June 22, 2021 • 41 mins
In this weeks special bonus episode, we hear from Chris Newlin, head of the National Center for Child Advocacy. Chris talks to us about the issue of child abuse, what we can do to help, and how it has changed over the years.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Camp hell Anawaki is a production of I Heart Radio.
The views and opinions express in this podcast are solely
those of the author and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of I Heart Media or its employees. Due
to discussion of traumatic, sexual and violent content, listener discussion
is advised. For this week's episode, we are taking a
(00:21):
break from our story to share a very important interview
we conducted. Chris Newland is head of the National Children's
Advocacy Center. The n c a C was the very
first children's advocacy center starting and has gone on to
help with the issue of child abuse in groundbreaking ways.
(00:42):
Chris answered some of our questions about child abuse, a
very sensitive subject that we are still learning about to
this day. I hope you enjoy and learn something from
this interview. It is one that we all should hear.
My name is Chris Newland, and I am the executive
(01:03):
director at the National Children's Advocacy Center. Some of you
may have heard of a Children's Advocacy center before, but
the National Children's Advocacy Center is located in Huntsville, Alabama,
and we were actually the first child advocacy center in
the world. Um at Children's advocacy centers. What we do
is coordinate the multidisciplinary response to child abuse in our communities.
(01:26):
And this model includes partnerships and collaborations with law enforcement,
child protective services, medical providers, mental health professionals, prosecutors, victim advocates,
so all of us working in a coordinated manner. At
a child advocacy center. We conduct forensic interviews, we do
medical exams, We provide victim advocacy for children and families
(01:50):
when there's allegations of abuse. We do provide therapy and
all these services in a child friendly environment. And this
whole model, which started nine eight five, has revolutionized our
nation's response to child abuse and how we are making
the process much more child friendly and trauma informed and
not causing children to be re traumatized by a system
(02:13):
that should actually help them. And this model has really
taken over the U S. We have a more than
a thousand child because centers across the United States that
serve over three d seventy thousand kids per year. And
this model also has been replicated in more than thirty
three countries around the world who see the benefit of
having a coordinated, multidisciplinary response responding to child abuse is
(02:35):
not something that can be done by one agency or
one organization. It requires all of us working together and
prioritizing the needs of the child and making sure we're
providing services to them and doing our best job to
hold those who harmed children accountable. We opened in May
of just kind of actually at a time when our
country was beginning to recognize that child sexual abuse is
(02:57):
an issue. You know, a few years before that, we
had had the McMartin preschool case, which was a daycare
case in California that garnered a fair amount of media attention. Uh,
and we were beginning to understand what actually is this
issue of child sexualities because it's really only been in
this since the sixties that we were even talking more
publicly about physical abuse and child physical abuse. Um. So
(03:21):
there's there's I guess a lot of history there. But
we opened our doors in nineteen five, and we have
seen this incredible growth over the last thirty six years
of children's advocacy centers spreading out all across the United
States where actually more than seventy of American counties are
served by a child advocacy centers. Had you heard of
this case at all before? I called you and spoken
(03:43):
to yesterday. I had not actually, despite having lived in
Georgia during the nineteen nine a little bit in the
nineteen nineties and early two thousands, Um, I hadn't heard
of this case before you contacted me. How was child
sex abuse addressed and discussed in the nineteen sixties and seventies?
(04:05):
What kind of language was used? None? There, there, there,
There was not really no, there was almost no dialogue
about child sexual abuse in the sixties and seventies. You know,
think about the social issues going on in the sixties
and seventies, civil rights, you know, Vietnam. We had some
massive issues that were you know, facing you know, our nation.
(04:29):
Child sexual abuse was surely not rising to that level
at that time. We had these incredible powerful social movements
of a call to justice for racial you know, you know,
starting to recognize that minority should be able to have
access to voting, and desegregating schools, and lots of other
big phenomenal shifts. If you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
(04:53):
we were at a much lower level that we were addressing,
and child sexual abuse was not you know, at that point,
reaching at tension. So it just wasn't garnering much attention,
and even if there were something that was said, it
was thought to be this very very rare thing that happens.
You know, it would be very highly unusual because it
(05:14):
didn't meet the picture of the perfect American family with
a chicken in every pot, you know, and two point
three kids. I think for people of my age born
in the sixties, there were some real salient messages that
we received, both in direct and subtle ways, and that is,
if you don't have something nice to say, you don't
(05:35):
say anything at all. Uh. Number two is you don't
talk about adults. You're a kid. Um, you're you know,
almost a different class of individual than an adult. They
have rights that you don't have. Um, And that's just
the way it is. And you know, so that really
puts a damper on kids to be able to talk
(05:55):
about things that are as challenging as child sexual abuse. Additionally,
we did have these thoughts, and some of them have
persisted that this notion of stranger danger, that you know,
you need to be careful of strangers. There's some guy
who might be doing something. Don't take candy from a stranger.
You know, the image of the guy in the trench code.
(06:16):
Who's going to maybe flash you all these kind of
older images that we had um that were unfortunately widely
mistaken with you know, what was happening in reality. I
guess another one. And you know, some people may not
even remember this, but in some of those early days,
there was also some talk of these satanic cults that were,
(06:39):
you know, holding these rituals where children were being sexually
abused and they were being tortured by these Satanic cults
that were doing things and people you wouldn't know. I mean,
in some ways it hearkens a little bit to kind
of the Q and on the dialogue of today, where
you have this whole cabal of people that are engaged
(06:59):
in these nefarious acts. I mean, the reality is that
those were extraordinarily rare. This didn't happen, you know, although
it was talked about. So with any kind of issue
like this, it doesn't help if you're talking about extreme
cases that aren't grounded in reality. Uh. And while strangers
do commit some sexual assaults, now we know as we
(07:21):
fast forward to more than of sexual abuses committed by
someone the child knows, that's who has access to kids.
Incidents of strangers sexually assaulting children are actually quite rare
because parents just don't allow their kids to go off
with strangers. Uh So the threat the for children is
(07:41):
much more closer to home than necessarily. Um. The other
issue is this idea that you know, anybody who was
involved in doing things with youth used to be looked
at with great esteem and was seen as someone who
was graciously volunteering their time or committing their work to
work with children in services. And we've really taken a
(08:02):
different slam on that over the last twenty five years,
where now if I want to volunteer to be a
boy scout, you know, leader, let's say, or any other
kind of sometimes people are like, well, why would you
want to do that? I even get that question in
doing this work, like why do you want to do
this work? You know, like there do you have some
secondary goal you're trying to achieve? Uh And unfortunately the
(08:24):
reality is we know that individuals who work sometimes in
you serving organizations may have less than genuine interests involved.
They may have a secondary interest. Can you tell me
a little bit about grooming and how the initial contact
is often made with abusers. This is a place where
the head leader would select his abusers from the children
(08:48):
he thought me have been more susceptible. Is that often
a part of this process? You you mentioned the notion
of grooming, and I'd like to talk about the the
notion of grooming to to start off the dialogue. First,
grooming is in every other context intended and used as
(09:10):
a description of a pro social behavior. I take my
dog to get groomed so the dog smells good, looks good,
feels good. We groom a horse so they look good
before they run in a race. We groom, let's say,
a political candidate, so that they are prepared to engage
and present themselves most appropriately. We all get groomed before
(09:32):
we may go out to on an important event or
a date, or our wedding, and those are all pro
social activities. So I think before even responding about the
issue of grooming, I want to challenge the audience to
think about why do we use a word grooming to
describe what an individual may do to sexually abuse a child.
(09:54):
Why do we use a word that is just in
every other context pro social. Why do we use that
to describe what I would consider to be an antisocial behavior.
