Adult accounts of organised child sexual abuse in Australia Michael Salter PhD candidate Faculty of

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Adult accounts of organised child sexual abuse in
AustraliaMichael SalterPhD candidateFaculty
of LawFaculty of Medicine
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• What are the ways in which the sexual abuse of
  children can be organised or coordinated by
  multiple perpetrators?
• What happens to victimised children in organised
  contexts?
• What are the environmental factors that enable,
  or compound, the sexual exploitation of children?

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Terminology

• Organised abuse refers to any instance in which
  multiple adults act in a coordinated or
  premeditated way to sexually abusive multiple
  children.
• Abusive ordeals are incidents of organised sexual
  abuse.
• Perpetrator groups are groups that engage in
  organised abuse.
• Primary abuser refers to the individual who is
  primarily responsible for procuring the child,
  and trafficking the child to and from abusive
  ordeals. The primary abuser is responsible for
  managing the child outside organised contexts.
• Procuring refers to the process by which a
  primary abuser identifies, grooms and inducts a
  child into organised abuse.
• Trafficking refers to the transport of a child to
  an abusive ordeal.

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What are the ways in which the sexual abuse of
children can be coordinated or organised by
multiple abusers?

• Parents, relatives and family friends
• Priests and nuns at church or school
• Staff and visitors to residential care
• One participant described being procured by a
  stranger in the community
• Two participants provided second-hand accounts of
  corrupt Elders procuring children for abuse from
  Indigenous communities

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Interview data not included in the presentation

• Ad hoc abuse
• A teenage brother who encouraged his friends to
  abuse his young sister
• A stepmother who abused her stepchildren, and
  encouraged her son to do so
• Abuse by multiple perpetrators who do not know
  one another
• Non-contact offences
• Forced to strip for staff in a residential
  institution
• Father and family friends expose themselves to
  the child

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What happens to victimised children in organised
contexts?

• Participants reported a common range of sexually
  abusive acts, including
• Group sexual assault (oral, vaginal and anal
  rape)
• Sadistic and fetishistic acts (incorporating
  bondage, urine, faeces)
• Forcing a child into sexual contact with other
  children
• The manufacture of child pornography
• Child prostitution
• Ritualistic abuse/torture

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• Crimes reported by participants were rarely
  limited to child sex abuse.
• Participants commonly reported
• The intensive inhibition of disclosure through
  drugging, death threats and torture
  (electro-shock, near-drowning)
• The sexual assault and torture of women
• Reproductive harms (pregnancy through rape,
  non-consensual abortions)
• The murder of children and adults

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The hierarchy of victimisation

• A childs status in the group is determined by
• How they were procured for organised abuse
• The identity of the childs primary abuser
• These variables determine
• The range and extremity of acts that may be
  inflicted on the child
• The frequency of incidents of organised abuse
• The period of sexual exploitation

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1st tier Children groomed to become adult abusers

• Usually the female child of adult perpetrators
• Sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect
  normative in the family home
• Early onset of organised abuse in childhood
  (infancy, early childhood)
• Frequent incidences of organised sexual abuse (at
  least weekly)
• Abuse often had ritualistic features, and
  structured by the pretence of status (queen,
  priestess, princess)
• Abuse may continue into adulthood, and the
  captive adult may provide their children for
  abuse.

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Ritual abuse and the pretence of status

• They were getting me to be, some kind of high
  priestess and all this kind of stuff. They
  tortured me, and conditioned me, and then I end
  up being used. Yes, it's a position of power over
  men and boys, but Im used to recruit the young
  boys through ... through sex. Then, of course,
  it's pretty horrible because I'm being tortured,
  but I end up, I really want to be involved.
• They do it from torturing you first, they give
  you a position of power after they have
  conditioned you to be what they want you to be.
  Basically, so you've got really nowhere else to
  go. (Joanne)
• And I was always told that, that I was in
  training to be a high priestess. But I also know
  of a few other ritual abuse survivors who say the
  same thing, so Im never sure if thats a line
  that is used regularly and its just a lie.
  (Lilly)

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2nd tier Children abused without the pretence of
status

• Often male, procured extra-familially, or
  trafficked into organised abuse by parents for
  money/drugs
• Later onset of organised abuse (later childhood,
  early teens)
• Similar diversity and severity of abusive
  practices as first tier
• No compensatory promises of future role/status
• Sometimes trafficked opportunistically between
  multiple perpetrator groups
• More frequent reports of commercial abuse
  (pornography, prostitution)
• Abuse frequently ceases in early-to-mid teens

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3rd tier Children at risk of death or severe
injury

• Children without any protective safeguards (e.g.
  parent, caregiver, no legal status)
• Children born to teenage/adult victims
• Runaways, Indigenous children or other
  vulnerable groups

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What are the risk factors for organised abuse?

• Invaliding environment at home, school and in the
  community
• Now, I spent a lot of my time absolutely black
  and blue from these people the abusers. Theyd
  butt out their cigarettes on me, theyd use me as
  an ashtray, theyd piss on me, theyd shit on me,
  theyd belt the fuck out of me, kick me around
  the room if I didnt do something properly. But
  nobody in my family noticed it. Nobody noticed my
  distress on that first occasion. Nor any other
  time. It was just put down to me being a clumsy
  kid. (Neil)

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Compounding social factors

• Limited alternatives for abused women and
  children
• State intervention in abuse infrequent and
  harmful
• Law enforcement in child abuse ineffective
• Symptoms of trauma and distress frequently
  misinterpreted as evidence of intellectual or
  moral weakness

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Case history Renee

• 42, on disability support following a recent
  hospitalisation, cared for by her partner.
• Multiple physical health concerns, particularly
  arthritis and bone spurs.
• Mental health concerns include bipolar
  depression, insomnia, nightmares, suicide
  attempts, chronic psychosomatic pain, and
  episodic paranoia.
• History of harmful mental health treatment,
  including incorrect diagnosis, inappropriate
  medication and re-victimising hospitalisation.
• Currently seeing a sexual assault counsellor and
  psychiatrist, and feeling comfortable with them.

