i believe it does take time, and the internet has helped clarify this reality!Aurien:
I can't speak with certainty for Dan Herr or any other of Harold Herr's (alleged) victims but I know that it takes quite a few victims a good while to come to terms with has happened to them and to find the courage to talk to anyone about it much less report it to the authorities. If I remember correctly there was a study done on the average age that victims disclose sexual abuse and it was most often when they were adults. I'm thinking the average age for disclosing was around 40 but I'd have to see if I could find that study again to be sure of that. According to the timeline in Trudy's January 12th post, a victim (Dan if I'm reading correctly) sent copies of a letter disclosing the abuse to both Children and Youth Services and the Ephrata State Police as well as to others. I don't know how old Dan was in 1990 or if the statute of limitations was up at that time but he most definitely tried to do something 30 years ago.
As to why it was never taken to the authorities by those who were made aware of the allegations, there could be a number of reasons. The most common ones seem to be that people either don't believe the allegations, or believe that something happened but think that the abuser is sorry and would never do anything like that again. People also want to protect their reputations, apparently not realizing that when the truth does come out that reputations will be more damaged than if they had been open and honest to begin with. Last but not least are those who don't report allegations because they too have the skeletons of sexual abuse in their closets.
one of the most common+effective criticisms of victims is/was, “if this were true, he/she/they would have come forward earlier!” These accusations were often 100% sincere. More is now known about how abuse works. Even in courts, statutes of limitations did and do exist.
Now it’s known, esp with young victims, they do not always have the ability to articulate what happened, they may have little understanding of what happened, they often feel responsible!
they are often threatened by their abusers. they feel powerless. they fear their closest caretakers, even if abusers, may be threatened, thereby they fear their very existence, if they “rock the boat.” they may sincerely love their abusers. not all abuse is physically painful. victims may be very confused about what is love, and what is abuse.
All these things can be true even with vulnerable adults. Even with males.
Abuse is primarily about POWER, not sex.
This is also relatively new thinking. (i believe this revelation came about in the 1960-70’s.)
Truth is, we-all are in a MAJOR learning curve on these matters.
It’s been a process of decades, responding to abuse habits (probably of hundreds of years).
The work is not complete in any corner, secular or faith-based.
Nobody has it 100%.