I would like to challenge everybody to really think about
the use of the word grooming versus using a much
more appropriate word if you look at you know actual
definitions and Miriam Webster, a much more appropriate word to
(10:18):
describe what an individual who may sexually abuse a child
is doing. Is not grooming, This is not pro social,
this is antisocial. What they're doing is manipulating, manipulation, or manipulating.
Those are much better words to describe what an individual
who may sexually abuse a child is doing. They're taking
advantage of someone whom they can deceive for their own
(10:42):
personal advantage and gain without any concern for that individual.
I think all of us recognize that manipulation or being
manipulated is not something any of us want to have
done to us, right, Nobody wants to be manipulated, and
that's actually what individuals are doing. So words are important
in the work. We've used grooming for a long long
(11:03):
time and all of the people who work in my
field know what it means, but maybe the average Joe
doesn't necessarily know. It's that process that someone uses to
engage a child, and not even just a child. I
would say there's multiple levels of manipulation that occur. First,
an individual will manipulate the broader environment, right like by
(11:24):
having a good reputation and you know, being well respected
in their community, like, oh, Chris could never do something
like that. I've known Chris for twenty six years and
I've only known him to be x. You know, those
are about creating this environment where I'm manipulating everybody to
think I'm a really good guy to hide the things
that maybe I'm doing secretly. Another level of manipulation that
(11:48):
happens is the manipulation of caregivers or trusted others. Um So,
let's say you know someone an individual wants to have
sexual contact with the child. Their first step really is
to win over the parents or caregivers of that child
so that they can have access to that child. Because
(12:09):
until they can have that individual access with the child,
they're not gonna have the opportunity to sexually abuse them.
And that actually is a double edged sword because when
you do, when that someone does gain the trust of
a parent or a caregiver, it makes it even harder
for that parent or caregiver to maybe see what's happening.
Because I blindly look at you and say I trust you.
(12:30):
I've kind of given you my blessing. So if something
does come up, I mean it's I might find an
explanation for why maybe there's not something to be concerned about.
So it really is UM creates greater challenges in our work.
And the last level of manipulation is actually manipulating the
child and that requires different activities. We could have a
(12:52):
whole sixteen you know series podcasts that to talk about,
you know, kind of what. But I've seen over the years,
and this is actually an area of intense interest for
me because I started my career working actually with individuals
who had sexually abused children. Was a clinical member of
the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and really
(13:13):
have you worked on the victim side, but understanding the
approach that offenders may take and how to engage kids
in this behavior in particular to the case that we're
talking about here, the manipulation. The environment was, Hey, we're
you know, taking on working with these challenging youth and
we're going to be providing services for some kids that
are really struggling, and we're doing important work here and
(13:37):
you can trust us. And here's some of my past
work and relationships that make me be a trustworthy person.
And then who was referring these kids to them? Right,
that's in this situation, that may be the caregiver, whether
it's actually caregiver or other state agencies that were involved
in supervision of youth who were saying, yes, we believe
in you, and I've won them over, I've won their support.
(13:59):
At that point, I'm alone, you know, with the kids
in a system matter of identifying kids that I think
I may be able to engage. So once you've cleared
the first barrier of manipulating the environment, you've cleared the
second barrier of manipulating caregivers or whoever that is, a
parent or a social agency, whatever it may be. The
(14:19):
last is the child. And it's not just a random
approach where I'm just gonna try this. I'm gonna try
to hit on every child. Necessarily, that's not the case.
Individuals may have particular interests and who they're interested in
or who they may have a desire to be in
contact with. Um. They may also will almost always look
at is this a child who I think I can
(14:42):
manipulate or not? You know, if you have a child
who always tells on everything everybody, for every little thing,
they've ever done for every transgression. That's not who you're
going after, right because that that individual is gonna, you know,
tell What you want is someone who you can manipulate,
who you don't want. I'm saying that in this scenario,
I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm definitely
(15:02):
saying it's a bad thing. But what an offender is
looking at is who can they manipulate, who is more vulnerable.
It's just like what we learned on the Serengetti in Africa.
You know, when the when the tigers or the lions
are approaching, you know, a herd of animals, they look
for the weak ones that are at the edge of
the herd and they try to pick them off and
(15:24):
building relationship. What's really insidious in this is the fact
that in child sexual abuse, in many situations, the child
ends up being sexually abused by someone who they consider
their friend, someone who they like, and the offender in
this scenario is making the kids like them where they
(15:46):
are an important part of their life, because it makes
it harder for you to tell on someone you really like.
It's easy for any of us to tell on someone
we hate when they've done something wrong right, like, oh hey,
this person, I hate them they did this. But when
it's someone we like, we're less likely to And offenders
are very manipulative. In this so long story, short grooming
(16:09):
I think is passe. Let's use the best word it is.
This is manipulation that's happening at multiple levels. And people
are very intentional about who they seek as a victim
because they want to avoid detection so they can continue
the behavior. Has there been a history of abuse associated
(16:43):
with troubled and emotionally disturbed you? I think when we
look across the plane of all youth that are out there, um,
you know, there are certain individuals who may be more
vulnerable by virtue of some of their past. Like if,
for example, what do we all think about the credibility
of a valedictorian in high school who also was a
(17:05):
two sport letter person and was president of the senior
class UH and has multiple scholarships off offers. You know,
what do we think about that person's credibility versus an
individual who has been an alternative school for four years
um and has not done anything anything of any significance
(17:30):
at an academic or a sports level, hasn't been involved
in any youth groups or activities, doesn't participate in church.
What do we just immediately assign As far as the
credibility between those two, I think all of you know,
it's very natural for people to maybe be less likely
to believe what the kid who's been an alternative school
(17:50):
and not had these other accomplishments. We all have implicit
bias and what we believe, and it impacts child abuse
because children oftentimes who have more troubled backgrounds or less
likely to be believed. You know, Chris has been in
trouble his whole life. He has been nothing but trouble.
You can't trust a word, he says. All of that
makes me even more vulnerable as a victim, because no
(18:12):
one's gonna believe when I disclose, or less likely or
they are less likely to believe if I've expressed a concern. So,
if you are wanting to sexually abuse children, who do
you go after? You go after the valedictorian or do
you go after the alternative school kid? I think you know,
most of the time what we see is kids who
are vulnerable and less likely to be believed or less
(18:34):
likely for you know, for there to be supervision. Those
are the individuals who are more likely to be targeted,
and I use that word intentionally. Children would often stay
Louis Petter would have this inner circle of kids who
would often stay at his house well where this abuse
would go on, even living with him and his family.
And then he's abusing these kids in the same house
(18:57):
as his wife and children and daughter are in just
the next room. Um, how do families in a situation
like this often deal with having an abuser in their family?
And the situation that you describe with him involving kind
of having a special class of individuals that get to
come spend the time in his house. For many of them,
(19:20):
that probably most likely made them in a way feel
very special. They again, the manipulation of you get to
do something that other people don't get to do, you
get to have access to something that other people don't
get to have access to, makes it where they you know,
this confusing notion of Okay, but I'm special. Now that
(19:40):
some of this stuff feels weird, but I get all
these extra privileges or opportunities that other people don't get.
You know, I'm special, And especially for someone who may
be at a wilderness camp who hasn't maybe oftentimes felt
special in their life or been important to someone else.
That can be very powerful for them, not in a
sexual way, but just to feel respected, to feel wanted,
(20:04):
to feel a part of something, the other thing that
and when you were, you know, thinking about this, being
in the home with the spouse, with a partner, and
with other kids. Come on, most people are gonna like, Okay,
that's not where abuse would happen. No way, he's doing
it in the house. It makes it almost even harder
to believe, right because how can you get away with it?
