, had the widest definition of hiraba, defining a hiraba offender as: ‘One who puts people in fear on the road, whether or not with a weapon, at night or day, in urban areas or in open spaces, in the palace of a caliph or a mosque, with or without accomplices, in the desert or in the village, in a large or small city, with one or more people… making people fear that they’ll be killed, or have money taken, or be raped (hatk al ‘arad)… whether the attackers are one or manyAl-Dasuqi held that if a person forced a woman to have sex, his actions would be deemed as committing hiraba. In addition, the Maliki judge Ibn ‘Arabi, relates a story in which a group was attacked and a woman in their party was raped. Responding to the argument that the crime did not constitute hiraba because no money was taken and no weapons used, Ibn ‘Arabi replied indignantly that "hiraba with the private parts" is much worse than hiraba involving the taking of money, and that anyone would rather be subjected to the latter than the former

The crime of rape is classified not as a subcategory of ‘zina’ (consensual adultery), but rather as a separate crime of violence under hiraba. This classification is logical, as the "taking" is of the victim’s property (the rape victim’s sexual autonomy) by force. In Islam, sexual autonomy and pleasure is a fundamental right for both women and men (Ghazâlî); taking by force someone’s right to control the sexual activity of one’s body is thus a form of hiraba.

Rape as hiraba is a violent crime that uses sexual intercourse as a weapon. The focus in a hiraba prosecution is the accused rapist and his intent and physical actions, and not second-guessing the consent of the rape victim. Hiraba does not require four witnesses to prove the offense, circumstantial evidence, medical data and expert testimony form the evidence used to prosecute such crimes.

Islamic legal responses to rape are not limited to a criminal prosecution for hiraba. Islamic jurisprudence also provides an avenue for civil redress for a rape survivor in its law of "jirah" (wounds). Islamic law designates ownership rights to each part of one’s body, and a right to corresponding compensation for any harm done unlawfully to any of those parts. Islamic law calls this the ‘law of jirah’ (wounds). Harm to a sexual organ, therefore, entitles the person harmed to appropriate financial compensation under classical Islamic jirah jurisprudence. Each school of Islamic law has held that where a woman is harmed through sexual intercourse (some include marital intercourse), she is entitled to financial compensation for the harm. Further, where this intercourse was without the consent of the woman, the perpetrator must pay the woman both the basic compensation for the harm, as well as an additional amount based on the ‘diyya’ (financial compensation for murder, akin to a wrongful death payment).

Islamic law, with its radical introduction of a woman’s right to own property as a fundamental right, employs a gender-egalitarian attitude in this area of jurisprudence. In fact, there is a hadith specifically directed to transforming the early Muslim population out of this patriarchal attitude of male financial compensation for female sexual activity. During the time of Prophet Muhammad, a young man committed zina with his employer’s wife. The father of the young man gave one hundred goats and a maid as compensation to the employer, who accepted it. When the case was reported to the Prophet, he ordered the return of the goats and the maid to the young man’s father and prosecuted the adulterer for zina (Abu Daud 1990, 3: Bk. 33, No. 4430; Bukhâri 1985, 8:Bk. 81, Nos. 815, 821, 826).

Early Islam thus established that there should be no tolerance of the attitude that a woman’s sexual activity is something to be bartered, pawned, gossiped about, or owned by the men in her life. Personal responsibility of every human being for their own actions is a fundamental principle in Islamic thought.

Marital Rape
The Quran is very clear that the basis of a marital relationship is love and affection between the spouses, not power or control. Rape is unacceptable in such a relationship.

Sûrah al Baqarah 2.223
'Your wives are your tilth; go then unto your tilth as you may desire, but first provide something for your souls*, and remain conscious of God, and know that your are destined to meet Him...'
* Note in Muhammad Asad's translation: 'a spiritual relationship between man and woman is postulated as the indispensable basis of sexual relations.'

Sûrah ar Rum 30.21
"And among His wonders is this: He creates for you mates out of your own kind, so that your might incline towards then, and He engenders love and tenderness between you: in this, behold, there are messages indeed for people who think!

Sûrah al Baqarah 2.187
"... They are as a garment for you, and you are as a garment for them."

Sûrah al Nisa 4.19
"... And consort with your wives in a goodly manner, for if you dislike them, it may well be that you dislike something which God might yet make a source of abundant good."

"Is there recognition of marital rape in Islam?
In the context of jirah, it would appear so: where there is any physical harm or disease caused to a spouse, there may be a claim for jirah compensation. The law of jirah provides for compensation for physical harm between spouses, and supports Islamic legislation against domestic abuse. Even in these discussions of appropriate jirah compensation, the question of the injured party’s consent plays a central role. Some Islamic jurists considered consent to be presumed by virtue of the marital relationship, while others maintain that where harm occurs, it is an assault, regardless of the consent, and therefore compensation is due. In our modern era, one might take these precedents and their premium focus on consent and apply the Islamic principle of sexual autonomy to conclude that any sex without consent is harmful, as a dishonoring of the unwilling party’s sexual autonomy. Thus, modern Islamic jurists and legislators, taking a gender-egalitarian perspective, might conclude that Islamic law does recognize marital rape, and assign the appropriate injunctions and compensation for this personally devastating harm." (Qureshi)

An often misquoted and abused hadith that is used to tyrannize women is that women cannot and should not say no to their husband when he approaches them Women are advised not to turn away from their husbands except if they have their period or any other reasonable excuse. So much so that she is to break her voluntary fast if her husband approaches her. And if they do angels will curse them. However, this hadith is not quoted with the complementary one that advises men of the same consideration.

In the same manner men are advised that meeting the needs of their wives takes precedence over voluntary worship. Narrated Abdullah bin Amr bin Al-As: "Prophet Muhammad (saw) said, “O Abdullah! I have been informed that you fast all the day and stand in prayer all night?” I said, ‘Yes, O Allah's Apostle!’ He said, “Do not do that! Observe the fast sometimes and also leave them at other times, stand up for the prayer at night and also sleep at night. Your body has a right over you and your wife has a right over you.” (Bukhâri)

To a certain degree these ahâdîth are used to confuse and distract from the issue, since rape does not have anything to do with permission or lack of permission. In a marriage abusive or forced sexual activity cannot be justified by abusing this hadith. Rape is defined as unwanted, violent and forced sex, whether this occurs in a marital context or outside it. The definition of rape does not change because of the relationship.

It is important to not confuse the issue of mutual rights that a couple has on each other with the misguided, distorted and misogynist assumption that women become a husband's property. Islam does not allow for or tolerate ownership of human beings. Human dignity does not allow that any one person has the right to own, mind/body/soul, another human being... and Islam demands that all human beings respect the humanity of everyone.

Incest & Child Abuse
The Quran clearly outlines those with whom marriage is not permitted, we can extrapolate from it that any sexual relation with these would be unacceptable.

Sûrah an Nisa 4:23:
Prohibited for you (in marriage) are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, the sisters of your fathers, the sisters of your mothers, the daughters of your brother, the daughters of your sister, your nursing mothers, the girls who nursed from the same woman as you, the mothers of your wives, the daughters of your wives with whom you have consummated the marriage - if the marriage has not been consummated, you may marry the daughter. Also prohibited for you are the women who were married to your genetic sons. Also, you shall not be married to two sisters at the same time - but do not break up existing marriages. GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful.

This includes your foster parents, siblings and children.

Al Hasan reports: ‘If somebody commits illegal intercourse with his sister, his punishment is the same as for any other person who commits such a crime’. (Bukhâri Vol. 8 pp 526)

Thus, these same laws mentioned above in cases of rape would be equally applicable, and incest can be prosecuted as a crime within the bounds of Islamic law.

According to Islam, all aspects of life, ie: the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, are sacred and must be respected. No gender or relationship has been given the power or right to hurt or harm the other. Domestic violence, rape and incest are all violent and criminal abuses that are outside the bounds of what is permitted in Islam and there is absolutely no justification for it whatsoever.

References:
-Ghazâlî; “Ihya Ulum ud Din”
-Hasan, Riffat; “Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives” John Witte, Jr. and Johan D. van der Vyver Eds. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996
-Maudoodi, Abu al Ala; “Human Rights in Islam” The Islamic Foundation UK 1976, 1993
-Qureshi, Asifa LLM; “Her Honor: An Islamic Critique of the Rape Laws of Pakistan from a Woman-Sensitive Perspective”
-Rahman, Afzal ur; "Role of Muslim Women in Society" Seerah Foundation, London, 1986
-Rauf, Muhammad Abdul; “Umar al Faruq” Al Saadawi Publications, 1998

Abridged version of article published in the September issue of 'Islâmic Reflections 2002'

Contact Info: UzmaMazhar@hotmail.com

Supreme Court strikes down death penalty for child rape

By James ViciniWed Jun 25, 6:45 PM ET

The U.S. Supreme Court in a major capital punishment decision struck down on Wednesday the death penalty for child rape, its first ruling in more than 30 years on whether a crime other than murder can be punished by execution.

