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Ritual
Abuse-Torture Within Families/Groups

Abstract

Keywords: Torture; ritual; abuse; pedophilia; trafficking

INTRODUCTION

Insights
into the reality of ritual abuse-torture (RAT) victimization began for the
authors in 1993 with a phone call from a woman who planned to commit suicide in
4 days. Sara (not her real name) said this was “the last time [I’m] ever going
to reach out for help.” Unraveling the chaos of Sara’s world to find meaning in
her contextualized expressions of life was essential to providing her with
effective interventions. Sara reported being born and remaining actively
captive in a RAT family/group for over 30 years. Efforts undertaken to develop
a framework that organized Sara’s victimization led to the identification of 10
violent thematic issues/behaviors constituting relational norms within RAT
family/groups (Sarson
& MacDonald, 2007): (a) neglect and abuse of many forms (e.g., verbal,
emotional, physical, sexual, financial); (b) being terrorized by acts of
violence, such as the killing of a pet and being threatened with death if she
disclosed the violence and abuse; (c) human-animal violence, including
bestiality and/or being “trained” to harm animals; (d) torture (e.g., physical,
sexual, and mind-spirit); (e) rampageous pedophilia; (f) necrophilic and
pseudonecrophilic acts, such as drugging or choking her into unconsciousness
and raping her dead-like body; (g) forced self-harming behaviors; (h) enduring
horrifying acts, such as being forced to watch another child tortured and gang
raped; (i) human trafficking victimization and exploitation (e.g., pedophilic
and adult pornography; being used as a drug carrier); and (j) forced
participation in violent organized pedophilic family/group gatherings coded as
“rituals and ceremonies.” Using such a framework to comprehend Sara’s
family/group system was successful in guiding Sara’s gradual exit and ongoing
healing processes. It also prompted the following questions: (a) Would this
framework define the RAT victimization of others? (b) If so, would it be
representative of this specific population? (c) If so, could their experiential
narratives then be considered a collective perspective of life within RAT
families and like-minded groups?

OTHER
CASE STUDIES

 

Responding to outreach into the Nova Scotian community, three women came
forth with recollections of RAT victimization. Friends of a fourth woman, with
permission from her husband, spoke of her ordeals, as she died before being
able to reveal her complete story. No men came forth; thus, the knowledge
gathered reflects the perspectives of a small sample of women’s childhood and
adulthood realities.

Demographic
Characteristics

 

Unlike Sara, who had a master’s degree and a professional career, the four
other Caucasian Canadian women with RAT histories had graduated from high
school, pursued college training, or proceeded directly into the work force.
Sara was single and childless; the other four women were married or divorced
with children. The women’s ages, including Sara’s, ranged from the early 30s to
mid-50s. Financially, all five women had depended or were dependent on
government or employee assistance programs because the compounded impact of
their victimization overwhelmed their abilities to cope with the demands of
everyday life. Sara lived in an apartment complex, whereas the other women
occupied mortgaged single dwelling homes. All drove cars. All had pets (cats or
dogs). Some used computers as a life-line for connection. All the women had
personal or professional support systems.

Interview
Methodology

 

Interview meetings took place mainly in the women’s homes and lasted between
2 and 5 hours per meeting. Two to four
meetings provided sufficient interview time; however, 15 meetings (over the
course of 1 years) were required for one woman to cope
with telling her story. In total, 119 hours were spent in meetings, 96 hours on
e-mail communications, 27 hours on phone conversations, and approximately 10
hours on speaking with spouses, friends, and other concerned persons.

Few notes and no audio or visual recordings were taken during the meetings.
Listening to comprehend the meaning in their voiced realities was the main
interview technique. Immediately after leaving the women’s homes, time was dedicated
to writing condensed notes to ensure recall accuracy. These notes were typed
and given to the women at the next meeting. Any miscomprehensions were
discussed and corrected. All women were presented with a typed final edition of
their narrative using a pseudonym of their choice to protect their privacy.

Finding meaning in the women’s narratives meant de- and reconstructing
context in a manner that was “understandable and experientially credible” (Maxwell,
1996, p. 21). This process involved asking challenging, clarifying, and
reality-based questions that deconstructed the family/group concepts that
normalized and justified RAT within adult-child or captive adult relationships.
Reconstructing reality meant exposing victims to the perspective that RAT
constitutes relational violence.