(20:26):
Your wife's there, you're the kids are there. You know,
that doesn't make sense that it can happen. The reality is,
I can't tell you how many cases I've seen where
individuals were sexually abused while people were right there. It
could even be in the same room under a blanket
where people touching is occurring. You know, the situations of
(20:48):
maybe a child sitting on grandfather's lap and the grandmother's
in the room right next door cooking, and they're watching
a movie and have a blanket, and sexual abuse is
happening right there. Now when you ask the grandmother, but
there's no way I was there. The whole time, there's
no way he could have done it. It makes it
less believable. And there actually is some research that says
that a significant amount of research is done when people
(21:10):
are either in the room or in neighboring rooms, in
an environment where you almost couldn't believe that it would happen.
The fact that the kids probably felt special for being
in that setting, like I'm in this special class, I
get to be there. Plus he gets you know, for
the individual says, you know, but my family was here,
there's no way maybe that something happened. All those are
(21:31):
very are extraordinary measures of manipulating an environment to make
it less likely for someone to disclose and less likely
for anyone to believe if the child does disclose because
it sounds unbelievable. Um, the reality is, um, it happens.
It happens all the time. It happens in front of
(21:51):
people without them even being aware. We've seen examples of
abuse in an institution such as Antawaki in other places
such as the case of Jerry Sandusky, or instances of
abuse in the Catholic Church. Is it harder to get
something done when it is attached to an institution such
as that you know, there's a I think the saying
(22:12):
is you know, Jesse, it's attributed I believe to Jesse James, like,
you know, why do you rob banks? You know? And
Jesse James said, because that's where the money is, right,
you know, where kids they're in, you know, you serving organizations.
If they're not in your family, they're not in your home,
they're not your neighbor that you had. You the one
(22:34):
way you gain access as kids is by being involved
with youth serving organizations or where the kids are. You know,
So if you want to sexually abuse kids, you know,
it's kind of like Jesse James going to the bank,
you go to where the kids are. Uh So, I
think historically we kind of knew that, but we didn't
internalize it as much because we had this notion of
(22:57):
these were really good and say things, and many most
of the time they are. But you know, think about
the last decade or longer, you know, with what we've
seen in the Catholic Church, what we you know, and
what we've seen in youth serving organizations of all kinds,
we you know, uh, sporting activities. We we have had
the wool pull back on that and there has really
(23:20):
been a clarion call to hold youth serving organizations accountable
that they need to have certain procedures in place. You know,
we work, we partner with a number of youth serving
organizations to provide assistance in this area because they have
to recognize that there are risks involved and they need
to make sure that they're mitigating those risks to the
(23:40):
very best of their ability while still providing their mission. Now,
if we go back to the seventies, we did we
weren't paying attention to that, and in many ways you
had the veil of you know, you're doing good work
for kids, you know, as as political cover in a
sense for your manipulation, like you were seeing. We weren't
even thinking along those terms. So it was you know,
(24:04):
it's very different now than it was. We're all a
bit more suspicious. We're all a bit more skeptical about things,
and we really are asking some of these hard questions
that need to be asked. What steps have been made
present day that would have stopped something like any we
keep happening. Are there still many cases of abuse in
learning or medical institutions today? You know, there's been a
(24:27):
tremendous amount the you know, sinator disease control helped along
with the number of professionals wrote some guidelines. Uh. You
serving organizations, you know the Boys and Girls Called of America,
Big Brothers, Big Sisters, you know, boy Scouts, from all
up and down the list. I'm not trying to be exclusive. Effectively,
any meaningful youth serving organization has really amped up the
(24:50):
dialogue UH, and churches related to how we make sure
that children are protected our environment, talking about the issue,
making it aware. You know, those are really important things
that have been done. Uh, they continue to evolve. And
making sure that individuals are not allowed to be alone
with youth. Um, that there are any time there's kinds
(25:13):
of issues of special consideration being given, that should always
be a warning sign. We see this in education too.
I mean, think about the number of school personnel who
are engaged in sexual contact with students. So this cuts
across all kinds of wherever our kids are, we need
to make sure that we're talking about this issue. Um.
You know a lot of times sometimes people have asked
(25:35):
before and in training, especially earlier with churches and in
the wake of the Catholic Church, you know, like how
do we address this issue? And you know, I would say,
if you want to do one thing to make someone
who is using your environment uncomfortable, talk about the issue.
Talk about it in Sunday school. Talk about it from
(25:55):
the pulpit, you know, talk about the issue. If you
want to make them uncomfortable, talk about it. Because they
thrive in darkness. They thrive and where this is not
being talked about. And unfortunately, for all the kids who
experienced abuse at anna Waki, they were living in a
time where we were all in the dark, and we
were all not paying attention to things that we needed
to be paying attention to. We've made a lot of
(26:17):
progress over the last forty years, but unfortunately, we have
a tremendous number of adults in our society who experienced
abuse in their childhood and never had the opportunity to
tell about it. Is even in a friend of my family,
my mother in law's best friend, kind of a second
mother to my wife, was visiting us. At one point
(26:39):
she wanted to take a tour of the center and I,
you know, our the National Children's have a Cey Center,
And I was like, Okay, we'll go down there on
a Saturday and I'll show her around and maybe an hour,
but you know, wol be the right thing to do.
So we get there and we do a tour, and
then we're sitting down and she has questions after question
after question after question after question, and we end up
being there for two and a half hours. I'm like, okay,
(27:01):
now you're cutting into my Saturday kind of thing. But
she was really interested in volunteering at a child advocacy center.
Come to find out they leave, you're going back to
where they live. And she discloses to my mother in
law and says, you know, I'm sixty eight years old.
She said, I've never told a single person about this,
(27:22):
but when I was three years old, I was sexually
abused by by babysitter's son, who was a teenager, and
I still think about it today. It impacted how I
raised my daughter, It impacted how I viewed sexuality and sex.
It impacted my marriage, It impacted every aspect of my life.
How I viewed the world was shaped by that. And
(27:45):
I've never told a single person about it until now.
This has been something I've carried around for sixty five years.
And unfortunately, we have a tremendous number of Americans in
our society that are carrying the same burdens of not
being recognized, not being her, of not being supported. It's
a public health crisis. For individuals over the age of
forty years old, one in four girls and one in
(28:07):
seven boys have experienced sexual abuse. One in four girls
and one in seven boys for individuals over the age
of forty years old, that is another pandemic in the
secondary impacts of this issue on individual's ability to earn
a reasonable income, to own a house on a car
(28:28):
are overwhelming in the literature, and it also has impacted
our nation's health. Our health care costs are significantly higher
because of child mail treatment. Nine of all Medicaid costs
are related to child abuse, and when we talk about
states not being able to pay for medicaid, if we
can address the issue of child sexual abuse and child
(28:50):
abuse and children's exposure to adverse experiences, we can improve
our nation's health and improve our nation's economy. We're making progress,
but this is something that has to be on the radar.
It cannot be a sideline issue. It needs to be
a center of the field issue. There's been a significant
(29:25):
amount of concern over time that if a child was
sexually abused that that means they will become a sexual abuser,
like you're exposed to this and now you have it,
like it's a disease, like it's going to happen. And
I want to make sure to communicate that a overwhelming
majority of individuals who are sexually abused never sexually abused
(29:47):
a child in their life. It is not something where
it's you know, a fate to complete that you know
you are going to do this now. In the situation
with Anna Waki and some of this described, these behaviors
were nurtured by people in positions of influence. So individuals
(30:09):
who were abused, and we see this from time to time,
Individuals who were abused become involved in that and they
have developing some level of enjoyment, and they are they
are encouraged to engage in this behavior with other individuals.
I don't want to share a lot of details because
I don't think it's really helpful, but I have worked
(30:33):
with kids under the age of ten who literally have
talked about how they because of the way they were manipulated.
They talk about missing having sex with one of their parents.