The nation's highest court ruled by a 5-4 vote that the death penalty for the crime of raping a child violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Writing for the court majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Constitution barred a state from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child when the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death.

He said a national consensus exists against capital punishment for the crime of child rape and that the death penalty, based on current evolving standards, should be reserved for the worst crimes that take the victim's life.

"When the law punishes by death, it risks its own sudden descent into brutality, transgressing the constitutional commitment to decency and restraint," he wrote.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said the "ruling is an assault on law enforcement's efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime."

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said he disagreed with the ruling.

"Had the Supreme Court said, 'We want to constrain the abilities of states to do this to make sure that it's done in a careful and appropriate way,' that would have been one thing. But it basically had a blanket prohibition and I disagree with that decision," Obama told a news conference in Chicago.

The ruling was a victory for Patrick Kennedy, 43, of Louisiana, who challenged his death sentence after being convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1998.

Of the more than 3,300 inmates on death row in America, Kennedy and another man convicted of child rape in Louisiana are the only ones who did not commit murder.

The Supreme Court last ruled on the death penalty and rape in 1977, when it outlawed executions in a case in which the victim was an adult woman. It declared the death penalty an excessive penalty for a rapist who does not take a human life.

That decision left open whether the death penalty could be imposed for child rape. The Louisiana law, adopted in 1995, allows the death penalty for those convicted of rape of a child under the age of 12. It was later amended to change the age to 13.

LAST EXECUTION FOR RAPE 44 YEARS AGO

Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have similar laws. The last execution in the United States for rape occurred 44 years ago.

Kennedy, a moderate conservative who often casts the decisive vote on the closely divided court, was joined by the court's liberals -- Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The court's conservatives -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both appointed by President George W. Bush, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented.

Alito criticized the court's decision.

He said it means the death penalty would be barred "no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator's prior criminal record may be."

He added, "I have little doubt that in the eyes of ordinary Americans, the very worst child rapists ... are the epitome of moral depravity."

Attorneys for the Louisiana man had said the death penalty for rape was allowed in only a handful of countries.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund had said a historical consensus existed against the death penalty for rape in the United States, except for Southern states willing in the past to execute blacks, especially those convicted of raping white women and children.

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, said: "I am outraged by the Supreme Court's decision. It is an affront to the people of Louisiana and the jury's unanimous decision in this case."

Jindal, who has been mentioned as a possible running mate for McCain, said, "The Supreme Court is dead wrong."

(Editing by Deborah Charles and Peter Cooney)

Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called the ruling "incredibly absurd," "a clear abuse of judicial authority" and said officials will "evaluate ways to amend our statute to maintain death as a penalty for this horrific crime."

Oklahoma officials said they, too, weren't ready to give up, and would "certainly look at what options we have," state senator Jay Paul Gumm said. "I think the people of Oklahoma have spoken loudly that this is one of the most heinous of crimes."

Even White House hopefuls joined the fray. Republican John McCain called the ruling "an assault on law enforcement's efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime." Democrat Barack Obama said there should be no blanket prohibition of the death penalty for the rape of children if states want to apply it in those cases.

Forty-four states prohibit the death penalty for any kind of rape, and at least four states besides Louisiana permit it for child rape - Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. There's disagreement over the status of a Georgia law permitting execution for child rape, although Justice Kennedy said in his ruling that it was still in effect.

Following the ruling, all become unconstitutional.

In Texas, Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Wednesday that most Texans believe the death penalty is "an appropriate form of punishment for repeat child molesters. Our top priority remains protecting our most precious resource - our children."

But the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, a nonprofit victim advocacy group representing 80 rape crisis centers, applauded the ruling.

"Most child sexual abuse victims are abused by a family member or close family friend," the group said in a statement. "The reality is that child victims and their families don't want to be responsible for sending a grandparent, cousin or long time family friend to death row."

WE ASKED WHO IS the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault
ADVOCATING FOR?????

Following the ruling, all become unconstitutional.

But the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, a nonprofit victim advocacy group representing 80 rape crisis centers, applauded the ruling.

The Florida Bar Journal
March, 2008 Volume 82, No. 3
F.S. §39.0139: Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse by Those Entrusted with Their Care
by Alexander Caballero and Ingrid Anderson

The Florida Legislature passed the “Keeping Children Safe Act,” F.S. §39.0139, effective July 1, 2007, in an effort to prevent sexual abuse during visitation pursuant to judicial determinations from those persons the child is ordered to visit. The legislature’s passage of this act acknowledges that a great percentage of the increasing sexual abuse to children occurs not from strangers but from persons who are known to the children. Pursuant to F.S. §39.0139, visitation is suspended by operation of law and a rebuttable presumption of detriment is created when any of three triggers activate the procedures in the statute.

The three triggers which activate the protective procedures set forth in F.S. §39.0139 and create a rebuttable presumption of detriment to a child are when:
[1] a parent or caregiver has been the subject of a report to the child abuse hotline alleging sexual abuse of any child as defined in s. 39.01; or

[2] has been found guilty of, regardless of adjudication, or has entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere to various Florida statutes or similar statutes in other states regarding sexual abuse or abuse of a child; or

[3] has been determined by a court to be a sexual predator as defined by Florida statutes or similar laws of another jurisdiction.1

Once one of the above acts that create the rebuttable presumption of detriment occurs, the person may visit or have other contact with the child only after a hearing and an order by the court that allows the visitation or other contact.2 All visitation and contact stops. A court hearing must be held before visitation or contact resumes.

At the hearing, the court appoints a guardian ad litem or attorney ad litem and employs more lenient evidentiary rules. The guardian or attorney ad litem is required to have special training in the dynamics of child sexual abuse.3 The court may receive and rely upon any relevant and material evidence submitted, including written and oral reports, to the extent of its probative value in its effort to determine the action to be taken with regard to the child, even if these reports and evidence may not be competent in an adjudicatory hearing.4

The burden is on the person seeking to resume visitation to prove by clear and convincing evidence that “the safety, well-being, and physical, mental, and emotional health of the child is not endangered by visitation or other contact before the presumption in subsection (3) is rebutted and the court may allow visitation or other contact.”5 The court then enters a written order specifying any conditions it finds necessary to protect the child.6

If the court finds that the person did not rebut the presumption established in subsection (3), the court shall enter a written order prohibiting or restricting visitation or other contact with the child.7 Any visitation under subparagraph (4)(d) must be either supervised by a person who has previously received special training in the dynamics of child sexual abuse or at a supervised visitation program.

The provisions of the statute do not indicate whether they apply to only Ch. 39 proceedings (shelter and dependency matters) or also to proceedings involving children under Ch. 61 (dissolution of marriage actions and supplemental actions), Ch. 742 (domestic violence actions) and other proceedings related to visitation and other contact with a child. F.S. §39.0139(2)(b) provides only that, “[i]t is the intent of the [l]egislature to protect children and reduce the risk of further harm to children who have been sexually abused or exploited by a parent or other caregiver by placing additional requirements on judicial determinations related to visitation and other contact.” Some arguments have been made that F.S. §39.0139 should only be applied to Ch. 39 proceedings and not all judicial determinations related to visitation or other contact, such as dissolution cases and domestic violence cases.

However, the following reasons militate toward the application of the statute to all proceedings involving contact with children: 1) the plain language of the statute indicates application to all judicial determinations related to visitation and other contact; 2) earlier versions of F.S. §39.0139 limiting the provisions to Ch. 39 proceedings were modified to much broader application evidencing a legislative intent that F.S. §39.0139 apply beyond Ch. 39 proceedings; 3) the principles in Ch. 61 and in F.S. §39.0139 both provide protection for children and promote the best interest of the child and must be read in pari materia; and 4) the court’s inherent jurisdiction to act for the benefit of minor children encompasses all statutory and common law.

F.S. §39.0139(2)(b) provides that “[i]t is the intent of the [l]egislature to protect children and reduce the risk of further harm to children who have been sexually abused or exploited by a parent or other caregiver by placing additional requirements on judicial determinations related to visitation and other contact.” This failure to restrict the application of the statute to only Ch. 39 proceedings indicates that all proceedings relating to visitation and other contact with children are included in the statute’s application.

