These are sad stories, indeed. Yet, let's remind ourselves that what is called
"the media" or "society" is not a single voice or thing. There's no grand
themedia.com office someplace with a CEO and crew picking and choosing
messages.
A metaphor that more closely fits for me is a radio dial with many different
stations. And, like a radio, we hear the stations we tune in to. It's
interesting we "tune in to" the other party accused of some horrible act. Will
they admit in public or even to themselves that they did what they are accused
of? No. Will they "fight back" by founding false memory groups and rounding up
experts to testify in the public airwaves on their likely innocence and to
shift attention to therapists? Well, they did, and will again. And that's blood
family! From there, there are no limits to what people can say.
How then can we help support the relief of suffering, because to announce to
one's putative community that "I'm hurting, someone hurt me" is with the hope
of getting both help and the community's support in correcting (or the more
likely punishment of) the hurtful behavior.
One way may be to either lengthen or shift the capacity to legally take someone
to court. In many instances the seven-year statute of limitations (SOL) hurts a
child's ability to bring their abuse to court. Say a 14 year old student is
seduced by her 30 year coach and they have sex multiple times for a year. This
is a sex crime against a child in many states. She's 15 when the abuse stops.
With a 7 year SOL, she then has until she is 22 to file her case. In those 7
years she may be moving with her family, has no independent financial means
(lawyers want to be paid), may not understand the harm she's suffered, and may
consciously or unconsciously want to drive the experiences from her mind.
If the SOL is shifted to 7 years from the attainment of adult status (usually
21 years old), that would mean she has until she's 28 to make her claims. Not
ideal, but less maddening and re-hurting than the current set-up which appears
designed to protect the alleged abusers.
Yes, yes, I know in constellations work the legal system is a bit suspect. I
have a personal norm of no complaining without a suggestion, and this occurred
to me as one suggestion I could make.
There are always others. Please share.
John Perkins, Seattle, 206 524.4496