That took work to create a child who viewsed the
world that way. It's okay, it's acceptable, and actually I
(30:58):
enjoy it. That is that is a very disturbed approach,
and I know that's probably very disturbing for people to hear,
but you know, children can be manipulated and manipulating them
it's also part of the offender's mentality, Like if other
people are doing this, it's more socially acceptable. In our
inner circle, it's acceptable for us to do that. I
(31:21):
serve as a role model for them so they can
engage other kids in this activity. It almost is gonna
make it harder to believe. But in the group that
I'm hanging out with, the people who I'm associating with,
this is more commonplace and it becomes a norm. It
would be like, if you know, we lived in a
community where you know, a certain group of people eight
tennis shoes, they would carve up tennis shoes and put
(31:44):
them in twice baked potatoes or whatever. It just becomes
the norm. Right, That seems very odd, very strange, very disturbing.
But when it becomes something that everybody is doing, it
becomes a little bit more acceptable, and it creates it
makes it, it creates a very dangerous and insidious environ
it where we normalize things, and that is a you know,
that's a huge issue around this kind of manipulation of
(32:07):
those The other thing it does is it empowers the offender.
Like if let's say so I, you know, I'm sexually
using this child, and now I'm encouraging this childhood gigs
and sexual contact. I can then go to that child
and say, if you ever talked about what happened, they're
going to find about about what you've done. You'll be
in trouble too. Now I've made my victim even more
(32:28):
vulnerable to me and more able to be manipulated. So
it's a clever and disgusting strategy to do this because
it's almost like a drug dealer in a way. You
now create these other people that are selling drugs to others.
And at any point, if you want to have contact
and you're the kingpin, you could have you know, I
(32:50):
want to have sexual contact with this individual, you could
make that happen in that scenario because you have these
other people that are kind of this Ponzi scheme of
sexual abuse. Um, it's very disturbing and I know, probably
for listeners to hear about some of the offender mentality
and this is probably highly disturbing, and I'm you know,
(33:11):
it's hard to talk about this stuff with just without
just being real kind of shifting to the climate today.
You mentioned this a little bit earlier about kind of
the Satanic panic era and Q and on. How has
that affected your work and getting people aware of these
(33:33):
very real issues When there is this trend right now
of sex trafficking and child pedophilia being in large grand
conspiracy terms, things such as Pizza Gate, as this elitist
Hollywood cabal taking a drene of chrome and harvesting babies
(33:56):
and things of that nature, how does that affect um
your work and trying to get the word out in
the real work done in this issue. Uh. You know,
I quite honestly would want to say to anybody who's involved,
uh and and really believes in that if you're so committed,
where have you been all the years we've been here,
I hadn't met you, Um, I would have loved I
(34:19):
won't have everybody on our side working to help protect kids.
You know, Hey, if you're interested now, great, Let's make
sure anything we're doing is is grounded in reality, it's
based on what we actually know from the research you know,
the way we interview children, the way we can doctu
medically exams, the way we provide therapy, it's all based
on science. Let's let science, you know, drive how we
(34:40):
respond to this issue. Let's make sure that we are
innovative in our practice. That's what we need to do.
But I would say, you know, getting accurate information is
out there is hard because you're pushing back against society
and kind of norms that are out there, and people
not wanting to hear about things that are difficult, uh,
and things that are disturbing. There's a reason why most
(35:02):
people say I could never do that work because they
recognize we're exposed to toxic content on a daily basis,
and most people don't want to hear that. Like, my
life is hard enough as it is. The last thing
I need is more So, we're always challenged with how
to try to get accurate, truthful information out there. It's
an issue right now in our society. You brought up
(35:22):
the issue of sex trafficking. Um, you know, I think
when you say you know sex trafficking, you know, some
people will automatically develop like in their mind, what is
it you see? What do you think about do you
think about an individual who is you know, working as
a trafficker and has kids that you know are being
forced to engage in sex acts. You know, what is
(35:44):
it that people think about. We still are at a
point where we're collecting data. I can tell you this unequivocally,
child sexual abuse happens at a far greater rate than
children are traffic in our in our nation. Uh. It's significant,
gettingly more an issue at least on a scale of
ten to one at a minimum. So I mean that's
(36:07):
what we know. We're learning more in one case of
child sex trafficking is terrible. Uh, and we are actively
involved in the fight against it and training people around
the issue. But it's you know, Americans like bright, shiny
new toys, and any time we talk about kind of
a new thing, people may respond to it. Um. I've
been doing this work for a long time. I personally
(36:30):
get offended when people say there's this huge cabal that
we're just completely oblivious to what It says that me,
my colleagues, all of the people that I work with,
that we're not smart enough to figure out something that's happening.
And I would say, where's your evidence? You know, let's
let's talk about the evidence. We can say anything, but
what can you show me? Uh? And again, I've been
(36:50):
here for thirty years, you know, hadn't seen you. We've
been doing this work for a long time, trying to
improve our nation's response to protect children and to hold
those who harm them accountable. I don't care who you are.
If you're sexually abusing a child, you deserve to be
held accountable, doesn't matter who you are. And I like
to work in the area of truth. That's what kids
(37:11):
who have experienced abuse need. They need truth to come
out so they can heal no one's benefits. When we
have conspiracies that are unproven and inaccurate, this is an
opportunity to move the needle, you know, on on how
we understand this issue, how we're paying attention to this issue.
How do we know what to look for if you
don't know what's really happening? Right, how can we protect children?
(37:34):
And I would say maybe one final thing I would
say is that the protection of children is not the
responsibility of children. The protection of children is the responsibility
of all adults living in a society to make sure
they're protected. Even the Massai warriors who are known in
Africa to be some of the most aggressive and successful warriors.
(37:57):
When they would greet one another, they would the first
thing they would ask in their their tongue is how
and how are the children? Because they knew how children
were being taken care of by a society in their
own would be an indication of how advanced the society is.
It's high time that we prioritize the protection of our children. Uh.
(38:19):
And we were doing all we can to prevent them
from being experiencing any abuse. And if they do experience abuse,
that they have full access to the resources that we
have now have to help them heal from that so
they can live happy, full productive lives and they don't
disclose at age sixty eight about something that happened sixty
five years ago that's impact of their entire life. We
(38:42):
need to help them now they can be helped. Um
Child sexual abuse or exposure to other trauma is not
a death sentence. It doesn't ruin a child forever. This
is something that we have tools to address. We can
address it. UH. And individuals, lots and lots of individuals
are various tessibul in life after having experienced abuse. So
(39:03):
We shouldn't be fatalistic about it, but we should be
aggressive in our work to protect kids and to help
those who have been harmed and to hold those who
are harming them accountable. That is what in just Society
does next time on camp help in a waking. Once
(39:28):
maybe twice a year, people from the state would come
out to do like an inspection or something. They picked
like three of us girls to be the one to
answer any questions, and so they took the rest of
the group like way way out into the wood. They
were leasing them, just like anybody else would be leasing
(39:51):
real estate from another company, any other business. So so
the non profit paying the profit corporation the nonprofit and
awaky E was baying and Awakey Estates rent with the
ownership of that was the three daughters. There was a chimney.
(40:11):
He climbed to the top of that and uh dove off.
Earl was very touched anytime a kid died and he
would get involved and he would become obsessive, compulsive trying
to deal with it. And that was something he never
could figure out if he was doing it. Since nineteen
somebody notices in four and the disapproval sticks in their mind.
(40:35):
It only took a year and a half from there
for it to fall apart. Camp hell an Awaki was
created and hosted by Josh Than with producer Miranda Hawkins
and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack
was written and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry.
(40:58):
Archival footage for aided by ws B and CBS News.
Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c
A M p h E L L p O D.
Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things
that you should look for at the Darkness to Light website.
