Thursday, May 26, 2011

Expert warns national-religious educators of denial of sexual abuse


JPost

The denial and complacency within the national-religious sector regarding sexual assault of minors is wrong and harmful to the victims, an expert warned a forum of educators on Wednesday – emphasizing the danger of the belief that a rabbinic figure would not molest a child.

Speaking at the Rehovot campus of Orot Teachers’ College on their annual conference dedicated to leadership, Adi Fishman, an Education Ministry expert on preventing and treating sexual assault, specializing in the national-religious sector, said “the religious public’s feeling – as though its children are more protected from sexual assault than those of other populaces – is wrong.”

“When, indeed, nothing has yet happened, that feeling can be a convenient defense mechanism. But once a sexual assault does occur, the belief that ‘things like that don’t happen in our society’ can mar the educator or parent’s ability to assist the victimized child,” she added. “An educator must first and foremost be aware that there is a good [likelihood] that there is a sexually assaulted child in his classroom. We know that one of every four girls, and five boys, will be sexually assaulted.” [...]

1 comment:

  1. This, and the articles about the Conference show some paradoxes.

    Whilst this website is certainly strongly ultra Haredi on most issues, the people who are dealing with this issue are often (not always) very MO.- with the eminent exception of rav Eidensohn.

    Same goes in the Dati Leumi world - there were prominent cases throughout, as noted in this article. The Yeshivish end of the DL world would keep shtum - it was the Takana movement, with noted MO R' Lichtenshtein (clean shaven Rosh Yeshiva) who are fighting this phenomenon.

    Another paradox is the claim within Yeshivish circles that learning Gemara teaches mussar automatically. I believe this idea was popularised in Ponovezh circles... but it is obviously a false idea.

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