If the legislature had intended to limit F.S. §39.0139 to shelter or dependency or any other specific proceeding, the legislature would not have used the term “judicial proceedings” but would have used much narrower words such as “Ch. 39 proceedings,” “dependency proceeding,” or some other limitation. To conclude that F.S. §39.0139 is limited to shelter or dependency cases and not to other judicial proceedings, like dissolution actions or domestic violence actions, is to add words to the statute that are not there. Section 39.0139 applies to judicial determinations related to visitation and other contact and it is not ambiguous.

The plain meaning of statutory language is the first consideration of statutory construction.8 Where the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous, there is no need for judicial interpretation.9 Because of the broad, plain language of this statute, there is no need for the further utilization of statutory construction principles.

The Florida Supreme Court has held that “it is a fundamental principle of statutory construction that where the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous there is no occasion for judicial interpretation.”10 The Supreme Court explained as follows:
[t]he [l]egislature must be understood to mean what it has plainly expressed and this excludes construction. The [l]egislative intent being plainly expressed, so that the act read by itself or in connection with other statutes pertaining to the same subject is clear, certain and unambiguous, the courts have only the simple and obvious duty to enforce the law according to its terms. Cases cannot be included or excluded merely because there is intrinsically no reason against it. Even where a court is convinced that the [l]egislature really meant and intended something not expressed in the phraseology of the act, it will not deem itself authorized to depart from the plain meaning of the language which is free from ambiguity. If a [l]egislative enactment violates no constitutional provision or principle it must be deemed its own sufficient and conclusive evidence of the justice, propriety and policy of its passage. Courts have then no power to set it aside or evade its operation by forced and unreasonable construction. If it has been passed improvidently the responsibility is with the [l]egislature and not the courts.11

Courts have agreed that if the language of the statute is clear and unequivocal, then the legislative intent must be derived from the words used without involving incidental rules of construction or engaging in speculation as to what the judges might think that the legislators intended or should have intended.12 This is so because a basic principle of statutory construction is that courts “are not at liberty to add words to statutes that were not placed there by the [l]egislature.”13 A court may not add words to F.S. §39.0139 to limit this statute to a specific type of proceeding.

Senate Bill 570 was filed in the Senate on January 11, 2007. The bill, cited as “Keeping Children Safe Act,” created F.S. §39.0143 and was similar to F.S. §39.0139. One of the major differences was found in §3 which provided that, “This section applies to any person involved in a proceeding initiated under this chapter.”14 Senate Bill 570, which provided that the suspension of visitation between a child and a parent accused or convicted of sexual or abuse-related offenses would apply to Ch. 39 proceedings only, died in the Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs on May 4, 2007. The language limiting the statute’s application to Ch. 39 proceedings was replaced in S.B. 20 with broader language applying the statute to “judicial determinations related to visitation and other contact.” The Senate clearly intended a more universal application that would encompass dissolution actions, domestic violence actions, and all other “judicial determinations” where visitation issues arise.

Similarly, H.B. 0077 initially provided that “[t]his section applies to a parent, stepparent, grandparent, stepgrandparent, relative, or caregiver in all proceedings governed by this chapter.”15 As with S.B. 570, this language, of limiting F.S. §39.0139 to only Ch. 39 proceedings, was deleted from H.B. 0077, and the application of the statute was broadened to apply to all “judicial determinations.”

Senate Bill 20 and the last version of H.B. 0077 are identical and eventually became law as F.S. §39.0139. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives removed specific language in their bills that limited the applicability of F.S. §39.0139. In so doing, the legislature evidenced its clear intent to apply F.S. §39.0139 to all judicial determination involving visitation or contact with a child.

Since the statute is clear and unambiguous, nothing else is required to establish that §39.0139 applies to all judicial proceedings. Other rules of statutory interpretation, nonetheless reflect §39.0139’s applicability to dissolution of marriage cases. The classification of a law or a part of a law in a particular title or chapter of Florida Statutes is not determinative on the issue of legislative intent, and where there is a question, established principles of statutory construction must be utilized.16

The doctrine of in pari materia is a principle of statutory construction that requires that statutes relating to the same subject or object be construed together to harmonize the statutes and to give effect to the legislature’s intent.17 “In pari materia” applies when two different statutory provisions deal with the same specific subject or with subjects so connected that the meaning of the one informs the other.18 Under this principle of statutory construction, when two statutes relate to the same thing or to the same subject or object, the statutes are construed together so as to harmonize both statutes and give effect to the legislature’s intent.19

The provisions of both Ch. 39 and Ch. 6120 seek to advance the welfare of children by protecting them from harm. The provisions of these chapters should be read together when nothing indicates the provision exclusively applies to only one type of proceeding. Given the stated purpose of F.S. §39.0139, to “reduce the risk of further harm to children who have been sexually abused or exploited by a parent or other caregiver by placing additional requirements on judicial determinations related to visitation and other contact” and the purposes of the provisions for the welfare of children in Ch. 61, F.S. §39.0139 should apply to divorce cases as well as to Ch. 39 cases.

Ch. 39 (including F.S. §39.0139) and Ch. 61 each promote the welfare of children and include provisions ordering visitation with children.21 The stated purposes of Ch. 39 include,
to provide for the care, safety, and protection of children in an environment that fosters healthy social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development; to ensure secure and safe custody; to promote the health and well-being of all children under the state’s care; and to prevent the occurrence of child abuse, neglect, and abandonment;22… the health and safety of the children served shall be of paramount concern;23 [and]…[t]he prevention of child abuse, abandonment, and neglect shall be a priority of this state.24

F.S. §61.001 provides that the purpose of Ch. 61 is, “[t]o preserve the integrity of marriage and to safeguard meaningful family relationships”25 and “to mitigate the potential harm to the spouses and their children caused by the process of legal dissolution of marriage.”26 Section 61.13(3) provides that “[f]or purposes of shared parental responsibility and primary residence, the best interests of the child shall include an evaluation of all factors affecting the welfare and interests of the child.”27 The provisions of Ch. 61 regarding the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) have been applied to Ch. 39 proceedings.28

When logic dictates and the intent of both statutes is promoted by the application, many statutes outside of Ch. 61 apply to proceedings within divorce proceedings. Examples of such statutes include F.S. §743.07, which provides for support of a dependent person beyond the age of 18 years when such dependency is because of a mental or physical incapacity which began prior to such person reaching majority or if the person is dependent in fact, is between the ages of 18 and 19, and is still in high school, performing in good faith with a reasonable expectation of graduation before the age of 19; F.S. §689.15, which provides that the doctrine of the right of survivorship in cases of real estate and personal property held by joint tenants does not prevail in this state, except in cases of estates by entirety, a devise, transfer, or conveyance heretofore or hereafter made to two or more creates a tenancy in common, unless the instrument creating the estate shall expressly provide for the right of survivorship; and in cases of estates by entirety, the tenants, upon dissolution of marriage, become tenants in common; and the entirety of Ch. 64 regarding partition.

Circuit courts have inherent and continuing jurisdiction to protect children and that jurisdiction is not dependent on any particular statutory chapter.29 Therefore, the court, whether sitting as a dependency court, domestic violence court, family law court, or in any other capacity, should apply F.S. §39.0139 when a judicial determination has to be made relating to visitation or contact with a child. The protection of children from sexual abuse is paramount and must not be limited to application based on how the child in need of protection came into the system.

The argument that the statute is subject to being abused in a dissolution of marriage setting or a domestic violence setting by a parent making a call to the child abuse hotline, alleging sexual abuse of the child by the other parent, which suspends the parent’s visitation, shifts a burden of proof, and establishes the highest civil burden of proof, is not a reason to ignore F.S. §39.0139 in a dissolution of domestic violence setting. The danger of further abuse and intimidation of sexually abused children outweighs the temporary suspension of a person’s visitation until the court can have a hearing. Err on the side of the child, as the wrong choice results in irreparable and more severe ramifications. Given the plain and unambiguous language and analysis, the statute must be implemented for the benefit and welfare of the children.
Conclusion
The legislature did not limit the protection afforded by F.S. §39.0139 only to children under Ch. 39. To the contrary, the legislature specifically stated its intent that the safeguards of §39.0139 apply to all judicial determinations relating to visitation and contact with children. The language is clear and unambiguous with no need to go any further into statutory construction or statutory intent. The legislature amended earlier versions of the House and Senate bills to remove language which would have limited the statute’s applicability to Ch. 39 proceedings and replaced the limiting language with the broader “judicial determinations” provision.