D too well dot org. That's d the number two
(41:20):
l dot org. Camp hell Anawaki is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts.
Camp hell Anawaki is a production of I Heart Radio.
The views and opinions express in this podcast are solely
those of the author and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of I Heart Media or its employees. Due
to discussion of traumatic, sexual and violent content, listener discussion
is advised. For this week's episode, we are taking a
(00:21):
break from our story to share a very important interview
we conducted. Chris Newland is head of the National Children's
Advocacy Center. The n c a C was the very
first children's advocacy center starting and has gone on to
help with the issue of child abuse in groundbreaking ways.
(00:42):
Chris answered some of our questions about child abuse, a
very sensitive subject that we are still learning about to
this day. I hope you enjoy and learn something from
this interview. It is one that we all should hear.
My name is Chris Newland, and I am the executive
(01:03):
director at the National Children's Advocacy Center. Some of you
may have heard of a Children's Advocacy center before, but
the National Children's Advocacy Center is located in Huntsville, Alabama,
and we were actually the first child advocacy center in
the world. Um at Children's advocacy centers. What we do
is coordinate the multidisciplinary response to child abuse in our communities.
(01:26):
And this model includes partnerships and collaborations with law enforcement,
child protective services, medical providers, mental health professionals, prosecutors, victim advocates,
so all of us working in a coordinated manner. At
a child advocacy center. We conduct forensic interviews, we do
medical exams, We provide victim advocacy for children and families
(01:50):
when there's allegations of abuse. We do provide therapy and
all these services in a child friendly environment. And this
whole model, which started nine eight five, has revolutionized our
nation's response to child abuse and how we are making
the process much more child friendly and trauma informed and
not causing children to be re traumatized by a system
(02:13):
that should actually help them. And this model has really
taken over the U S. We have a more than
a thousand child because centers across the United States that
serve over three d seventy thousand kids per year. And
this model also has been replicated in more than thirty
three countries around the world who see the benefit of
having a coordinated, multidisciplinary response responding to child abuse is
(02:35):
not something that can be done by one agency or
one organization. It requires all of us working together and
prioritizing the needs of the child and making sure we're
providing services to them and doing our best job to
hold those who harmed children accountable. We opened in May
of just kind of actually at a time when our
country was beginning to recognize that child sexual abuse is
(02:57):
an issue. You know, a few years before that, we
had had the McMartin preschool case, which was a daycare
case in California that garnered a fair amount of media attention. Uh,
and we were beginning to understand what actually is this
issue of child sexualities because it's really only been in
this since the sixties that we were even talking more
publicly about physical abuse and child physical abuse. Um. So
(03:21):
there's there's I guess a lot of history there. But
we opened our doors in nineteen five, and we have
seen this incredible growth over the last thirty six years
of children's advocacy centers spreading out all across the United
States where actually more than seventy of American counties are
served by a child advocacy centers. Had you heard of
this case at all before? I called you and spoken
(03:43):
to yesterday. I had not actually, despite having lived in
Georgia during the nineteen nine a little bit in the
nineteen nineties and early two thousands, Um, I hadn't heard
of this case before you contacted me. How was child
sex abuse addressed and discussed in the nineteen sixties and seventies?
(04:05):
What kind of language was used? None? There, there, there,
There was not really no, there was almost no dialogue
about child sexual abuse in the sixties and seventies. You know,
think about the social issues going on in the sixties
and seventies, civil rights, you know, Vietnam. We had some
massive issues that were you know, facing you know, our nation.
(04:29):
Child sexual abuse was surely not rising to that level
at that time. We had these incredible powerful social movements
of a call to justice for racial you know, you know,
starting to recognize that minority should be able to have
access to voting, and desegregating schools, and lots of other
big phenomenal shifts. If you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
(04:53):
we were at a much lower level that we were addressing,
and child sexual abuse was not you know, at that point,
reaching at tension. So it just wasn't garnering much attention,
and even if there were something that was said, it
was thought to be this very very rare thing that happens.
You know, it would be very highly unusual because it
(05:14):
didn't meet the picture of the perfect American family with
a chicken in every pot, you know, and two point
three kids. I think for people of my age born
in the sixties, there were some real salient messages that
we received, both in direct and subtle ways, and that is,
if you don't have something nice to say, you don't
(05:35):
say anything at all. Uh. Number two is you don't
talk about adults. You're a kid. Um, you're you know,
almost a different class of individual than an adult. They
have rights that you don't have. Um, And that's just
the way it is. And you know, so that really
puts a damper on kids to be able to talk
(05:55):
about things that are as challenging as child sexual abuse. Additionally,
we did have these thoughts, and some of them have
persisted that this notion of stranger danger, that you know,
you need to be careful of strangers. There's some guy
who might be doing something. Don't take candy from a stranger.
You know, the image of the guy in the trench code.
(06:16):
Who's going to maybe flash you all these kind of
older images that we had um that were unfortunately widely
mistaken with you know, what was happening in reality. I
guess another one. And you know, some people may not
even remember this, but in some of those early days,
there was also some talk of these satanic cults that were,
(06:39):
you know, holding these rituals where children were being sexually
abused and they were being tortured by these Satanic cults
that were doing things and people you wouldn't know. I mean,
in some ways it hearkens a little bit to kind
of the Q and on the dialogue of today, where
you have this whole cabal of people that are engaged
(06:59):
in these nefarious acts. I mean, the reality is that
those were extraordinarily rare. This didn't happen, you know, although
it was talked about. So with any kind of issue
like this, it doesn't help if you're talking about extreme
cases that aren't grounded in reality. Uh. And while strangers
do commit some sexual assaults, now we know as we
(07:21):
fast forward to more than of sexual abuses committed by
someone the child knows, that's who has access to kids.
Incidents of strangers sexually assaulting children are actually quite rare
because parents just don't allow their kids to go off
with strangers. Uh So the threat the for children is
(07:41):
much more closer to home than necessarily. Um. The other
issue is this idea that you know, anybody who was
involved in doing things with youth used to be looked
at with great esteem and was seen as someone who
was graciously volunteering their time or committing their work to
work with children in services. And we've really taken a
(08:02):
different slam on that over the last twenty five years,
where now if I want to volunteer to be a
boy scout, you know, leader, let's say, or any other
kind of sometimes people are like, well, why would you
want to do that? I even get that question in
doing this work, like why do you want to do
this work? You know, like there do you have some
secondary goal you're trying to achieve? Uh And unfortunately the
(08:24):
reality is we know that individuals who work sometimes in
you serving organizations may have less than genuine interests involved.
They may have a secondary interest. Can you tell me
a little bit about grooming and how the initial contact
is often made with abusers. This is a place where
the head leader would select his abusers from the children
(08:48):
he thought me have been more susceptible. Is that often
a part of this process? You you mentioned the notion
of grooming, and I'd like to talk about the the
notion of grooming to to start off the dialogue. First,
grooming is in every other context intended and used as
(09:10):
a description of a pro social behavior. I take my
dog to get groomed so the dog smells good, looks good,
feels good. We groom a horse so they look good
before they run in a race. We groom, let's say,
a political candidate, so that they are prepared to engage
and present themselves most appropriately. We all get groomed before
(09:32):
we may go out to on an important event or
a date, or our wedding, and those are all pro
social activities. So I think before even responding about the
issue of grooming, I want to challenge the audience to
think about why do we use a word grooming to
describe what an individual may do to sexually abuse a child.
(09:54):
Why do we use a word that is just in
every other context pro social. Why do we use that
to describe what I would consider to be an antisocial behavior.
I would like to challenge everybody to really think about
the use of the word grooming versus using a much
more appropriate word if you look at you know actual
definitions and Miriam Webster, a much more appropriate word to
(10:18):
describe what an individual who may sexually abuse a child
is doing. Is not grooming, This is not pro social,
this is antisocial. What they're doing is manipulating, manipulation, or manipulating.