CASE
STUDY RESULTS

 

Defining Ritual
Abuse-Torture

 

One consensus that emerged from the interviews was that the commonly used
term “ritual abuse” did not adequately describe the violent acts endured. The
women said they had endured more than abuse; they had been tortured and had
witnessed other children or adults being tortured. It was essential for their
empowerment to have their ordeals named appropriately. “Ritual abuse-torture”
was coined, a term the women thought adequately described their victimization;
thus, it is the term used in this paper. Briefly described, RAT involves
pedophilic parents and transgenerational family members, guardians, and
like-minded adults who abuse, torture, and traffic their or other children.
They also organize violent group gatherings using “rituals and ceremonies.” If
unable to exit, a girl child can become a captive and exploited adult.

Congruencies

 

Closure of the interview process included showing the women, for the first
time, the graphic organizational Model of Ritual Abuse-Torture (see Figure
1). All were surprised that their ordeals could be organized in such a
nonchaotic manner and stated that the Model not only organized the violent
thematic issues but provided a holistic perspective of their lives inside RAT
families/groups. They added that it captured their experiences within society
generally. 

FIGURE 1. Model of Ritual Abuse-Torture.

Perpetrators in all cases included parents (mother, father, or both) and/or
extended intergenerational kin as well as known and unknown adults who were
frequently referred to as being part of “the family.” The women spoke of the
superiority of the RAT family/group and the concept that perpetrators harm with
intentionality. Inflicting violence maintained the perpetrator’s goals of
totalitarianistic power and control, ensuring silence and secrecy and
facilitating ongoing violent pedophilic entertainment and pleasure.

The term co-culture was used because in all cases the perpetrators
functioned “invisibly” within mainstream society. Within their communities,
they were professionals, business people, volunteers, local politicians, and/or
active members in church organizations. In other words, the perpetrators
manipulated their fit within mainstream society while functioning within the
co-culture of the like-minded RAT family/group locally, nationally, and/or
transnationally. Living “within three realities at once” was how one woman
described the layering of the family/group’s community face, the family face of
everyday life, and the insider face that victimized children were compelled to
navigate (Sarson
& MacDonald, 2005). Besides manipulating a community fit, all the case
studies were rife with everyday family life experiences of child neglect and abuse.
When describing the secretive insider face, the acts of violence crossed into
the realm of organized family/group torture, consisting of the thematic issues
also identified in the Model.

During the process of “getting out” and attempting to heal, the women’s
narratives included various forms of revictimization. During hospitalization,
one woman reported being raped by a psychiatric intern, another spoke of
“consensual” sex with the therapist, and Sara spoke of severe forms of violence
that included torture and entrapment by professional female counselors, one of
whom she considered connected to the family. Such revictimization involves
abuses of power and trust as identified in one of the outer rings of the Model.
All indicated that healthy caring, and safe and effective support was difficult
to obtain, a position that was mirrored in the findings of the Canadian
Panel on Violence Against Women (1993).

Variations

 

Within the context of congruency, there was also variation. For instance,
Sara and one woman spoke of infant victimization, whereas others believed they
were toddlers or preschoolers when their victimization began. Additionally, the
age and reasons for exclusion from the violent pedophilic family/group
gatherings varied and were multilayered, and included the following: (a) the
death of a grandfather, considered to be the leader of the group, was one
woman’s perception of why her victimization ceased when she was a young
adolescent; (b) growth and developmental reasons, such as menstruation and the
risk of impregnation; and (c) being replaced by a younger sibling.

Alternative norms, which Hoebel
(1960, p. 172) described as existing patterns of behavior that provide for
a leeway of choices within the same situation, were also present. Common to all
the women’s narratives was the norm of being taken to violent pedophilic
family/group gatherings. However, there was much variation as to how the
patterns of violence were enacted during these gatherings. For example, it
could begin with voyeurism by watching and laughing as one child was forced to
degrade another. One woman described her pedophilic rape as being “presented to
the bishop” as a preschooler of 3 or 4 years of age. She did not know whether
“the bishop” was an actual cleric or a code word for the pedophile’s erect
penis. Another stated the terrorization of the “formal rituals” began with
human-animal cruelty. Seeing a chicken’s head cut off and witnessing the
headless chicken flapping about was translated to mean that she would have her
head cut off if she did not comply with the perpetrators’ demands.

