Chrissie Foster... 12:00AM April 7, 2017
It is difficult to stop crying.
A child sexual abuse expert from the US, Bruce Perry, simply picked a random example. He spoke via video link to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; he was one of 36 experts in the field who gave evidence last week at the final public hearing of the royal commission, titled Case Study 57: Nature, Cause and Impact of Child Sexual Abuse. Perry’s example was of “a little five-year-old child and somebody is raping you”, and he talked of what it does to the young mind.
A child sexual abuse expert from the US, Bruce Perry, simply picked a random example. He spoke via video link to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; he was one of 36 experts in the field who gave evidence last week at the final public hearing of the royal commission, titled Case Study 57: Nature, Cause and Impact of Child Sexual Abuse. Perry’s example was of “a little five-year-old child and somebody is raping you”, and he talked of what it does to the young mind.
They were painful words to
hear because that is what happened to our little five-year-old Emma and,
not long after, to our six-year-old Katie. To hear what their infant
minds had to deal with was crushing — a dreadful add-on to the vision of
rape by the priest, which already haunts us.
It was like a knife to the heart.