Those are much better words to describe what an individual
who may sexually abuse a child is doing. They're taking
advantage of someone whom they can deceive for their own
(10:42):
personal advantage and gain without any concern for that individual.
I think all of us recognize that manipulation or being
manipulated is not something any of us want to have
done to us, right, Nobody wants to be manipulated, and
that's actually what individuals are doing. So words are important
in the work. We've used grooming for a long long
(11:03):
time and all of the people who work in my
field know what it means, but maybe the average Joe
doesn't necessarily know. It's that process that someone uses to
engage a child, and not even just a child. I
would say there's multiple levels of manipulation that occur. First,
an individual will manipulate the broader environment, right like by
(11:24):
having a good reputation and you know, being well respected
in their community, like, oh, Chris could never do something
like that. I've known Chris for twenty six years and
I've only known him to be x. You know, those
are about creating this environment where I'm manipulating everybody to
think I'm a really good guy to hide the things
that maybe I'm doing secretly. Another level of manipulation that
(11:48):
happens is the manipulation of caregivers or trusted others. Um So,
let's say you know someone an individual wants to have
sexual contact with the child. Their first step really is
to win over the parents or caregivers of that child
so that they can have access to that child. Because
(12:09):
until they can have that individual access with the child,
they're not gonna have the opportunity to sexually abuse them.
And that actually is a double edged sword because when
you do, when that someone does gain the trust of
a parent or a caregiver, it makes it even harder
for that parent or caregiver to maybe see what's happening.
Because I blindly look at you and say I trust you.
(12:30):
I've kind of given you my blessing. So if something
does come up, I mean it's I might find an
explanation for why maybe there's not something to be concerned about.
So it really is UM creates greater challenges in our work.
And the last level of manipulation is actually manipulating the
child and that requires different activities. We could have a
(12:52):
whole sixteen you know series podcasts that to talk about,
you know, kind of what. But I've seen over the years,
and this is actually an area of intense interest for
me because I started my career working actually with individuals
who had sexually abused children. Was a clinical member of
the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and really
(13:13):
have you worked on the victim side, but understanding the
approach that offenders may take and how to engage kids
in this behavior in particular to the case that we're
talking about here, the manipulation. The environment was, Hey, we're
you know, taking on working with these challenging youth and
we're going to be providing services for some kids that
are really struggling, and we're doing important work here and
(13:37):
you can trust us. And here's some of my past
work and relationships that make me be a trustworthy person.
And then who was referring these kids to them? Right,
that's in this situation, that may be the caregiver, whether
it's actually caregiver or other state agencies that were involved
in supervision of youth who were saying, yes, we believe
in you, and I've won them over, I've won their support.
(13:59):
At that point, I'm alone, you know, with the kids
in a system matter of identifying kids that I think
I may be able to engage. So once you've cleared
the first barrier of manipulating the environment, you've cleared the
second barrier of manipulating caregivers or whoever that is, a
parent or a social agency, whatever it may be. The
(14:19):
last is the child. And it's not just a random
approach where I'm just gonna try this. I'm gonna try
to hit on every child. Necessarily, that's not the case.
Individuals may have particular interests and who they're interested in
or who they may have a desire to be in
contact with. Um. They may also will almost always look
at is this a child who I think I can
(14:42):
manipulate or not? You know, if you have a child
who always tells on everything everybody, for every little thing,
they've ever done for every transgression. That's not who you're
going after, right because that that individual is gonna, you know,
tell What you want is someone who you can manipulate,
who you don't want. I'm saying that in this scenario,
I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm definitely
(15:02):
saying it's a bad thing. But what an offender is
looking at is who can they manipulate, who is more vulnerable.
It's just like what we learned on the Serengetti in Africa.
You know, when the when the tigers or the lions
are approaching, you know, a herd of animals, they look
for the weak ones that are at the edge of
the herd and they try to pick them off and
(15:24):
building relationship. What's really insidious in this is the fact
that in child sexual abuse, in many situations, the child
ends up being sexually abused by someone who they consider
their friend, someone who they like, and the offender in
this scenario is making the kids like them where they
(15:46):
are an important part of their life, because it makes
it harder for you to tell on someone you really like.
It's easy for any of us to tell on someone
we hate when they've done something wrong right, like, oh hey,
this person, I hate them they did this. But when
it's someone we like, we're less likely to And offenders
are very manipulative. In this so long story, short grooming
(16:09):
I think is passe. Let's use the best word it is.
This is manipulation that's happening at multiple levels. And people
are very intentional about who they seek as a victim
because they want to avoid detection so they can continue
the behavior. Has there been a history of abuse associated
(16:43):
with troubled and emotionally disturbed you? I think when we
look across the plane of all youth that are out there, um,
you know, there are certain individuals who may be more
vulnerable by virtue of some of their past. Like if,
for example, what do we all think about the credibility
of a valedictorian in high school who also was a
(17:05):
two sport letter person and was president of the senior
class UH and has multiple scholarships off offers. You know,
what do we think about that person's credibility versus an
individual who has been an alternative school for four years
um and has not done anything anything of any significance
(17:30):
at an academic or a sports level, hasn't been involved
in any youth groups or activities, doesn't participate in church.
What do we just immediately assign As far as the
credibility between those two, I think all of you know,
it's very natural for people to maybe be less likely
to believe what the kid who's been an alternative school
(17:50):
and not had these other accomplishments. We all have implicit
bias and what we believe, and it impacts child abuse
because children oftentimes who have more troubled backgrounds or less
likely to be believed. You know, Chris has been in
trouble his whole life. He has been nothing but trouble.
You can't trust a word, he says. All of that
makes me even more vulnerable as a victim, because no
(18:12):
one's gonna believe when I disclose, or less likely or
they are less likely to believe if I've expressed a concern. So,
if you are wanting to sexually abuse children, who do
you go after? You go after the valedictorian or do
you go after the alternative school kid? I think you know,
most of the time what we see is kids who
are vulnerable and less likely to be believed or less
(18:34):
likely for you know, for there to be supervision. Those
are the individuals who are more likely to be targeted,
and I use that word intentionally. Children would often stay
Louis Petter would have this inner circle of kids who
would often stay at his house well where this abuse
would go on, even living with him and his family.
And then he's abusing these kids in the same house
(18:57):
as his wife and children and daughter are in just
the next room. Um, how do families in a situation
like this often deal with having an abuser in their family?
And the situation that you describe with him involving kind
of having a special class of individuals that get to
come spend the time in his house. For many of them,
(19:20):
that probably most likely made them in a way feel
very special. They again, the manipulation of you get to
do something that other people don't get to do, you
get to have access to something that other people don't
get to have access to, makes it where they you know,
this confusing notion of Okay, but I'm special. Now that
(19:40):
some of this stuff feels weird, but I get all
these extra privileges or opportunities that other people don't get.
You know, I'm special, And especially for someone who may
be at a wilderness camp who hasn't maybe oftentimes felt
special in their life or been important to someone else.
That can be very powerful for them, not in a
sexual way, but just to feel respected, to feel wanted,
(20:04):
to feel a part of something, the other thing that
and when you were, you know, thinking about this, being
in the home with the spouse, with a partner, and
with other kids. Come on, most people are gonna like, Okay,
that's not where abuse would happen. No way, he's doing
it in the house. It makes it almost even harder
to believe, right because how can you get away with it?