Children should be protected from caregivers who abuse them, whether such children come to the attention of the judicial system through a dependency case, a divorce case, a domestic violence case, or otherwise. The intent and the purpose of F.S. §39.0139 being clear, children must always be protected from those entrusted to care for them.
1 See Fla. Stat. §39.0139(3).
2 See Fla. Stat. §39.0139(4).
3 See Fla. Stat. §39.0139(4)(a).
4 See Fla. Stat. §39.0139(4)(b).
5 Fla. Stat. §39.0139(4)(c).
6 Id.
7 See Fla. Stat. §39.0139(4)(d).
8 State v. Bradford, 787 So. 2d 811 (Fla. 2001).
9 See also McLaughlin v. State, 721 So. 2d 1170 (Fla. 1998) (when language of the statute is clear and unambiguous and conveys clear and definite meaning, there is no occasion for resorting to the rules of statutory interpretation and construction; the statute must be given its plain and obvious meaning).
10 Forsythe v. Longboat Key Beach Erosion Control, 604 So. 2d 452, 454 (Fla. 1992).
11 Van Pelt v. Hilliard, 78 So. 693, 694-95 (1918), citing 2 Sutherland’s Statutory Construction §366, p. 701.
12 Forsythe, 604 So. 2d 452, citing Tropical Coach Line, Inc. v. Carter, 121 So. 2d 779 (Fla. 1960).
13 See Seagrave v. State, 802 So. 2d 281, 287 (Fla. 2001), citing Hayes v. State, 750 So. 2d 1, 4 (Fla. 1999).
14 See §3, Fla. S.B. 570.
15 See §3, Fla. H.B. 0077.
16 State v. Bradford, 787 So. 2d 811 (Fla. 2001).
17 Florida Dept. of State, Div. of Elections v. Martin, 916 So. 2d 763 (Fla. 2005); see also Forsythe v. Longboat Key Beach Erosion Control Dist., 604 So. 2d 452, 455 (Fla. 1992) (“Where possible, courts must give full effect to all statutory provisions and construe related statutory provisions in harmony with one another.”).
18 Brown v. State, 848 So. 2d 361, 364 (Fla. 4th D.C.A. 2003).
19 Maggio v. Florida Dept. of Labor and Employment Security, 899 So. 2d 1074 (Fla. 2005). See also McGhee v. Volusia County, 679 So. 2d 729, 730 n. 1 (Fla. 1996) (the doctrine of in pari materia requires courts to construe related statutes together so that they are harmonized); State v. Allen, 743 So. 2d 532 (Fla. 1st D.C.A. 1997) (court must construe statute in conjunction with other statutes pertaining to same subject matter).
20 As well as Chs. 742 and 63, involving domestic violence and adoption, respectively.
21 See, e.g., Fla. Stat. §§61.13, 39.402(9), and 39.506.
22 Fla. Stat. §39.001(1)(a).
23 Fla. Stat. §39.001(1)(b)1.
24 Fla. Stat. §39.001(6).
25 Fla. Stat. §61.001(2)(a).
26 Fla. Stat. §61.001(2)(c).
27 See Fla. Stat. §61.13(3).
28 See Johnson v. Denton, 542 So. 2d 447 (Fla. 5th D.C.A. 1989); Kennedy v. Kennedy, 559 So. 2d 713 (Fla. 5th D.C.A. 1990).
29 See Waters v. Waters, 578 So. 2d 874 (Fla. 2d D.C.A. 1991) (circuit court has inherent jurisdiction over minor children as to their custody and welfare; jurisdiction is not dependent on the case having originated in either a Ch. 61 or Ch. 39 action or under any other statute); Bilbo v. Bilbo, 688 So. 2d 1031 (Fla. 5th D.C.A. 1997) (circuit court has inherent jurisdiction to control the welfare and act for the protection of minors within its territorial jurisdiction); In Interest of J.M., 499 So. 2d 929 (Fla. 1st D.C.A. 1986) (circuit court has inherent and continuing jurisdiction to entertain matters pertaining to child custody and enter any order appropriate to a child’s welfare); see also P.M. v. Department of Children and Families, 865 So. 2d 8 (Fla. 5th D.C.A. 2003) (While these provisions specifically authorize certain actions by the circuit courts in their role as guardians of the rights of children, courts are not confined to the express provisions of Ch. 39 in providing for the safety and welfare of children.).

Alexander Caballero is a partner with Sessums Mason Black & Caballero, P.A. He is board certified in marital and family law and exclusively practices in the area of family law. He is an executive council member of The Florida Bar Family Law Section and a member of The Florida Board of Bar Examiners. Mr. Caballero received his juris doctorate with high honors from Florida State University College of Law in 1993 and graduated cum laude from the University of South Florida in 1990 with a double major in criminology and psychology.

Ingrid Anderson graduated as a four-year senior scholar from the University of Florida, was awarded a graduate fellowship from the University of South Florida, and earned her J.D. from the University of Kentucky.

This column is submitted on behalf of the Family Law Section, Allyson Hughes, chair, and Susan W. Savard and Laura Davis Smith, editors.
Journal HOME
[Revised: 02-26-2008 ]
© 2005 The Florida Bar |

Betrayal of Trust: Child Sexual Abuse Loopholes in American Law as posted on Protect.Org
July, 2006

"Many state codes create a foul distinction between child sexual assaults... These state laws consider incest to be a less serious form of sexual assault."
Gregory Weber, Assistant Attorney General, Wisconsin

Since our founding in 2002, PROTECT has fought for equal protection for all children. From Arkansas to Illinois and California to New York, we have worked to close outrageous legal loopholes that provide lighter penalties for criminals who sexually assault their own children. PROTECT members frequently ask which states have these child sexual abuse loopholes. Identifying them all--and keeping up to date with legislative changes--is a massive research undertaking. But thanks to volunteers across the U.S. and in London, we've made a start.

The information below is just a sampling of known loopholes. We hope that it will help you understand the various ways the law betrays young crime victims. Existing loopholes range from antiquated incest laws--which can be used to plea bargain (or charge bargain) child rape to minor penalties--to more intentional statutes, such as the Hawaii law that not only gives preferential treatment to incest perpetrators, it requires police to tell them they're special. PROTECT's Circle of Trust campaign will continue to fight on, demanding that every child be protected from betrayal at the hands of predators... and the law.

Incest Loopholes
The most common type of child sexual abuse loophole is the incest exception or incest loophole. Typically, these antiquated statutes were intended to prevent intermarriage among closely-related adults and were not designed to address child sexual abuse. However, the vast majority of incest crimes are crimes against children. Incest loopholes create two separate standards of justice, and allow child rape within the family to be prosecuted as a minor crime.

Delaware
766 Incest; class A misdemeanor
(a) A person is guilty of incest if the person engages in sexual intercourse with another person with whom the person has one of the following relationships:
A male and his child...
A male and his grandchild.
[etc...]
(b) The relationships referred to herein include blood relationships without regard to legitimacy and relationships by adoption.
Incest is a class A misdemeanor and is an offense within the original jurisdiction of the Family Court.

Family Preservation Loopholes
A more modern type of differential treatment of child sexual abuse in the home is often not really a loophole at all. Some states have intentionally codified pervasive and deeply-entrenched attitudes that minimize child sexual abuse in families, leaving many young victims without equal protection under the law. California, prior to PROTECT's landmark 2005 Circle of Trust victory, was the most prominent such scheme. Criminals who raped children in their own home were eligible for probation instead of prison, but only if they entered a "recognized program of treatment." The only programs recognized by California were those treating the entire "family." Thus the laws fueled and worked in tandem with a massive sex offender treatment industry to reunify perpetrators with their victims. The sex offender treatment industry often plays a role in drafting these laws (see Utah, below), and defends them by claiming that keeping sexual predators in the home with children--after a period of treatment, of course--is in the child's "best interest." Here are some examples of family reunification loopholes:

Minnesota
609.342 Criminal sexual conduct in the first degree.
Subdivision 1. Crime defined. A person who engages in sexual penetration with another person, or in sexual contact with a person under 13 years of age as defined in section 609.341, subdivision 11, paragraph (c), is guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree
[...]
Subd. 2. Penalty. (a) Except as otherwise provided in section 609.109 or 609.3455, a person convicted under subdivision 1 may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 30 years or to a payment of a fine of not more than $40,000, or both.
[...]
Subd. 3. Stay. Except when imprisonment is required under section 609.109 or 609.3455, if a person is convicted under subdivision 1, clause (g), the court may stay imposition or execution of the sentence if it finds that:
(a) a stay is in the best interest of the complainant or the family unit; and
(b) a professional assessment indicates that the offender has been accepted by and can respond to a treatment program.
If the court stays imposition or execution of sentence, it shall include the following as conditions of probation:
(1) incarceration in a local jail or workhouse;
(2) a requirement that the offender complete a treatment program; and
(3) a requirement that the offender have no unsupervised contact with the complainant until the offender has successfully completed the treatment program unless approved by the treatment program and the supervising correctional agent.