Ongoing
Victimization

 

Not all women interviewed were of the opinion they had exited. Besides Sara,
who was a captive adult, another woman considered herself not to be fully out
of the family. Her ongoing state of adult captivity involved the vulnerability
she described as “doing what I’m supposed to,” which was secretly giving one
half of her salary to the family. Sara also experienced financial abuse control
tactics. She disclosed she gave her professional paychecks to her father and
that her parents, in turn, supplied her with groceries, which she rationed. At
times, she went hungry because groceries were withheld. Keeping Sara
financially poor was one tactic her perpetrators used to force her to keep
coming back to them, thus maintaining control over her.

Tactics that promote ongoing contact can also give RAT perpetrators access
to the next generation of children, if a woman has children. It was difficult
to ascertain whether the children of some of the women interviewed had been
harmed when young, as the women stated they only began to understand their
victimization later in life, when their children were older or young adults.
Several women openly discussed their concerns, realizing they had left their
children with family members when they were infants or toddlers.

Predation was a common tactic used to control the victimized. Sara and
another woman reported being stalked, enduring worksite harassment, and
experiencing periodic physical and sexual assaults. Stalking, for example,
included being followed, receiving harassing telephone messages, and
experiencing threats delivered in various ways, such as having intimidating
“traitor” notes left on the windshield of her car. These reports are not
unusual considering that on average, in Canada, more than 1 in 10 females over
the age of 15 reported being stalked in such a manner that they feared for
their or another person’s life (Statistics
Canada, 2005).

On completion of these case study interviews, answers to the three
previously identified questions were gained. The 10 violent themes/behaviors
identified with Sara were generally representative of the victimization of the
other four women. All the women’s narratives presented a collective pattern of
RAT victimization, but on a minute scale. To gain a broader scope, connection
with more people who self-identified as having endured RAT was required.

LOCAL
TO GLOBAL ACTIVISM

 

Global activism efforts concentrated on exposing RAT as a human rights
violation and a form of non-state actor torture. Perpetrators of non-state
torture include family members and non-kin, such as a neighbor, a trusted
person, a stranger, or even an organization acting outside the state (Amnesty
International UK, 2000). How could a population be reached who
self-reported being victimized, oppressed, marginalized, discriminated against,
silenced, terrified, threatened, disbelieved, and whose boundary of community
was not local but global? Various opportunities arose, including participating
in “The Many Faces of Torture” panel at the Commission on the Status of Women
(CSW) United Nation Headquarters in New York City in 2004. Word spread via the
Internet of an opportunity for participation and 61 people from six countries
(Canada, Costa Rica, England, Germany, Scotland, and the United States) sent
over 400 pieces of information, including art and written stories, describing
their ordeals of RAT victimization. These were displayed in 10 portfolio books
for people attending the panel to view.

RAT
and Human Trafficking

 

To promote further participatory involvement, the first global tracking of
transnational occurrence of RAT began in 2003. A website was established that
included a RAT Prevalence Guestmap (Bravenet.com), which provided people with
an opportunity to place an icon on the map to indicate the site where they
first endured RAT victimization. The Guestmap in Figure
2 represents 123 persons who placed their icons between April 23, 2003 and
May 1, 2004. Today, women, men, and youth continue to participate. Using the
Guestmap, they communicate via e-mail or telephone, send written information,
contribute written feedback on educational resources and presentations, and
provide further information, such as naming the destination countries they
remember being trafficked to. 

FIGURE 2. Guestmap Representing 123 Persons Who Placed Icons
to Indicate the Site Where They First Endured RAT Victimization (Icons Placed
Between April 23, 2003 and May 1, 2004).

Case
Studies and Human Trafficking Patterns

 

As a captive adult, Sara spoke of local, national, and transnational
organizational patterns that reached into Ireland and other parts of Europe,
the Middle East, Africa, the United States, and Mexico. Two women also
described their experiences as being transnational but limited to Nova Scotia,
the United States, and Greece or to RAT-involved family members who lived in
the United States and visited Canada. The remaining two women defined their
trafficking as being confined to local family/groups. One thought her father’s
behaviors were influenced by contacts made during his sea voyages. All the
women identified being harmed by both male and female perpetrators.

