So back in 2020, an investigative journalist named Sarah McClure wrote a long-form article called "The Amish Keep to Themselves. And Theyâre Hiding a Horrifying Secret."
(cw: rape, sexual assault, CSA, incest, domestic abuse, religious abuse, etc.)
The article, as you might have gathered from that list of content warnings, is about the widespread sexual and physical abuse in Amish communities and the way that their patriarchal and insular practices make that abuse almost impossible to prosecute.
I read that article when it came out, and that's why I went to a screening of McClure's new documentary, Keep Quiet and Forgive, at the Philadelphia Film Festival last month. We were also lucky enough to have a Q&A with Sarah McClure and it was really eye-opening.
(For those who want to watch it, I believe she said the doc will air on PBS next year.)
One thing I was really struck by when watching the documentary was the way that almost all of these women (and yes, a few men who'd been sexually abused by other men) had left the community. It makes sense; would someone still in the community ever talk to an investigative journalist? It's not likely.
Almost all of them had lost their entire support system when they'd spoken out about their abuse. Their families and friends shunned them. They got hate mail regularly from their former neighbors. Whenever they went to court dates, they had to face not only their abusers but their entire former community, who would turn up to support the accused in court.
The few who were still in the community were either going to meetings secretly or were largely being shunned. One of them, a woman who still identified as Amish but whose entirely community had turned on her when she'd testified against her wildly abusive husband, ended up leaving the community entirely by the end of the documentary. She looked so much happier.
Where I'm going with this, though, is that these people often lose their friends, family, and community when they leave. So they've started creating community of their own. The documentary showed a lot of meetings between former Amish women who would band together to support other Amish women through the process of leaving and testifying against their abusers. There were group therapy sessions where women would finally get to talk about what had been done to them. Conferences where they discussed future steps. Meetings with activists to create change. Podcasts by victims of abuse who wanted to reach out to others like them.
Groups like The Amish Rescue Mission are working to provide support to victims of abuse in Amish Country, including providing Pennsylvania Dutch interpretation services when necessary. There are lots of small survivor support groups on Facebook, too.
I don't generally add to posts, but I did want to spread this information, reporting, and list of resources to anyone who might benefit from them. I am no expert, but I wanted to link to some people who are.
Help is available, but it is often inaccessible to people who, let's be real, are not generally going to be super online. So I think it's important to spread information however we can in the hopes that it can carry as far as possible by word of mouth.
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