Utah
76-5-406.5. Circumstances required for probation or suspension of sentence for certain sex offenses against a child.
(1) In a case involving a conviction for a violation of Section 76-5-402.1, rape of a child; Section 76-5-402.3, object rape of a child; Section 76-5-403.1, sodomy on a child; or any attempt to commit a felony under those sections or a conviction for a violation of Subsections 76-5-404.1(4) and (5), aggravated sexual abuse of a child, the court may suspend execution of sentence and consider probation to a residential sexual abuse treatment center only if all of the following circumstances are found by the court to be present and the court in its discretion, considering the circumstances of the offense, including the nature, frequency, and duration of the conduct, and considering the best interests of the public and the child victim, finds probation to a residential sexual abuse treatment center to be proper:
(a) the defendant did not use a weapon, force, violence, substantial duress or menace, or threat of harm, in committing the offense or before or after committing the offense, in an attempt to frighten the child victim or keep the child victim from reporting the offense;
(b) the defendant did not cause bodily injury to the child [...]
(c) the defendant, prior to the offense, had not been convicted of any public offense in Utah or elsewhere involving sexual misconduct in the commission of the offense;
(d) the defendant did not commit an offense described in this Part 4, Sexual Offenses, against more than one child victim or victim [...]
(e) the defendant did not use, show, or display pornography or create sexually-related photographs or tape recordings in the course of the offense;
(f) the defendant did not act in concert with another offender [...]
(g) the defendant did not encourage, aid, allow, or benefit from any act of prostitution or sexual act by the child victim with any other person or sexual performance by the child victim before any other person;
(h) the defendant admits the offense of which he has been convicted and has been accepted for mental health treatment in a residential sexual abuse treatment center that has been approved by the Department of Corrections under Subsection (3);
(i) rehabilitation of the defendant through treatment is probable, based upon evidence provided by a treatment professional who has been approved by the Department of Corrections under Subsection (3) and who has accepted the defendant for treatment;
(j) prior to being sentenced, the defendant has undergone a complete psychological evaluation conducted by a professional approved by the Department of Corrections and:
(i) the professional's opinion is that the defendant is not an exclusive pedophile and does not present an immediate and present danger to the community if released on probation and placed in a residential sexual abuse treatment center; and (ii) the court accepts the opinion of the professional;
(k) if the offense is committed by a parent, stepparent, adoptive parent, or legal guardian of the child victim, the defendant shall, in addition to establishing all other conditions of this section, establish it is in the child victim's best interest that the defendant not be imprisoned, by presenting evidence provided by a treatment professional who:
(i) is treating the child victim and understands he will be treating the family as a whole; or
(ii) has assessed the child victim for purposes of treatment as ordered by the court based on a showing of good cause; and
(l) if probation is imposed, the defendant, as a condition of probation, may not reside in a home where children younger than 18 years of age reside for at least one year beginning with the commencement of treatment, and may not again take up residency in a home where children younger than 18 years of age reside during the period of probation until allowed to do so by order of the court.
(2) A term of incarceration of at least 90 days is to be served prior to treatment and continue until the time when bed space is available at a residential sexual abuse treatment center as provided under Subsection (3) and probation is to be imposed for up to a maximum of ten years.
(3) (a) The Department of Corrections shall develop qualification criteria for the approval of the sexual abuse treatment programs and professionals under this section. The criteria shall include the screening criteria employed by the department for sexual offenders.
[...]

Across 48 years Dr. Underwager was involved in a professional capacity with sexual abuse of children in over 500 cases. Since beginning private practice as a psychologist in 1965, one-third to one-fifth of the practice has been children. While this has included the full range of childhood disorders, the practice has also included sexually abused children. Dr. Underwager has testified for the prosecution and/or for plaintiffs in civil action as well as for defense. Dr. Underwager and Hollida Wakefield conducted therapy programs for a community-based treatment program for sex offenders from 1974 to 1977.

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: Our main idea about paedophilia is that it's learned behavior. We don't think it's inborn, genetic, or hormonal. Like homosexuality, we believe it's learned at a young age and that the person has the subjective reality that they've always been this way.

There's an absence of anything in the research to show that paedophilia is anything other than learned. Such things as sexual orientation are an interaction. There may well be more of a propensity among some people to be affected by learning of various types. At the American Psychological Association's 1989 annual conference, we went to a presentation on homosexuality. The research was reviewed and the bottom line was that nothing biological had been established.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: We've been heavily involved in dealing with issues of child sexual abuse for a number of years. We've also been involved for a number of years in providing therapy for a variety of sexual dysfunctions, dysphorias, and paraphilias.
To our knowledge, there has not been any convincing research that suggests there is a hormonal component, a hormonal involvement to sexual orientation. There's also nothing we know of that suggests there's a genetic component. As psychologists, we're more persuaded that behavior patterns are learned, rather than influenced by genes. We're also aware that the Minnesota twins studies are demonstrating a significant genetic component to some behavior, though I don't think they have come up with any data about paedophilia.

PAIDIKA: What do you mean when you say sexual orientation is learned behavior; where do you go from there?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: It means that a person has more freedom. There is an element of choice for someone not happy with whatever their sexual life is. They can learn to improve it. If it's a sexual dysfunction, somebody who's a premature ejaculator or impotent for example, they can learn something different. If a homosexual did not want to be homosexual, really wanted to be a heterosexual, there would be techniques that would have a decent chance of allowing that person to change. I'm not saying the person should want to change. I'm only saying that there is an element of choice. A person can determine their own sexual direction, and there are many behavioral techniques available that would allow the person to change.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: The theory of learned behavior permits individuals to take personal responsibility for their own behavior. We find it difficult when people try to place the responsibility for their behavior on something else. In the great American game, the blame is placed on bad parents who make bad kids. Explanations for homosexuality and paedophilia center on some kind of parental influence: mothers who are castrating, dominant, controlling, and hostile; fathers who are weak, and insipid. To say that my sexual responses at some level are learned is also to say that I am responsible for them.
Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love.

PAIDIKA: Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individuals?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Certainly it is responsible. What I have been struck by as I have come to know more about and understand people who choose paedophilia is that they let themselves be too much defined by other people. That is usually an essentially negative definition. Paedophiles spend a lot of time and energy defending their choice. I don't think that a paedophile needs to do that. Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A paedophile can say: "This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I've made."
Paedophiles are too defensive. They go around saying, "You people out there are saying that what I choose is bad, that it's no good. You're putting me in prison, you're doing all these terrible things to me. I have to define my love as being in some way or other illicit." What I think is that paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness, they can say, "I believe this is in fact part of God's will." They have the right to make these statements for themselves as personal choices. Now whether or not they can persuade other people they are right is another matter (laughs).

PAIDIKA: You've said that paedophiles speaks negatively about themselves; they are defensive; they act negatively. Paedophiles are a disparate group, like any human group, so what kind of individuals are you talking about, and with whom are you having contact?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Well, they are paedophiles I have come to know, to talk with as patients while providing treatment. But my contacts have not been limited to the therapeutic setting. I've also met others in a general context, here in the Netherlands, and in the U. S., and I've read some of the literature.
     Let me give you another example. The paedophile literature keeps talking about relationships. Every time I hear the word "relationship" I wince. It's a peculiarly bloodless, essentially Latin word that may have a lot of intellectual or cognitive content, but has little emotion. I think it would be much more honest to use the good old Anglo-Saxon four letter word "love," more honest for paedophiles to say, "I want to love somebody." Not, "I want a relationship." I mean, what the hell's a relationship?
     Paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness they can say, "I believe this is in fact part of God's will.

PAIDIKA: You say that paedophiles should affirm the fact that they believe that paedophilia is a part of "God's will." Are you also saying that for the paedophile to make this claim about "God's will, is also to state what God's will is?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: (laughing) Of course, I'm not privy to God's will. I do believe it is God's will that we have freedom. I believe that God's will is that we have absolute freedom. No conditions, no contingencies. When the blessed apostle Paul says, "All things are lawful for me," he says it not once but four times. "All things are lawful for me." He also adds that not everything works.

