[âAutistic children are accused of being burdens to our parents and families. We are asked to be thankful when we are not murdered by their hands. We are asked to keep still when we stim, calm down during a meltdown, be quiet when we are echolalic, and stop any ticks or repetitive movements that adults find objectionable. These messages are violent and justify violence against autistic people. They express beliefs that allow child sexual abuse to continue.
When we ask children to be things that they are not, and to express themselves only in ways that we deem appropriate, we communicate the message that what we want for their bodies is more important than their self-determination. If we truly want to end child sexual abuse, we need to recognize the autonomy children have over their own bodies. That doesnât mean that they can do whatever they want; it simply recognizes that they have the final say over their bodies when safety is not a concern. It insists that a child who flaps their hands, doesnât speak at all, wonât make eye contact, or never stops talking doesnât need to be âfixedâ just because adults donât like the behavior.
My family and community would have needed to revise the way they thought of me to make space for my agency before they could effectively demand accountability from the woman who molested me. Personally, I believe that the accountability model is a conservative and confessional one. It stops at the level of admitting to the violenceâan important step but only the first one. When I hear about âcommunity accountability,â what I think people mean is that the whole community will work to hold a single person âaccountableâ to a harmful action or series of actions. This model forgets that abuse thrives in silence and isolation, and that can only occur when a community turns away from great injustice. Thus, whole communities are implicated in all instances of child sexual abuse.
I donât need anyone to confess their guilt publiclyâI already know who harmed me, and in many cases, so does everyone else. I need a community where everyone recognizes the role they played in that violation. Child sexual abuse flourishes under the hot lights of the church because of the âmind your own businessâ culture it creates. We can no longer afford to mind our own business and say that we act in solidarity with one another and with the most marginalized parts of our families.
To stop child sexual abuse, the way that parents treat their children must be considered a matter of public concern. Most importantly, abuse can no longer be treated as something unknowable. When a child speaks of having been violated, the response should never be disbelief and interrogation. Being a child is confusing enough without exploitation. Negative responses make it more difficult for victims of sexual abuse, particularly victims of molestation, where the perpetrator is more likely to be a trusted part of that childâs life than a scowling outsider.
One reason why communitiesâa word I use here to mean some amorphous combination of families, neighbors, congregations of faith or worship, and institutions such as school or local governmentâchoose to ignore child sexual abuse is because the response is assumed to be necessarily punitive and to require an overwhelming amount of evidence to prove. Nobody wants Uncle Jerome to do jail time. How can you prove the pastor touched you? Arenât you too young to even know what rape is? The victim is punished because the perpetrator is unavailable to receive punishment or too important to punish. Victim are of no importance because they are sullied by the crime and are suspect just for telling someone.
Instead of radical communities constantly asking for ways to make child sexual abuse accountability less punitive for those who perpetuate it, I would like to first see it become less punitive for the children who have endured it. It would take reparations to restore communities after child sexual abuse has occurred. I donât think that these must be monetary, but it is important to recognize that in such acts of great violence, something material is taken. If communities provide CSA survivors with somatics or therapy, people may be less likely to continue the cycle of abuse and could heal from the addictions and harmful coping mechanisms that often come with having experienced violence. If communities paid for training or education for CSA survivors, we could gain a new dream in exchange for all the ones that were squashed and snuffed out. I donât think it is realistic to try to restore the relationship between abused and abuser after CSA, but I believe that we can restore the relationship between children and their community by offering services and benefits after such a violation.â]
cyreĂŠ jarelle johnson, from social silence and sexual violence, from love WITH accountability: digging up the roots of child sexual abuse, edited by aishah shahidah simmons, 2019
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