I decided, on the advice of a commentor on my other blog, to create a Twitter ID specifically for the Child Abuse Survivor Network. I’m planning on using it to spread news about what’s going on in the network, rhereby reminding folks to come back, on check it out for the first time. It’ll also be a way for me to answer questions about the network for folks who are curious but haven’t signed up for it yet. If you use Twitter and won’t to follow, you can find it @SurvivorNetwork.
I found myself nodding along as I read a recap of a presentation given by Connilee Christie, who works with children who report being sexually abused. Especially, this part: Success often is measured on prosecutions, she said. In part, she said, because it is easily measured. But that is not how the Children’s Advocacy Center…
Annaleigh is hosting this month’s Carnival Against Child Abuse, and since it is the month of Valentine’s Day, she added the topic of Love to the Carnival lineup. One of the things that takes a while to learn, and yet in retrospect seems so silly, is how often survivors, in their struggles with self-esteem, spend…
A few years ago, I took a look at using Disqus for the comments on my blogs, but ditched the idea because of some technical difficulties. Since the move to using WordPress on the site, I had sort of forgotten my desire to use Disqus and wasn’t exactly unhappy with the comments features within WordPress,…
Pin Yesterday, I was a guest again on my friend Tiffany Werhner’s radio show/podcast Moments of Clarity. We chatted about my story of child abuse, dissociation, major depression, and eventually, my experiences with therapy and more. If you are a survivor or know someone who is who could use a reminder that the abuse does not define them, and wasn’t their fault, please share this with them.
Well here’s the official word from Evan about the Geocities ftp thing. I’m leaning toward relocating just this page to my domain, leaving the rest of the content over here as it is, because I want it to be seperate from that site! Hopefully that will allow me to keep a journal going linked from…
Pin What I want to address, however, is how our society defines victims and how it leaves far too many people behind. The article above is a great example. How many people, if asked about sex trafficking, picture little white girls or women abducted from Target? Probably a lot. For many, the only information they’ve ever gotten about trafficking are warnings about Target or shopping mall parking lots from their Facebook friends. They don’t know how many teenage boys from broken homes, living in poverty, are pulled into being trafficked. How many gay youths, rejected by their families, fall victim to it? How many immigrant children here, with no parental supervision, are sold off by the people who should be protecting them from sexual slavery?Â
Those stories, even if they’re told, are not going to grab national headlines. They are not going to evoke world-wide outrage and sympathy. Those are things that happen to “other people”. We might even be tempted to start looking for reason why it’s their own fault, or at least the parents fault, right?Â
From a media perspective, we also have to keep this in mind. An abduction of a young white girl from her home, is a rare event. It’s actually newsworthy because it happens so rarely. When it happens, it’s shocking. A trans, minority, teen being coerced into selling themselves, with no one to turn to for protection, isn’t any of those things. A gay male teen being kicked out of their parents house and trying to make it through homelessness, is also not something that happens so rarely that there would be major news coverage of it. These things happen all of the time. So often, that they aren’t really news.Â
So, which group should we have support and services for? I’d like to vote for ALL OF THEM. But that will take educating people about the reality of who gets abused, who gets trafficked, and for us all to accept that it happens everywhere. Until we get there, and are willing to see all different types of people as victims, we will continue to fail one group or another. That’s not acceptable.Â
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please keep me in touch with this. I would love a link for my page. I have hoped that something like this could happen. thanks.
Now that you’ve joined up and created a profile, there is a link on your profile page, and you should be able to get updates in email, especially to discussions you’ve started or have taken part in. Hope you continue to contribute to the group!