(20:26):
Your wife's there, you're the kids are there. You know,
that doesn't make sense that it can happen. The reality is,
I can't tell you how many cases I've seen where
individuals were sexually abused while people were right there. It
could even be in the same room under a blanket
where people touching is occurring. You know, the situations of
(20:48):
maybe a child sitting on grandfather's lap and the grandmother's
in the room right next door cooking, and they're watching
a movie and have a blanket, and sexual abuse is
happening right there. Now when you ask the grandmother, but
there's no way I was there. The whole time, there's
no way he could have done it. It makes it
less believable. And there actually is some research that says
that a significant amount of research is done when people
(21:10):
are either in the room or in neighboring rooms, in
an environment where you almost couldn't believe that it would happen.
The fact that the kids probably felt special for being
in that setting, like I'm in this special class, I
get to be there. Plus he gets you know, for
the individual says, you know, but my family was here,
there's no way maybe that something happened. All those are
(21:31):
very are extraordinary measures of manipulating an environment to make
it less likely for someone to disclose and less likely
for anyone to believe if the child does disclose because
it sounds unbelievable. Um, the reality is, um, it happens.
It happens all the time. It happens in front of
(21:51):
people without them even being aware. We've seen examples of
abuse in an institution such as Antawaki in other places
such as the case of Jerry Sandusky, or instances of
abuse in the Catholic Church. Is it harder to get
something done when it is attached to an institution such
as that you know, there's a I think the saying
(22:12):
is you know, Jesse, it's attributed I believe to Jesse James, like,
you know, why do you rob banks? You know? And
Jesse James said, because that's where the money is, right,
you know, where kids they're in, you know, you serving organizations.
If they're not in your family, they're not in your home,
they're not your neighbor that you had. You the one
(22:34):
way you gain access as kids is by being involved
with youth serving organizations or where the kids are. You know,
So if you want to sexually abuse kids, you know,
it's kind of like Jesse James going to the bank,
you go to where the kids are. Uh So, I
think historically we kind of knew that, but we didn't
internalize it as much because we had this notion of
(22:57):
these were really good and say things, and many most
of the time they are. But you know, think about
the last decade or longer, you know, with what we've
seen in the Catholic Church, what we you know, and
what we've seen in youth serving organizations of all kinds,
we you know, uh, sporting activities. We we have had
the wool pull back on that and there has really
(23:20):
been a clarion call to hold youth serving organizations accountable
that they need to have certain procedures in place. You know,
we work, we partner with a number of youth serving
organizations to provide assistance in this area because they have
to recognize that there are risks involved and they need
to make sure that they're mitigating those risks to the
(23:40):
very best of their ability while still providing their mission. Now,
if we go back to the seventies, we did we
weren't paying attention to that, and in many ways you
had the veil of you know, you're doing good work
for kids, you know, as as political cover in a
sense for your manipulation, like you were seeing. We weren't
even thinking along those terms. So it was you know,
(24:04):
it's very different now than it was. We're all a
bit more suspicious. We're all a bit more skeptical about things,
and we really are asking some of these hard questions
that need to be asked. What steps have been made
present day that would have stopped something like any we
keep happening. Are there still many cases of abuse in
learning or medical institutions today? You know, there's been a
(24:27):
tremendous amount the you know, sinator disease control helped along
with the number of professionals wrote some guidelines. Uh. You
serving organizations, you know the Boys and Girls Called of America,
Big Brothers, Big Sisters, you know, boy Scouts, from all
up and down the list. I'm not trying to be exclusive. Effectively,
any meaningful youth serving organization has really amped up the
(24:50):
dialogue UH, and churches related to how we make sure
that children are protected our environment, talking about the issue,
making it aware. You know, those are really important things
that have been done. Uh, they continue to evolve. And
making sure that individuals are not allowed to be alone
with youth. Um, that there are any time there's kinds
(25:13):
of issues of special consideration being given, that should always
be a warning sign. We see this in education too.
I mean, think about the number of school personnel who
are engaged in sexual contact with students. So this cuts
across all kinds of wherever our kids are, we need
to make sure that we're talking about this issue. Um.
You know a lot of times sometimes people have asked
(25:35):
before and in training, especially earlier with churches and in
the wake of the Catholic Church, you know, like how
do we address this issue? And you know, I would say,
if you want to do one thing to make someone
who is using your environment uncomfortable, talk about the issue.
Talk about it in Sunday school. Talk about it from
(25:55):
the pulpit, you know, talk about the issue. If you
want to make them uncomfortable, talk about it. Because they
thrive in darkness. They thrive and where this is not
being talked about. And unfortunately, for all the kids who
experienced abuse at anna Waki, they were living in a
time where we were all in the dark, and we
were all not paying attention to things that we needed
to be paying attention to. We've made a lot of
(26:17):
progress over the last forty years, but unfortunately, we have
a tremendous number of adults in our society who experienced
abuse in their childhood and never had the opportunity to
tell about it. Is even in a friend of my family,
my mother in law's best friend, kind of a second
mother to my wife, was visiting us. At one point
(26:39):
she wanted to take a tour of the center and I,
you know, our the National Children's have a Cey Center,
And I was like, Okay, we'll go down there on
a Saturday and I'll show her around and maybe an hour,
but you know, wol be the right thing to do.
So we get there and we do a tour, and
then we're sitting down and she has questions after question
after question after question after question, and we end up
being there for two and a half hours. I'm like, okay,
(27:01):
now you're cutting into my Saturday kind of thing. But
she was really interested in volunteering at a child advocacy center.
Come to find out they leave, you're going back to
where they live. And she discloses to my mother in
law and says, you know, I'm sixty eight years old.
She said, I've never told a single person about this,
(27:22):
but when I was three years old, I was sexually
abused by by babysitter's son, who was a teenager, and
I still think about it today. It impacted how I
raised my daughter, It impacted how I viewed sexuality and sex.
It impacted my marriage, It impacted every aspect of my life.
How I viewed the world was shaped by that. And
(27:45):
I've never told a single person about it until now.
This has been something I've carried around for sixty five years.
And unfortunately, we have a tremendous number of Americans in
our society that are carrying the same burdens of not
being recognized, not being her, of not being supported. It's
a public health crisis. For individuals over the age of
forty years old, one in four girls and one in
(28:07):
seven boys have experienced sexual abuse. One in four girls
and one in seven boys for individuals over the age
of forty years old, that is another pandemic in the
secondary impacts of this issue on individual's ability to earn
a reasonable income, to own a house on a car
(28:28):
are overwhelming in the literature, and it also has impacted
our nation's health. Our health care costs are significantly higher
because of child mail treatment. Nine of all Medicaid costs
are related to child abuse, and when we talk about
states not being able to pay for medicaid, if we
can address the issue of child sexual abuse and child
(28:50):
abuse and children's exposure to adverse experiences, we can improve
our nation's health and improve our nation's economy. We're making progress,
but this is something that has to be on the radar.
It cannot be a sideline issue. It needs to be
a center of the field issue. There's been a significant
(29:25):
amount of concern over time that if a child was
sexually abused that that means they will become a sexual abuser,
like you're exposed to this and now you have it,
like it's a disease, like it's going to happen. And
I want to make sure to communicate that a overwhelming
majority of individuals who are sexually abused never sexually abused
(29:47):
a child in their life. It is not something where
it's you know, a fate to complete that you know
you are going to do this now. In the situation
with Anna Waki and some of this described, these behaviors
were nurtured by people in positions of influence. So individuals
(30:09):
who were abused, and we see this from time to time,
Individuals who were abused become involved in that and they
have developing some level of enjoyment, and they are they
are encouraged to engage in this behavior with other individuals.
I don't want to share a lot of details because
I don't think it's really helpful, but I have worked
(30:33):
with kids under the age of ten who literally have
talked about how they because of the way they were manipulated.
They talk about missing having sex with one of their parents.
