I experienced child abuse, and one of the reasons I didn't report for so long was that I didn't know what would happen to me and my siblings. I hope this can help.
First and foremost, this is for people going through abuse right now, so you can see what might happen if you report and it doesn't have to be a big scary unknown.
I also hope it might help concerned adults decide whether and how to report, show how police and child protective services can respond better, and give people a chance to share their experiences.
What happens and where you end up depends a lot on your individual circumstances, so I want stories from all sorts of people. You can send in a story if you've either experienced this yourself or reported on behalf of someone else (and have their permission to tell their story).
If you send in a story, please give your location (country/state/jurisdiction), and the more details you can safely provide about the circumstances the more helpful it might be - but you can absolutely be anonymous and don't provide information if that will put anyone in danger.
Things it would be helpful to include are:
- Location
- Year you reported
- Kind and severity of abuse, roughly
- Age group
- Circumstances - e.g. any other family members available?
- How you reported
- What the reporting process was like (were you treated well by the authorities? How quickly did they respond? What did the victims have to do e.g. interviews? Was court involved?)
- Outcome - how did things turn out? What happened? How long did the whole process take until things were settled? Are you glad you reported? What could have been improved?
Please send stories to whenyoureport(AT)gmail(DOT)com.
No comments:
Post a Comment