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The context to Renees organised abuse

• Renees stepfather, Mark, was sexually abusive
  and physically abusive.
• Renees mother was a victim of domestic violence
  who drank and used drugs heavily.
• Mark has previously been involved in the
  commercial production of pornography, and had a
  relationship with the owners of a nearby
  photographic studio that abutted a brothel.
• Renees mother sometimes posed topless at the
  studio for money.
• Renee and her sister played in the streets after
  school with the other latch key kids.
• They are approached one day by the owners of the
  studio, Amy and Frank.

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Renees transition into organised abuse

• So they basically befriended us and started
  saying things like, How pretty you are! and
  that they took photos of pretty children and,
  yknow, like, you are this chosen, special one.
• It sort of went from talking outside, from
  opening the studio doors up, and there were
  photos of children on the walls And thats how
  it started, with, just, take pretty pictures.
• And, look, I cant remember the exact step from
  being in the studio to, one day, lying on this
  mattress with another kid just in our underwear
  on, and simulating sex. But we had been shown, by
  Frank and Amy, and we were being filmed.
• It was always we were always told it was
  love. Our games after school were called S and L,
  which was "sex and love.

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The emotional dynamics of exploitation

• Renee Like, it may sound really bizarre but I
  looked forward to going to see them. cries And
  I really, I guess, felt loved in some way that I
  wasnt getting from home.
• Michael What was it about Amy and Frank? What
  had they done to make you feel
• R Because they told me how beautiful I was. And
  how pretty. And, yknow, not many children are
  like that, and you are. Really played on that.
  And we want to be your friend.

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The abuse escalates

• Adults begin to participate in the sexually
  abusive activity in the studio
• The children are threatened with death if they
  disclose the abuse
• Drugs and sedatives are used to disorientate the
  children
• Abusive practices begin to diversify and
  intensify, incorporating new games, costumes,
  scenarios, and sadistic acts
• The children are tortured for disobedience, using
  techniques that dont leave a mark
• The children are instructed to recruit other
  children for sexual abuse

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New sites of organised abuse emerge

• Um, then it went to going to, what I now know,
  was the brothel owners house. And other children
  and crying being given these lollies drugs
  again. And, like, a game, but there were lots of
  older men there. And it was almost like a, like a
  pick the child thing.
• And like every time, this would happen we
  would go to sleep, and come out of it and getting
  told that youd had this terrible dream, you
  poor thing. And you knew deep down, that, nope,
  something terrible had happened.

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Questions without answers

• Police corruption or perpetrator games?
• The police came to my house once. As I said, we
  were latch key kids, and I was home from school
  one day, and the police knocked on my door.
• And there was a man and a lady. I cant remember
  word for word but it was basically, Weve been
  told to come and see you because youve been
  telling stories. Now. I truly dont believe
  they were real police. They may have been, I
  dont know, but they took me for a walk up the
  street and back home and that was it.

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Questions without answers

• What else did Renee witness?
• Everyone has there own memories, and they are
  their memories, and its their reality but I
  had memories of, yknow, blood. And having to
  clean up blood.
• But I know it wasnt. Like when I was a child,
  I believed it was blood. But I know now it
  wasnt. Tomato sauce or something.

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Parental complicity

• Mark was a part of what was going on. How much
  a part, I dont know. I have a memory of him
  being at one of the parties. I have another
  very vivid memory of his red truck, of him
  backing up into the driveway of this studio,
  Frank opening the big doors I have a very vivid
  memory of money exchanging hands.
• Mum was inducted, so to speak. She did a bit
  of, um, ah, modelling work at the time as well,
  in which she just had, like, cossie bottoms on
  Im sure it was for the people in the studio, the
  same place. She went there, yknow. She knew I
  went there.

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Stigmatisation by her local communityand
revictimisation

• In school, I was, yknow ,the one that
  everyones parents would say, Dont hang around
  with that Renee, yknow, shes bad news. So I
  always had this, yknow, I was a bad kid, and
  always in trouble.
• My deputy head principal at high school, I have
  never actually said the words, cries but he was
  into abusing girls. And, yknow, we all wore
  uniforms up to here, and Ive got memories of
  him, cos I was always getting sent to him
  saying Step back a bit, step back a bit, so
  that he could see.

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• And I remember him telling me to pull my dress
  higher, and going around the side of his desk and
  he is having a wank. And him saying something
  like, I know people who know you.
• It was well known. There was a group of us that
  were just dead shits at the school, and we knew
  it was going to happen when we got called to his
  office.

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Points to consider

• Renee was vulnerable to organised abuse because
  her basic needs werent being met at home
• The perpetrators were the only attachment figures
  in Renees life, forging strong emotional bonds
  through promises of love and threats of harm.
• Renees capacity to remember her abuse has been
  deliberately interfered with through drugs and
  torture.
• Renee will probably never know everything that
  happened to her.

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• The organised abuse was able to continue because
  Renee was stigmatised by her school and local
  community
• This stigmatisation placed her at risk of
  revictimisation and limited her opportunities to
  find help.
• Renee continues to live with a high level of
  chronic disability associated with her history of
  abuse, although she has been seeking mental
  health treatment for 17 years.