Forms
of Human Trafficking Within RAT Families/Groups

 

Because of the transnational connections of some RAT families/groups, they
may be participants in the human trafficking organized crime network. Human
trafficking is considered one of the three most profitable illegal businesses
worldwide (U.S.
Department of State, 2004). Global contacts derived, for example, from over
300 icons presently on the RAT Guestmap have expanded insights into the many
forms of human trafficking of children that can occur within RAT
families/groups. Transportation, trafficking, and exploitation occurs (a)
within the home (e.g., carrying or forcing a child into the basement for
planned abuse or torture); (b) when transported to other local settings (e.g.,
warehouses, private offices, barns, studios); (c) when transported to other RAT
family/groups locally, regionally, nationally, or transnationally; (d) when
“rented out” to a pedophilic outsider; (e) when forced to work the street
because their body has developed, making them unmarketable to pedophiles; (f)
when used in child pornography; (g) when forced to sell drugs or be a carrier
for money laundering or gun smuggling; and (h) when forced to clean the homes
of members of the family/group as part of labor enslavement practices. Enslaved
women also report being trafficked and exploited in similar ways.

RITUAL
ABUSE-TORTURE: MISOPAIS AND RITUALISM

 

Misopais

 

Thinking about how attitudes are encultured pushed consideration that there
must be one that supports the childhood violence spoken of by persons who have
endured RAT victimization. Misopais was the attitudinal word coined.
This word comes from the Greek mis (hatred) and pais (children).
Just as understanding the attitude of misogyny helps explain the underpinnings
of global oppression and violence against women, naming misopais as the
destructive attitudinal root that supports violence against children helped
comprehension of RAT violence. Proof of the RAT perpetrators’ intentionality is
in their proverbial utterance “Don’t tell, but if you do no one will ever
believe you anyway,” a declaration that they know what they do is a crime.

Ritualism

 

Exposing the existence of RAT families/groups requires understanding how
they function, including comprehending how they manipulate ritualisms for a
complex array of purposes: They follow the ritualisms of their profession; as
mothers, fathers, and kin, they present to the community in normative family
ways; as volunteers, members of community groups, or mainstream church-goers,
they skillfully manipulate community ritualisms to their advantage, hiding
behind good people and good causes. Socialized sexual victimization and
aggression was frequently spoken of as being central to the enforcement of
gender-based roles. The most powerful environment and method of indoctrination
and training in which to maximize such enculturation is with the use of group
ritualisms. Socializing the girl child into the role of perfect victim,
perpetrators tell a little girl she needs to be taught “how to be a woman,”
justifying her rape. A boy child is socialized to be an aggressor; forced into
sexualized acts with another child, he is taught “how to be a man.”

Group ritualisms present ordeals that are very destructive to the child’s
connectedness to herself or himself. Group rituals and ceremonies are where
horrification commonly happens. The behaviors of the group present a group
momentum, a force so brutally violent that the child victim’s terror and horror
is overwhelming, shocking her or him into survival and coping responses of
disconnection, out-of-body experiences, dissociation, and/or fragmentation. As
one woman said, “I was held down. Hands and objects did things to hurt me … . I
left my body in that room.”

Regardless of the sociocultural nationality of the families/groups that have
been reported, ritualisms within the co-culture organize their invisible
violent community and contain variations of the same thematic issues/behaviors
identified by the women. Commonly, these gatherings involve participants in the
positions of leader(s), audience of like-minded participants, and chosen
victim(s). A case study narrative briefly demonstrates this latter point:

My father “the devil” had his [specific] place in the ritual circle … at
some of the ceremonial ritual gatherings the adults wore masks … sometimes
robes … but their voices were always identifiable … forced to drink wine until
drunk … tied to a plank … smeared with feces and what I thought was blood …
surrounded … the men and women did grotesque sexualized acts … and torturing …
Their laughter still haunts me, the feelings of being humiliated returns …

Within these gatherings, pedophilic perpetrators assert their adult
positional power and domination over the child victim, shaping the
adult-perpetrator/child-victim relationship. Using and abusing the
“specialness” concepts associated with rituals and ceremonies, perpetrators set
the stage for indoctrinating the child, normalizing violent relational
pedophilia. Narratives from victimized persons demonstrate how perpetrators
distort reality by using and dramatizing omnipotent themes, playing roles such
as being “the devil.” Ritualized constructed gatherings can be legitimatized
using outsider language in a coded manner, for instance, telling the girl child
she is in a marriage ceremony—“marriage to Satan” ritual. In some narratives
and drawings submitted, it is very clear that “Satan” refers to the
perpetrator’s erect penis and “the marriage” representative of oral rape and
the forced ingestion of semen. For example, as a captive adult Sara still
believed that the swallowed semen meant she was forever consumed by and
connected to “Satan” as an entity. Awareness of this use of coded language is
essential to unravel the perpetrator’s tactics of mind-spirit tortures that
inflict distortions and hold victimized persons in a captive state.