That took work to create a child who viewsed the
world that way. It's okay, it's acceptable, and actually I
(30:58):
enjoy it. That is that is a very disturbed approach,
and I know that's probably very disturbing for people to hear,
but you know, children can be manipulated and manipulating them
it's also part of the offender's mentality, Like if other
people are doing this, it's more socially acceptable. In our
inner circle, it's acceptable for us to do that. I
(31:21):
serve as a role model for them so they can
engage other kids in this activity. It almost is gonna
make it harder to believe. But in the group that
I'm hanging out with, the people who I'm associating with,
this is more commonplace and it becomes a norm. It
would be like, if you know, we lived in a
community where you know, a certain group of people eight
tennis shoes, they would carve up tennis shoes and put
(31:44):
them in twice baked potatoes or whatever. It just becomes
the norm. Right, That seems very odd, very strange, very disturbing.
But when it becomes something that everybody is doing, it
becomes a little bit more acceptable, and it creates it
makes it, it creates a very dangerous and insidious environ
it where we normalize things, and that is a you know,
that's a huge issue around this kind of manipulation of
(32:07):
those The other thing it does is it empowers the offender.
Like if let's say so I, you know, I'm sexually
using this child, and now I'm encouraging this childhood gigs
and sexual contact. I can then go to that child
and say, if you ever talked about what happened, they're
going to find about about what you've done. You'll be
in trouble too. Now I've made my victim even more
(32:28):
vulnerable to me and more able to be manipulated. So
it's a clever and disgusting strategy to do this because
it's almost like a drug dealer in a way. You
now create these other people that are selling drugs to others.
And at any point, if you want to have contact
and you're the kingpin, you could have you know, I
(32:50):
want to have sexual contact with this individual, you could
make that happen in that scenario because you have these
other people that are kind of this Ponzi scheme of
sexual abuse. Um, it's very disturbing and I know, probably
for listeners to hear about some of the offender mentality
and this is probably highly disturbing, and I'm you know,
(33:11):
it's hard to talk about this stuff with just without
just being real kind of shifting to the climate today.
You mentioned this a little bit earlier about kind of
the Satanic panic era and Q and on. How has
that affected your work and getting people aware of these
(33:33):
very real issues When there is this trend right now
of sex trafficking and child pedophilia being in large grand
conspiracy terms, things such as Pizza Gate, as this elitist
Hollywood cabal taking a drene of chrome and harvesting babies
(33:56):
and things of that nature, how does that affect um
your work and trying to get the word out in
the real work done in this issue. Uh. You know,
I quite honestly would want to say to anybody who's involved,
uh and and really believes in that if you're so committed,
where have you been all the years we've been here,
I hadn't met you, Um, I would have loved I
(34:19):
won't have everybody on our side working to help protect kids.
You know, Hey, if you're interested now, great, Let's make
sure anything we're doing is is grounded in reality, it's
based on what we actually know from the research you know,
the way we interview children, the way we can doctu
medically exams, the way we provide therapy, it's all based
on science. Let's let science, you know, drive how we
(34:40):
respond to this issue. Let's make sure that we are
innovative in our practice. That's what we need to do.
But I would say, you know, getting accurate information is
out there is hard because you're pushing back against society
and kind of norms that are out there, and people
not wanting to hear about things that are difficult, uh,
and things that are disturbing. There's a reason why most
(35:02):
people say I could never do that work because they
recognize we're exposed to toxic content on a daily basis,
and most people don't want to hear that. Like, my
life is hard enough as it is. The last thing
I need is more So, we're always challenged with how
to try to get accurate, truthful information out there. It's
an issue right now in our society. You brought up
(35:22):
the issue of sex trafficking. Um, you know, I think
when you say you know sex trafficking, you know, some
people will automatically develop like in their mind, what is
it you see? What do you think about do you
think about an individual who is you know, working as
a trafficker and has kids that you know are being
forced to engage in sex acts. You know, what is
(35:44):
it that people think about. We still are at a
point where we're collecting data. I can tell you this unequivocally,
child sexual abuse happens at a far greater rate than
children are traffic in our in our nation. Uh. It's significant,
gettingly more an issue at least on a scale of
ten to one at a minimum. So I mean that's
(36:07):
what we know. We're learning more in one case of
child sex trafficking is terrible. Uh, and we are actively
involved in the fight against it and training people around
the issue. But it's you know, Americans like bright, shiny
new toys, and any time we talk about kind of
a new thing, people may respond to it. Um. I've
been doing this work for a long time. I personally
(36:30):
get offended when people say there's this huge cabal that
we're just completely oblivious to what It says that me,
my colleagues, all of the people that I work with,
that we're not smart enough to figure out something that's happening.
And I would say, where's your evidence? You know, let's
let's talk about the evidence. We can say anything, but
what can you show me? Uh? And again, I've been
(36:50):
here for thirty years, you know, hadn't seen you. We've
been doing this work for a long time, trying to
improve our nation's response to protect children and to hold
those who harm them accountable. I don't care who you are.
If you're sexually abusing a child, you deserve to be
held accountable, doesn't matter who you are. And I like
to work in the area of truth. That's what kids
(37:11):
who have experienced abuse need. They need truth to come
out so they can heal no one's benefits. When we
have conspiracies that are unproven and inaccurate, this is an
opportunity to move the needle, you know, on on how
we understand this issue, how we're paying attention to this issue.
How do we know what to look for if you
don't know what's really happening? Right, how can we protect children?
(37:34):
And I would say maybe one final thing I would
say is that the protection of children is not the
responsibility of children. The protection of children is the responsibility
of all adults living in a society to make sure
they're protected. Even the Massai warriors who are known in
Africa to be some of the most aggressive and successful warriors.
(37:57):
When they would greet one another, they would the first
thing they would ask in their their tongue is how
and how are the children? Because they knew how children
were being taken care of by a society in their
own would be an indication of how advanced the society is.
It's high time that we prioritize the protection of our children. Uh.
(38:19):
And we were doing all we can to prevent them
from being experiencing any abuse. And if they do experience abuse,
that they have full access to the resources that we
have now have to help them heal from that so
they can live happy, full productive lives and they don't
disclose at age sixty eight about something that happened sixty
five years ago that's impact of their entire life. We
(38:42):
need to help them now they can be helped. Um
Child sexual abuse or exposure to other trauma is not
a death sentence. It doesn't ruin a child forever. This
is something that we have tools to address. We can
address it. UH. And individuals, lots and lots of individuals
are various tessibul in life after having experienced abuse. So
(39:03):
We shouldn't be fatalistic about it, but we should be
aggressive in our work to protect kids and to help
those who have been harmed and to hold those who
are harming them accountable. That is what in just Society
does next time on camp help in a waking. Once
(39:28):
maybe twice a year, people from the state would come
out to do like an inspection or something. They picked
like three of us girls to be the one to
answer any questions, and so they took the rest of
the group like way way out into the wood. They
were leasing them, just like anybody else would be leasing
(39:51):
real estate from another company, any other business. So so
the non profit paying the profit corporation the nonprofit and
awaky E was baying and Awakey Estates rent with the
ownership of that was the three daughters. There was a chimney.
(40:11):
He climbed to the top of that and uh dove off.
Earl was very touched anytime a kid died and he
would get involved and he would become obsessive, compulsive trying
to deal with it. And that was something he never
could figure out if he was doing it. Since nineteen
somebody notices in four and the disapproval sticks in their mind.
(40:35):
It only took a year and a half from there
for it to fall apart. Camp hell an Awaki was
created and hosted by Josh Than with producer Miranda Hawkins
and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack
was written and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry.
(40:58):
Archival footage for aided by ws B and CBS News.
Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c
A M p h E L L p O D.
Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things
that you should look for at the Darkness to Light website.
D too well dot org. That's d the number two
(41:20):
l dot org. Camp hell Anawaki is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts.
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