Sexual Abuse Ignored by Our Legal System

What you're asking for is impossible. Every day they get complaints from bitter divorced parents that have an ax to grind and will claim that a child is being sexually abused. If they charged everybody with a crime when there is no physical evidence there would be a lot of innocent people in prison. It's not a matter of more victims, it's a matter of physical evidence. Testimony from a 4 and 7 year old is virtually worthless in a court of law due to a child's inability to understand what the truth really is. Studies have shown that kids under 8 are very prone to coaching, biasing and just outright telling stories based on something they heard.

On top of that, you're wanting them to take invasive and traumatic action against something that is very common between kids, and is usually handled by parents. Law enforcement involvement would only make the situation much more traumatizing. Which is what they were warning you against. There are only so many things they can do. Charge parents with crimes and take kids away, which is something they aren't going to do without solid evidence.

It is important to listen to your child and acknowledge what happened, but it's also important that you don't set her up for failure by projecting your feelings about what happened to you on her or assuming your step son is on track to be a serial rapist. More constructively it would be better if you as parents used this as a teaching moment about Stranger Danger and private parts.

Sorry if that sounds a bit insensitive, but I think your wanting to rail against a corrupt system, when the system is working as well as it can. It's in place to protect the innocent as well as convict the guilty.

/r/coeurdalene Thread