Human-animal cruelty in the form of bestiality compounds the reproductive
harms of sexualized torture ritualisms. Perpetrators can manipulate and distort
beliefs by “teaching” female children to be fearful of their reproductive
capacities because they fear producing animal babies. Disclosure of this
self-directed hatred and belief was frequently encountered, as were expressions
of horrification when forced into group ritualisms of bestiality with large
animals, such as horses or donkeys. Being pornographically photographed
deepened the wounds.

There was a time when such narratives would be dismissed as unbelievable or
labeled lies. However, police have seized DVDs of children forced into
bestiality (Canadian
Press, 2004) with parents the alleged perpetrators and pornographers (Blais,
2007). People in industrialized countries such as Canada, the UK, and the
United States manufacture 90% of pedophilic pornography, much of it
intrafamilial (Lamberti,
2002) and homemade (Gooderham
& Laghi, 1996; Sher,
2006). Furthermore, infants in diapers (Canadian
Press, 1996; Smith,
2003) with umbilical cords still attached (Dimanno,
2003) can be victims. And 20% of pedophilic pornography viewed by the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police Child Exploitation Unit involves torture and bondage (Caswell,
Keller, & Murphy, 2006).

Perpetrators further distort the reality of the victimized child by drugging
them to cause disorientation and stupor. Weapons (guns, knives, ropes, whips) inflict
terror as well as harm. Victimized persons explain how perpetrators whipped,
burned, cut, and hung them by their limbs. Narratives include prolonged group
beatings, telephono (beatings to their ears), falanga (beatings to the soles of
their feet), and water torture as depicted in Sara’s drawing in Figure
3. Sara told of being held under water until “the darkness comes” (i.e.,
unconsciousness). Being electric shocked, tied down, caged, denied nourishment
or access to a bathroom, smeared with or forced to eat their or perpetrator’s
body fluids, choked, and hooded gives insight into some of the physical
tortures perpetrators inflict to satisfy their need for sadistic pleasure and
entertainment. 

FIGURE 3. Sara’s Drawing of Water Torture.

Reported sexualized tortures include forced nakedness; continuous prolonged
family/group rapes; rapes with knives, hot pokers, and lit candles (cut and
burned); rapes with guns, sticks, or other objects; pseudonecrophilic rapes;
bestiality; and the taking of pornographic pictures. Case study narratives
disclose that as victimized children, the women might be forced to harm other
children or animals, to witness them being harmed, or forced to consume tissue
such as blood. Emotionally objectified, laughed at, humiliated, degraded, and
dehumanized, these mind-spirit tortures were combined with physical and
sexualized tortures that forced out-of-body, disconnective, and dissociative
survival responses that altered or fragmented the victimized child’s relationship
to and with herself.

Intensification rites are rituals that bring a whole group together to
sharpen their sense of community solidarity (Goldschmidt,
1971). The frequently held ritualized gatherings of RAT families/groups
suggest this purpose. A ritualized gathering re-energizes like-mindedness;
reinforces group cohesiveness, bonding, and sense of belonging; and justifies
the beliefs, values, perceptions, thoughts, and misopaisic attitudes that
normalize torturous pedophilia. Tightening networking processes, ritualized
gatherings can strengthen ties with other RAT families or like-minded groups
regionally, nationally, or transnationally. This gives rise to human
trafficking networks as perpetrators transport victim(s) from group to group or
from place to place.