PAIDIKA: Hollida, I can see you want to say something. Do you have a different point of view from Ralph's?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: I'd add one qualification to what Ralph has just said about there being no conditions or contingencies to the freedom given us by God. I would add, you have to take the consequences of this freedom. That said, well, I guess I do feel differently about some things. For example, I find it difficult too envision how a paedophile relationship can have the potential of being the type of close, intimate, constantly developing relationship that would be possible in more traditional relationships, whether in heterosexual marriages, or a committed adult homosexual relationship. Speaking only about men and boys at least, what I have seen is that once the young man gets to be a certain age, the paedophile is no longer interested in the young man sexually. These relationships start at around the age of eleven or twelve, and then by sixteen, seventeen, the paedophile is ready for a new one. The old relationship is, if not thrust aside, at least radically changed. It's hard for me to see that is a deep, meaningful relationship, even if I'm using the word Ralph doesn't like. It doesn't have the same bad connotations for me.
     I'm no expert on the way these relationships develop or on what happens to them when the boy turns seventeen, eighteen or twenty. I can't imagine it just stays the same. It poses certain questions for me. Do paedophiles retain a close, intimate relationship with the boy, although the sex ends? Did they then add another boy while keeping the first boy, and then later repeat the pattern and add another and just keep adding new boys until they have a whole harem, ranging in age from let's say twelve to forty? Or perhaps the paedophile doesn't keep the first boy around. Perhaps he disappears out of his life altogether only to be replaced by the next? If that is the way it is, which seems from my observation to be the case, then I don't understand how there can ever be a close, intimate, constantly progressing and developing relationship. Perhaps it is possible. I'm not saying it is not possible, but it does strike me as being a limitation of these relationships.
     There's also a second set of questions I have around a completely different matter. The problem, as I would state it, is that in the United States, paedophilia is viewed so negatively that I think the possibility of harming the young man would be very real. I don't know if a positive model is possible in the United States. The climate is such in the United States that it would be very, very difficult for a paedophile, even with the most idealistic of motives and aspirations, to make his relationship actually work in practice.
     Even if the boy at some point viewed it as positive, after coming into contact with the way the society as a whole viewed it, the very real danger would be created of making the experience harmful. Relationships and societal attitudes are, of course, two completely different areas. In such a negative climate, I don't know if it would be possible for the relationship to be good for the parties involved when the entire society is so negative.
     When I think about paedophiles, these are some of the theoretical difficulties I have with it. In practice, how these relationships turn out is a totally different issue. It might be that the relationships continue to grow but change in form and become positive. They might also develop negatively. As I said these are theoretical problems. For example, if the sex continued, we would have to call that male homosexuality, not paedophilia. If a relationship started when the individuals were respectively twenty-two and twelve, and they stayed together until they were forty-two and thirty-two, we would not define that any longer as a paedophile relationship.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: I think that Holly and I agree that sexuality is a smaller part set within a large whole of our humanity: our capacity for love, our ability to approach some form of unity with another person. Sexuality takes place within this larger context, but it is not exhaustive, nor necessary, nor sufficient as a cause unto itself. The necessary and sufficient cause of sexuality for us is the unity, the wholeness, the intimacy.
The history of human behavior surely demonstrates that sexual behavior can become a very volatile, explosive part of intimacy and closeness, such as in jealousy and possessiveness. There is, in other words, a potential for sexuality, even if it is a small part of the whole, to erupt into what can be pervasive, cataclysmic experiences. When the sex ends abruptly and the man has been saying to the boy, "I love you, I care for you. You and I are one in mind, body, spirit," and then suddenly says, "That's all fine, but we ain't gonna do it no more." What happens then?

PAIDIKA: Perhaps a loving friendship continues. I've certainly encountered relationships where it has. Aren't you saying that we should define relationships in terms of love?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: I was urging earlier that you make the loving image clearer to the outside world. What appears to the public is not the picture of a loving man but rather the picture of the dirty old man lurking in alleys, waiting for nice innocent young lads to come by, grabbing their genitalia and hustling them off and sort of casting them aside and waiting for the next one.

PAIDIKA: Perhaps the question is, should we only define paedophilia or paedophiles by the worst examples of individual behaviors?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: Well these terrible examples exist. We have to take them in. There are very negative aspects of paedophilia that we see from our experience in the United States. We saw a priest, for example, who started having sex with a child when the boy was nine. He told the child that he loved only him. But, in fact, at the same time, he was also involved with half a dozen other nine-and-ten-year-olds. He had had anal sex with the kid. And then he cast him aside at age fifteen. The boy was totally and hopelessly screwed up, his whole sexuality in confusion. Worse, the story leaked out, so the child was mercilessly teased at school, called a homosexual and gossiped about. There are children who have been abused, raped, and dropped on the side of the road.
     I want to be clear though. Nobody has talked to us in the U. S. about their paedophilia who's engaged in an on-going relationship, just individuals who were ordered into therapy. You have to remember, if somebody in the United States talked to us and said, "You know, I'm a paedophile and I have a sexual relationship with this boy and it's good," we would have to call the police and turn him in. We would turn him in too, because we would be in jail if we didn't. So, when we say we've talked to people, we mean individuals sent to us for therapy.
     The climate is such in the United States that the discussion would have to be carefully sanitized, completely abstract. There couldn't be any reference whatsoever to somebody who might be in an on-going relationship, because we would have to call the police and say, "That person has been sexual with minors," and if we didn't do that, we would lose our licenses as psychologists, face a fine of $5,000, and six months in jail.

PAIDIKA: There is research and some scientific opinion that demonstrates that more positive examples and personal experiences exist. Theo Sandfort's research, cross-cultural models, the writings of the German sexologist Bomemann. Shouldn't we be putting positive views into the picture in order to come to an understanding?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: We don't know about The Netherlands. Our impression is that it's somewhat easier here than at home.
But your point is that potentially there can be good, healthy, positive relationships between men and boys. It would be difficult to come up with sexual research for that in the United States because it would frankly be suppressed. When I did a review of the literature on boy victims of child sexual abuse, some of the studies show not just negative effects in some of the boys. The authors try to explain this away. Their rationale is that because they didn't find negative things in their study, does not mean there are none. They just haven't shown up yet! If anyone in the United States were to do a study that showed positive outcomes and then wrote it up as a scientific paper, they probably would not succeed in getting it published. It could only be published if they found a way to explain away any positive findings. They would have to make it look like they found something other than what they found. They would be entirely vilified.

PAIDIKA: Doesn't your book, Accusations of Child Sexual Abuse, suggest that all sexual relationships between adults and children in the United States are abusive relationships?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: No. I think we would claim that these sexual relationships, in the U. S., at least, could range from neutral to harmful. We don't envision or hypothesize that they could be positive, but at best neutral.

PAIDIKA: You are speaking mostly about paedophiles in the U. S. What tack should they take given the societal attitudes? What solutions do you envision for their lives?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: The solution that I'm suggesting is that paedophiles become much more positive. They should directly attack the concept, the image, the picture of the paedophile as an evil, wicked, and reprehensible exploiter of children.

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: The United States is really pretty schizophrenic right now in its attitudes. On the one hand it glorifies sex in things like underwear advertisements, or James Bond movies. On the other hand it's very puritanical. You don't have good sex education in the schools, just these ridiculous prevention programs.
     Let me give another example. Video recorders and video cameras are in right now. Couples are making their own pornographic movies. The comparison is on the one hand people running around making their own pornographic movies but on the other hand reacting hysterically to child sexuality issues. There was actually the case of a man who had had the nine-year-old son of a friend spend the night at his house. He kissed him on the neck, patted him on the rear, told him good-night, ad was later sentenced to two years in prison for these acts. They were labeled sexual abuse. The child later told his mother that it made him uncomfortable when the man kissed him on the cheek.
     Given this schizophrenia and these hysterical attitudes about childhood sexuality, it's going to be difficult for paedophiles to appear more positive, to start saying they're not exploiters of children, that they love children, the sexual part included, even if it's a minor part. If they made such statements, they would be arrested.
     What we see going on in the United States is the most vitriolic and virulent anti-sexuality I know of in our history. It may take people being arrested. Revolutionaries have always risked arrest.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: I was in the courtroom for the case that Holly just cited and I actually heard the prosecution say, "No man should ever be permitted to claim as an excuse that he was just being affectionate when a child says they were uncomfortable." I don't know; I don't think we can just label these attitudes "hysteria." Perhaps "madness" is better, or "pathology." What we see going on in the United States is the most vitriolic and virulent anti-sexuality I know of in our history. It may take people being arrested. Revolutionaries have always risked arrest.

