@intuitutifed hi,
I think it’s easy to point the finger at priests /nuns and those who run industrial schools as being the problem, because they are easily identifiable and ‘apart’ from society in general, but most child sexual abuse happens within families, perpetrated by family members and by and family friends, and by people who work with children in youth groups like the scouts.
Research shows in Ireland that one in five children is sexually abused, and that figure is reported by Interpol as being universally recorded in other countries.
One in five equals 20% of the child population - that’s 6 children in every class of 30, in every class in schools all throughout Ireland.
Most abuse is carried out by the male relatives of that child, often but not always with the knowledge (and denial) of the mother.
Yes, it’s true, in Tuam and no doubt other sites there are babies and their raped child mothers buried in cess pits, and a shocking record of historic violence and sexual abuse in industrial schools, but one in five children today in Ireland are abused by their own fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and male family friends, not by priests or nuns, and not by those hired on behalf of the Irish people to run industrial schools.
It’s easy to turn a blind eye to what the neighbours are up to, easier still to block out what’s happening in your own family- it’s easier to think about those who are somehow different from you and outside society and to start flinging stones at them.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good place to start - historic abuse and that done by religious people, but it’s not the end of the story. It’s not as simple a picture as that, and research proves this.
Most children in Ireland and other countries are sexually, emotionally and physically abused by their own family members, friends and neighbours, and peers, not by dog collar wearing boogey men, or people hired by the state to run schools.