Figure
4 depicts a violent ritualized pedophilic family/group gathering, drawn by
a woman who survived RAT. She shows herself and another girl at ages 8 and 6
surrounded by RAT perpetrators and being serially group molested and “raped and
raped and raped” (orally, vaginally, and anally) by male and female members.
The scribbled lines in the drawing, she says, are representative of her and the
other girl’s blood. The circle, candle, and stars are symbolic props used by
the family/group. This drawing is generally representative of the narratives
attesting to the violent ritualized group enculturation that occurs in
childhood within the co-culture of RAT families/groups. These families/groups
use and abuse the power of destructive enculturation embedded in ritualized
group processes because such enculturation maintains group membership, provides
ongoing child victims, and gathers financial or other benefits when the
perpetrators are involved in criminal activities such as human trafficking and
pornography. 

FIGURE 4. A Drawing Depicting a Violent Ritualized Pedophilic
Family/Group Gathering.

Destructive enculturation can lead to the belief that there is no way out,
so the victimized child may become a captive adult victim, or to the belief
that she is both victim and perpetrator, which can further silence her. The
belief of being both victim and perpetrator is instilled from an early age when
one child is forced to harm another child, animal, or adult victim. Based on
what we have been told, some children, because of the ongoing nature of the
family/group, will remain and be involved in family/group activities as adult
perpetrators or in some other supplier capacity. For instance, one woman stated
her father dropped her off at the group gatherings, then left. He “supplied”
her to her grandfather. Intergenerational family involvement in organized crime
is a reality repeatedly seen in other family-centered organized crime groups.
Whether child or adult, family members face a painful struggle if they try to
exit. For example, if they run away from home, they are commonly returned to
their parents. As one woman shared:

I remember being four and packing my little blue suitcase with clothes and
walking down the street to a neighbor’s house and saying I was going to move in
with them because they were a nice family. They took me back home.

Children often do not have the language or understanding to explain their
victimization clearly, a reality especially common for those who have
specifically endured sexualized violence (Alaggia,
2004). They are rarely believed. Even victimized adults still struggle to
be heard and believed for risk of being labeled mentally ill or crazy, adding
more injury to their struggles.

CONCLUSION

 

Just who are ritual abuse-torturers? Babiak
and Hare (2006) wrote that psychopathy is found in 1% of the general
population and “that about 20 to 25% of men who persistently abuse and batter
their partners are psychopaths” (p. 286); maybe the answer lies in this
reality. Psychopaths can be parents. Of the four case studies presented, three
spoke of their father’s violence against their mothers, often compounded by
alcoholic rage. Two of these three mothers were considered not to be involved
in RAT. Sara stated that alcohol was not present in her household. Although her
mother actively participated in inflicting RAT victimization, she was still
subjected to misogynistic and physical violence. Could it be that ritual
abuse-torturers have remained so invisible that they have yet to be considered
a specific psychopathic group within society? When exposed, might they fall
into the category of being sadistic human predators?

Recognizing
RAT as an Emerging Form of Non-state Actor Torture

 

Those victimized by RAT have endured brutal crimes against their humanity.
One socially transformative and empowering solution is to recognize RAT as an
emerging form of non-state actor torture. Canada does not have a law that
addresses torture by non-state actors or a law that criminalizes RAT. Thus, the
civil and legal right of victimized persons to name the crime committed against
them remains unattainable, even though the Canadian
Panel on Violence Against Women (1993) published a national report stating
that “ritual abuse-torture” was occurring in every region of Canada. Presently,
the Canadian legal system takes the existing provisions perspective that
torture committed by non-state actors, including ritual abuse-torturers, can be
addressed under existing sections of the Criminal Code. That is, acts of torture
are tried as sexual assault, assault with a weapon, or kidnapping. For a crime
involving torture to remain unnamed, misnamed, and prosecuted as sexual assault
or kidnapping is an under-acknowledgement of the severity of the crime. The
necessity of differentiating acts of torture from abuse was highlighted when
Governor Granholm signed legislation that, for the first time, made torture a
criminal act in Michigan. This legislation was enacted because prosecutors were
unable to hold a husband accused of torturing his blind, diabetic wife
accountable because no law against torture existed in Michigan (Watson,
2006). How many children have suffered acts of non-state actor torture,
including RAT, without triggering legal and social intervention?

Accurately naming the crime of RAT is about naming reality. Naming explains
the severity of the child or adult’s victimization and traumatization
responses. Naming reveals the understandable need for specialized care, just as
it is recognized that specialized care is required for persons who have
survived state actor torture. Also, if the attitude of misopais is to be
brought out into the open, it is time to fully name the extensive violence a
child can be subjected to within adult-child relationships, including parental
and guardianship ones.