PAIDIKA: In your book, you said that there was "a matter of national interest and a focus of federal interest in child abuse in 1974, but then in 1984, it seemed to suddenly shift and become more hysterical." What reasons do you see for the outbreak of a child abuse hysteria, or pathology, in the mid-80's America?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: I think that what we meant in that passage was that we had personally been observing a steady progression of awareness about actual child abuse up to around that period, 1984. We had routinely been dealing with sex offenders and cases of incest. Around the mid-80's, we began to see cases of false accusations to a degree we had not seen before. it was the rise of this incidence of false accusations that led us to use the term "hysteria."

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Child abuse around that time became more a matter of attention and discussion. There had been child abuse before but the earlier focus was on rehabilitation and treatment. In the early 80's, this focus shifted to prosecution. As more federal money became available, child protection teams and child molestation units were set up in every county in the United States. As this structure was put into place, the emphasis changed to prosecution. This is where it is now, and as a consequence, there is very little interest in treatment, rehabilitation, or healing. The emphasis is: punish the bastards, put them in jail, hang them up by their toes, or other appurtenances, get rid of them.

PAIDIKA: You seen to be saying that the shift to prosecution, and the sexual hysteria, are connected. Could you clarify how such a shift might make a country pathological about sex?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: I believe these shifts happen when the social contract in a given country or culture breaks down. What is happening in the United States is that the populace no longer has the sense that the country knows what it is about. During the Second World War, when I was about fourteen years old, it was a great time to live in America. We stood together. Everybody knew and understood what we were all about, what we were doing in the world. Beginning in the 60's and through the 70's into the 80's that confidence disappeared. We became fractionalized into smaller and smaller groups, each group fighting for its own to the point where we have now evolved a political system of special interest groups. There's no longer consensus politics in America.
     The result of the breakdown of the social contract is that people do not have sufficient ego to handle or tolerate the ambiguity in their society. They don't have the inner resources. What they must do, then, is find something outside of themselves, something external, to give them shape and identity. Sex throughout history has played a specific role. It has allowed people both to define themselves and to locate an enemy. A sexual minority becomes a scapegoat. Whenever there has been social upheaval, whenever the social contract has disappeared, there has always been violent anti-sexuality outbursts.
     The breakdown of the social contract and anti-sexuality outbursts are interconnected because there is in times of social instability, a need to say that someone else is evil, wicked. The blame for everything gets put on the so-called deviants, while the true American remains at home, pure, probably mortifying the flesh, crucifying the body, being a good citizen. The citizen becomes the knight riding off into the sunset victorious, leaving behind him a trail of battered and beaten people that they have judged bad. And the citizen feels justified.
     In a society in turmoil, people can't tolerate anything that is different from whatever the myth of that society is. The society holds on to the myth, the belief. The myth is what they must believe. There's not enough strength in the society to deal with the facts.

PAIDIKA: Why is sex the focus of the hysteria in that situation, why not something else?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Sex has always been the penultimate answer to the ultimate question, which is unity and wholeness. In theological terms, sex has been the way that human beings have tried to avoid dealing with the mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of Unity. Sex is penultimate. This is why the root cause of sexual dysfunction is always some form of genitalization of sexuality. Sexuality has become, in the dysfunction, limited to genital tissue. It is not unified.

PAIDIKA: Would you say that the sexual hysteria is a kind of mystical or religious dysfunction?

PAIDIKA: Your scenario for the child sexuality hysteria is the breakdown of the social contract and a religious/mystical dysfunction. Do you recognize other causes than these?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: I would add radical feminism, which includes a pretty hefty dose of anti-males. I think in a very real way, these women may be jealous that males are able to love each other, be comrades, friends, be close, intimate, work cooperatively, function in groups. The point where men may say that maleness can include the intimacy and closeness of sex may make women jealous. This would hold true for male bonding, and paedophile sex too. The woman is jealous of the connection. She says, "Wait a minute, we're not going to let you do that!"

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: I would disagree with that one hundred percent. That women are jealous because men have close bonds with one another doesn't seem to me to make sense. The common wisdom, whether one agrees with it or not, is that a man is handicapped in a divorce more than a woman, because the woman has female friends she can talk to. Women are socialized for relationships more than men. For women to become close and intimate is easier than for a man. Men can't express feelings. These are the common beliefs. And, after all, some of the most hostile, enraged people about sexual abuse are males. Jim Peters of the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse, for example.
I think the radical feminist opposition to paedophilia comes out of the general perception of men as aggressive and dominating. They use sex to dominate the weak. The weak would be women and children. That the opposition comes out of women's jealousy because men can have meaningful paedophile relationships, and they wish they could, I don't agree with it.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Certainly some men aid and abet the hysteria. They are opportunists. They have opportunistic rage. What I am proposing is that there is an aspect to femaleness that is hardly ever discussed. I believe that women also are violent, cruel, and hostile. Possibly more so than men. The radical feminists only express that side of femaleness against paedophilia.
Among certain Indian tribes, the people who did the torture were the women. A sociologist in Milwaukee who studied the records of domestic violence found that women are much more violent in domestic disputes than men, and paedophilia can be thought to be a domestic matter. My argument is that the radical feminist position arises more from women's nature than from a politics. That has been overlooked.

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: Well, I wouldn't agree with this point of view at all. All statistics, history too, show that violent crimes are committed more by men than by women. Violence, cruelty, hostility have been much more male domains. THE QUESTIONING OF CHILDREN

PAIDIKA: The main purpose of your book, it seems to me, is to devise a method for determining the facts when there is an allegation of child abuse. This has sometimes put you in opposition to the official system. How much have your methods been adopted at this point, and how much are they being opposed?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: Our main effort has been to develop methods that avoid suggestive questioning, that lead the child on. It's becoming increasingly apparent that what we are proposing is the right way to go. what we have suggested, other people are also suggesting. There is a developing consensus that this is the way to do it.
     Not many people any more are advocating suggestive or leading questioning. The problem is still that people who say they agree with us still go ahead and do leading questioning anyway. They don't know they're doing it. As you know, the main reason for the acquittals in the Mc Martin case is that the interviews were so terrible that the jurors said, "You can't tell what went on at all because the interviews are so suggestive."
     Unfortunately, there are still very few people thinking about what happens to the child if the adults make a mistake. The worst result of bad questioning for the child is that if it is not abused, and is taught through suggestive interviews that she has been abused, that is extremely harmful. It runs the risk of making children psychotic.
     Take the Mc Martin case. I think we can assume that nothing happened to them. But now these children who are fourteen, fifteen years old believe that they were subjected to horrible, bizarre, ritualistic abuse. That's now part of their reality. How are these teenagers going to turn out as adults?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Holly and I can demonstrate two basic things. We were the first people to publicly say, "Let's be more cautious, there's a better way to do this, we should be doing it differently." We're finding now that there is a growing concensus joining us. We can be more accurate in making discriminations between real abuse and false abuse.
In August, 1990, when we were at the American Psychological Association convention, the majority of the programs were in the same direction that we have been talking about. There were two or three programs that were still saying, "Children must be believed at all cost, they can't talk about things they haven't experienced." The audiences at those symposia were violently critical of that approach. Four years ago that would never have happened. When you get to the people who are doing the actual taped interviews, though, it is another story.
We're urging caution because of the child, as Holly pointed out. What you do, when you require a child who has not been abused to engage in repeated statements about having been abused, is blur, if not destroy, the capacity of that child to distinguish between reality and unreality. When a child is reinforced by adults to repeat over and over accounts of having been abused, of having been violated in these strange, bizarre ways, children come to believe it. It becomes subjectively real. You end up with, say, a sixteen year old who was never abused but who now has a subjective experience of being abused. The person becomes convinced that all these terribly bizarre things happened. I was led into a tunnel; I was undressed; I was placed on an altar; I was drenched in sacrificial blood; I have observed people cutting the heart out of others and eating it." That is now subjectively real for that child. But, the person who's taught them to believe that is the one who actually abused them. They've distorted their reality. They've made them pathological.

