Sexual Abuse: SPEAKING OUT ON THE SILENT SHAME
Jet Magazine
April 5, 2004
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Quiet as it's kept, sexual abuse in the African-American community is as prevalent as it is taboo. But experts say it's time to break the cycle of abusers preying on victims who suffer in silence and shame.

Robin D. Stone is a survivor of sexual child abuse. The journalist and author of the recently released book No Secrets, No Lies: How Black Families Can Heal from Sexual Abuse, says she wrote the book because she felt it was time to start a conversation in Black families and Black communities about the devastation caused by this horrifying act.

"I learned from my own experience, and from interviewing more than 30 survivors, parents and partners, that we don't talk about sexual violation when it happens in our families for a host of reasons, including wanting to keep 'business' to ourselves, and not wanting to get the police or social services involved.

"In not talking, we leave children vulnerable to abusers who use silence and isolation as a tool to control their prey. The best way to protect our children and stop sexual abuse is to bring it out in the open so we can deal with it."

Stone's research suggests that an estimated one in four women and one in six men has reported being sexually abused during his or her childhood. These frightening numbers affirm that this violation is frequent in today's society.

The American Academy of Pediatrics defines sexual abuse as any sexual act with a child performed by an adult or older child. This may include many different experiences such as unwanted touching, oral sex and actual penetration. Other forms of abuse not as easily detected include the showing of an adult's genitals to a child, talking "dirty" to children, and showing a child or using the child to create pornographic materials.

"Children are most often abused by people they know, like, love or live with. That could mean a relative, a family friend, a neighbor [or] it could be an 'upstanding' person in the community," says Stone. "Abusers move in on kids by gaining their trust, along with the trust of adults as well."

Stone adds that parents and caregivers need to be aware of how abusers operate. She suggests that parents monitor situations in which their children are one-on-one with an adult or simply keep such single-affiliation situations from happening. Adults also need to talk in detail to their children about what it means to be sexually violated.

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