SCHOOL SEXUAL ABUSE CASES
It is said that one in five girls and one in ten boys are victims of sexual abuse before the age of 18. It's easy to dismiss this as myth or say that it doesn't happen that much, but it's actually very common. As children we spent a great majority of time in school and in some families we spend more time with our teachers during the week than our own parents!
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Sexual abuse by a teacher or another type of educational authority figure occurs at devastatingly high rates. Schools across the nation have allowed sexual predators to infiltrate our classrooms and provided these teachers with a unique opportunity to access and groom victims in an environment intended to be trustworthy and safe. School Sexual Abuse occurs in almost EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.
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For decades educational institutions across the country have worked to bury the number of increasing allegations against their teachers, assistants, counselors and maintenance staff through deliberate negligence, confusion and ignorance. Naivete did not contribute to so many children being hurt. A failure to VALIDATE a child's allegations, an UNWILLINGESS to protect against abuse and a FAILURE TO ACT are to blame.
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"When you fail to properly vet your faculty, when you ignore allegations of sexual misconduct, when you protect the teacher and not the children by moving the accused from one school to another you are implicit in the abuse and send a clear message that you don't care!"
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In a School, a teacher is the ultimate figure of authority in a child's eyes and at a young age we are taught to "do what our teacher says" or to "respect our teachers". When it's ingrained in us at a young age to respect these elders we fall victim to those individuals that abuse their authority and their positions of trust for their own sexual pleasure. We are manipulated into doing things that have lasting effects on who we are later in life.
This abuse can take on many shapes when related to a School or an educational environment. These predators will take advantage of every detail of our lives and will attempt to abuse us when we are at our most weakest and most vulnerable. In some cases, the teacher grooms the child for the abuse over the course of months by befriending the child, asking him or her to stay after class to help clean, or to spend lunch and recess in the isolated classroom, offeing sweets and gifts or better grades while slowing escalating the contact made (first light touching shoulder rubbing, etc) until the abuser has gained enough of the child trust to do what they please.
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Others teachers, educators or maintenance staff do not groom and instead take advantage of an opportunity when the child is alone to abuse them. Historically, Schools are one of the few places a parent may not question or worry about what a child is up to in there by themselves...that level of trust is taken advantage of by school leaders to hurt children. The child is often threatened with retaliation if they speak up or tell.
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So what happens to a child that was abused by a Teacher or someone in school? Well typically the child has no one to turn to in their eyes. It's their word against the abusers' and this is again, The Ultimate Authority figure in the parent's eyes so discussing it with their parents is out of the question. They feel they couldn't tell friends or other relatives because of the stigma associated with being abused--that you were at fault and or you did something to deserve this. Can you believe that? Sexual Abuse being the victim's fault?!?! That is what goes through a child's mind (an adults as well as we know). Some didn't want people to question their sexuality back then so it was best to keep quiet to avoid facing a question of their sexuality or sexual preference. And as the years went by, and the pain and hurt was buried..it made it less likely for a child now a teen or adult to ever come forward. But then the effect really takes its toll....
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As a child victim growing up with an abuse secret, you develop problems with authority, trust issues, anger issues, depression, anxiety, sexual issues, night terrors, nightmares and post-traumatic stress...this affects you in so many areas of your life! Many resort to self medication, have increased amounts or decreased amounts of sex, lash out against their peers and other authority figures, lose interest in the things they love and never fully recover. Many harbor their secret and keep their experiences bottled away for decades not even sharing the information with their spouses and those closest to them. Without the context of why we do the things we do our love ones cannot help and relationships suffer tremendously.
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If any of this makes sense to you or you have similar experiences with your school growing up, you may qualify for compensation and you may be able to get the vindication, justice and closure you rightfully deserve. You will also help prevent abuse in so many others in the future which is the most important thing. You can get justice without going public, without going to court and with out anyone ever finding out you came forward. All calls are 100% confidential and what you tell us is privileged.
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