PAIDIKA: Are you describing a distortion of reality that occurs because of ignorance or because of malice and evil?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: I think ignorance is a big part of it. These aren't evil, wicked people who are purposely setting out to make children believe they were abused when they weren't. They see themselves as child advocates, child savers. They're more or less convinced they're doing a good thing. Ignorance is a very large part of it.
     We have no experimental verification of this, but our suspicion is that the front-line people are young and have no children of their own. They're not trained in child development. The social workers who do the initial interviews just don't know about what a normal child is like, how suggestible they are, how they behave.
     Ignorance leads to a lot of things. ordinary exploratory sex play between children is often misunderstood. It is seen as indicative of a child sexual abuse, and can therefore result in false accusations. Say a parent walks in and a four year old has a three year old's clothes off and they're exploring. The parents becomes upset, angry. "Who taught you this? Where'd you learn how to do that?" If it's a divorce and custody case, they might say, "Did Daddy ever do this?"
     You get bizarre things. For example, we consulted in a case of a three year old child who reported that a four year old had poked her in the genitals with a stick. This was in a pre-school. The social services were called, and the first thing they did was go to the four year old's house to see if the four year old was being sexually abused. Their reasoning was that if the four year old poked the three year old in the genitals, he must have been sexually abused, or where would he have learned to do this?
     There was also the incident of a ten year old girl and a twelve year old brother who were discovered fooling around with each other. The girl was put in a sexual abuse victims treatment program and the boy was put in a perpetrator's program. Seriously, these things are happening. The underlying feeling is that if you see children being sexual, they must have learned it from some adult who abused them.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: I agree with Holly. Ignorance is a very large part of hysteria. Almost all the people we encounter who are involved in the system of dealing with child sexual abuse allegations, have no knowledge, no sophistication in developmental psychology. At most they have been given, one, maybe two, weekend workshops. You can't make an expert in a weekend. They form something called "multidisciplinary teams," which is one of the favorite ways that abuse is somehow supposed to be controlled. Multidisciplinary teams do not result in any increase in the effectiveness of the decision. What it results in is a pooling of mediocrity and ignorance. of course, the APA code of ethics maintains quite clearly that both ignorance and ineptitude are unethical (laughs).
     The dilemma, the reality is that we do savage things to our children; we brutalize them. Children do require the protection of society, and the protection of the law.
     We've had a certain concept for a number of years. Simply stated, it is that whenever two or more human beings get together and attempt to accomplish some joint task, one of the first things they do is to set up some rules. Now generally this works. You get the joint task accomplished. Rule-making is rewarded. As you add more than two people and you increase the resources and the complexity of whatever the joint tasks are, rule-making does permit more effective functioning, and that's how making laws get reinforced.
     However, there is a finite number of laws in proportion to a given population that work effectively. Any law above this number results in an increment of ineffectiveness. Let's say the number of laws necessary in the U. S. is 13,246. Law number 13,247 would then be over the threshold. Each law you now add divides your society. People now begin to exploit. There is more and more opportunity for malice, evasion of responsibility and so on. The next effect is to begin to destroy that society. However, nobody realizes or understands it so they keep on making laws. You have now reached the point at which there is some form of revolution required to start the process all over again.

PAIDIKA: one of your goals in formulating questions for the child about possible abuse is to avoid distorting the child's reality. In your interrogation methods, do your questions presuppose for the children that they themselves see the sexual relationship as abuse?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: No. What we would do is get the child to use free recall, to describe what took place. As scientists, our goal would be to get as much information from the child about what happened and what took place as possible. We would see it as somebody else's responsibility to interpret this, or see whether it's legal or illegal.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: We don't tell children things like, "Well, it's all the other person's fault, you were helpless, you were powerless, and you're not responsible." Some people are now saying that this is the best thing to tell children. If you tell them they were powerless, it gives the children more power. We don't do that.

PAIDIKA: We spoke at the beginning about paedophilia and spirituality. This is not an issue that is very often discussed. Given the opposition to and oppression of paedophilia in American society, how would you describe a spirituality for paedophiles?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: For me, the beginning of spiritual life is in knowing that God is gracious, knowing that it is God's purpose that we have a good life, knowing that it is God's purpose that we be free. The freedom that God intends for us to have is absolute. The only thing that can match absolute killing, and judgments that condemn us, such as St. Paul's, "You have sinned and come short of the glory of God," is the absolute, "You are free." You are free, that is, from all accusation, nothing, no one can accuse you.
     The issue is never what is right or wrong. That's mistaken question. Paying attention to what is right and wrong is, I think, a penultimate goal because the issue is not right and wrong but good and evil. That's totally different. Right and wrong has to do with whether or not you hit the mark, whether a given behavior matches a certain standard. If it doesn't, then it's wrong.
     Good and evil only pays attention to outcomes. You can never know the outcomes until you have already acted. Spirituality that attends to the issue of good and evil must always be courageous, bold, operating always with incomplete information. You never know, so you are continually making a responsible choice about which there's always risk. You can only know if something is good subsequent to having acted, and observing the outcome.
     As with all human behavior, I would suggest that paedophiles can't say, "I have chosen; I choose; I will act in this fashion. I believe that the outcome will be good. I will pay the price for that act, whatever that price may be."

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: The price might be the difficulty of integrating oneself into one's society.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Or, going to jail, certainly. As I said before, it may take people being arrested. In a sense, what is, well, I guess I can say this, what is offensive about what I know about paedophiles is their intention to be able to do what they choose without paying the price. "I want to be able to do this, but the society should let me do it without exacting any kind of price from me."

PAIDIKA: Is it reasonable for paedophiles to want and to work for the decriminalization of what they believe is right?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: It's not reasonable if the goal is "I want to do it, and I don't really care what other people tell me. I'm not going to engage in the attempt to communicate or to talk to people." It's like saying to somebody, "Accept me because after all, I'm really the same as you are." That's what tolerance is supposed to be, and that's why tolerance always falls short. It is never to me, acceptable.
I don't think it is honest to tolerate somebody only because they are saying, "At rock bottom, I'm really the same as you." or, conversely to say, I can tolerate you, I can accept you, because you are the same. I think it is much more honest and direct to say, "Yes, we're different. You're black, I'm white, you're smart, I'm not. I'm paedophile, you're heterosexual." Those are real differences, real differences. Paedophiles should point out how different they are, what the difference are.

PAIDIKA: Still isn't it a reasonable wish for paedophiles to want to see paedophile sex decriminalized? It may not be realistic right now in the U. S., but does that make it less legitimate a goal?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: oh yes, sure, sure. I mean Jesus said, "I really don't want to do this. I don't want to go up there onto Calvary." But when it came down to it, he said, "Well, okay, I'm going to walk the steps." As for decriminalization, the question is really if you're not there, how are you going to get there?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Take the risk, the consequences of the risk, and make the claim: this is something good. Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of God's will for love and unity among human beings. This is the only way the question is going to be answered, of whether or not it is possible. Does it happen? Can it be good? That's what we don't know yet, the ways in which paedophiles can conduct themselves in loving ways. That's what you need to talk about. You need to get involved in discourse, and to do so while acting. Matthew 11 talks about the wisdom of God, and the way in which God's wisdom, like ours, can only follow after.
Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophiles is an acceptable expression of God's will for love and unity among human beings.
I think the paedophile movement makes a mistake when it seeks to label the church as the instrument of repression, and in a sense, the enemy. I'm certainly aware of the accusation that it's the church that represses sexuality. I don't believe that's the case at all. I believe that the repression of sexuality begins with Greek thought. People who want to deal positively with human sexuality will do best to see the church as an ally, and to elicit from the church the positive responses about sexuality that are there.

PAIDIKA: You spoke about the need for paedophiles to engage in a discourse. What should that be?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: We can't presume to tell them specific behaviors, but in terms of goals, certainly the goal is that the experience be positive, at the very least not negative, for their partner and partner's family. And nurturing. Even if it were a good relationship with the boy, if the boy was not harmed and perhaps even benefited, it it tore the family of the boy apart, that would be negative.
It would be nice if someone could get some kind of big research grant to do a longitudinal study of, let's say, a hundred twelve year old boys in relationships with loving paedophiles. Whoever was doing the study would have to follow that at five year intervals for twenty years. This is impossible in the U. S. right now. We're talking a long time in the future.--END

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Children

Introduction

Definition

Overview

References

Baptist on Incest

Sin and the sanctity of human life

Incest

Let Us ABHOR What Is Wicked

The Florida Bar Journal
March, 2008 Volume 82, No. 3
F.S. §39.0139: Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse by Those Entrusted with Their Care
by Alexander Caballero and Ingrid Anderson

Children

Introduction

Definition

Overview

References

Baptist on Incest

Sin and the sanctity of human life

Incest

Let Us ABHOR What Is Wicked

The Florida Bar JournalMarch, 2008 Volume 82, No. 3F.S. §39.0139: Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse by Those Entrusted with Their Careby Alexander Caballero and Ingrid Anderson

The Florida Bar Journal
March, 2008 Volume 82, No. 3
F.S. §39.0139: Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse by Those Entrusted with Their Care
by Alexander Caballero and Ingrid Anderson