Stopping
the Use of Language that Sexualizes Adult-Child Relationships

 

A second solution is to stop using language that sexualizes adult-child
relationships. Language communicates cultural components and worldview; it
carries meaning and delivers concepts, beliefs, values, attitudes, and
perceptions. Constructively used, language can help a child to understand her
or his relationship with herself or himself, to nurture awareness of her or his
emotional feelings, to develop emotional intelligence (Barnet
& Barnet, 1998), and to safely situate herself or himself in
relationships with others. Language constructs a truthful reality when it names
reality correctly. Language used destructively, as within the co-culture of RAT
families/groups, is distorting and enculturating by encoding and normalizing
violence within adult-child relationships. Distorting language is used by
perpetrators to keep a child captive, to keep them from learning that what is
being done to them is wrong and criminal. Using distorting language is a protection-from-detection
tactic of perpetrators to ensure that if the child tries to speak to outsiders,
their conversation will likely be misunderstood. For instance, as a child Sara
was taught to “suck a lollipop”—lollipop meaning penis. Her father and others
coded their pedophilic oral raping of her by teaching her distorted language
that outsiders would most likely misunderstand. As a result of the distorted
and destructive use of language, the child’s comprehension of reality is
severely manipulated, misshaped, and sexualized.

When mainstream society also uses language that delivers misleading,
distorting, and sexualized messages, then the victimized child’s distortions
are easily reinforced. Consider statements such as the following: Mr. X, a
nurse, was arrested for having oral sex with a minor; Ms. V, a teacher
of 10 years, was charged for having sex with a 12-year-old student; Mr.
C was jailed for sex crimes against his daughters. In each scenario, the
language used is deceiving, distorting, and sexualized as it names the
pedophilic assaults or rapes as sex. A clearer message would be delivered to
victimized children and adults if these messages were stated as the following:
Mr. X was arrested for the oral rape; Ms. V was charged for raping
a student; or Mr. C was jailed for rape crimes. Dismantling the
centuries old misopaisic attitude that reinforces pedophilic violence as sex or
sexual will make it more difficult for perpetrators such as ritual
abuse-torturers to function with impunity. Thus, the transformative support
that society can offer is to use language that names pedophilic violence for
the crime that it is; pedophilic violence should never be called sex. Clearly
and truthfully naming the behaviors of ritual abuse-torturers is essential as
it offers persons who had been victimized the language to name the atrocities
they endured. As one women stated, “Abuse is a more benign word than torture,
but torture is the correct term for what I experienced.”

Promoting
Human Rights Education

 

“I’m a person? Nobody ever told me this before!” These were Sara’s comments
when informed she was a human being with rights and responsibilities. These
concepts were extremely difficult for her to internalize. For over 30 years,
all she ever heard was “You’re good for nothing; slut, whore; you’re nothing
but garbage.” Sara and other victimized women spoke of being treated “like
animals” by their parents, some of whom were ritual abuse-torturers and some
who were not. One woman described how her pedophilic father tortured her,
although it was her mother whom she identified as the parent connected to the
RAT group. She said:

My degradation was so profound there were times I didn’t even feel human; I
felt like an animal, I felt like a pile of shit … . I was down in the basement
with my hands tied together, a rope around my neck, in a cage hanging from the
ceiling. My father used to put me there … with the rope placed around my neck
in such a way that if I caused the cage to swing too much the noose would
tighten around my neck… . Sometimes before putting me into the cage, my father
threw food onto the basement dirt floor forcing me to eat like an animal, or
sometimes he’d put canned dog food in a white china saucer and force me to eat
it like a dog. I broke it [the saucer] and I remember my mother got angry at
me. There was a bucket of pee that he’d force me to drink… .

Torturers intentionally attempt to destroy the personality of the person
they victimize. This constitutes some of their pleasure. To counter such
dehumanization, a third solution is generalized interventions that promote
human rights education at all levels of schooling, beginning in the earliest
grades. Such interventions would offer insights to the victimized school-aged
child, providing them an opportunity to recognize that RAT victimization is a
human rights violation, a form of torture, and is not their fault. Human rights
education could help expose all forms of violence, expose misopais, educate
mainstream society, and contribute toward building a more empathic, responsive,
and humane