Criminal Justice

When I told my mom about my father raping me for years, she didn’t believe me for the first 30 minutes or so (we were on the phone), but then she got outraged. She said I should go to lawyers, I should collect all evidence, I should put the bastard in prison. I said, I’m not interested in that – it won’t do any good to anyone anymore. It’s too late to do this – he has no access to little kids anymore, and I will make sure he has no access to my kids. Then it hit me that my little sister just got married, and if she will have kids, she’ll probably bring them over to him – since she doesn’t believe my story. My hair really stood on end at that thought. Is my mom right? Is there need to try to have criminal justice?

I think there isn’t. The only justice I want is - to go back to Russia, to look him in the eyes, and to tell him that he hurt me, but that he can’t hurt me anymore, that now it’s his burden to carry – not mine. That will be justice for me. My mom wouldn’t go for it – every time she calls, she asks – did you go to the lawyers yet? And I always answer – mom, I never will, what’s the point? She always gets very disappointed. After she asked me for the tenth time, I decided to investigate it.

In Russia, there is no point in trying to push a case that’s 20 years old – the authorities are corrupted to the point where they will laugh in my face when hearing my story, or they will try to exploit me – since I’m “broken in and damaged goods” anyway. I thought I would investigate the US law system, to compare. What I found astounded me. It’s not much better, and here is how it works:

The US law system is largely an all-men club that has virtually no protection for children (or women) – children have barely any rights, specifically in incest cases – all laws are on the side of an offender – the father. Moreover, neither policemen nor judges are trained on how to handle child incest victims – the interrogation processes are designed with an adult in mind. When same techniques are applied to a child, they don’t work. The cases rarely go to court – a child, and especially a girl, can’t withstand the interrogation pressure. Worse, a myth that still persists in law and court system, and among therapists – that children typically lie about sexual abuse. That’s not true. Only about 1% of all reported cases are a lie (from the data I have read) – and even then, when a child lied, she made up a story to get attention to other problems at home – her physical and emotional abuse (in one case I read about). The 70’s feminist movement in US brought this issue to public attention, yet it remains largely unknown to most people – my hope is that this will change.

Will I ever file charges against my father? No. I don’t want to have anything to do with him, to see him, to speak to him, nothing. I thought – what would I do if he dies? Will I go to his funeral? I’m not sure, maybe I won’t. I still haven’t forgiven him fully, I’m still angry with him, he is still more like a white colorless worm to me, with little hair that remained, with those huge ugly eyes on his face, his whole body icky and smooth. Brrr.

To add to this, I had a sudden memory of his erect penis yesterday, when I was at a chiropractor’s appointment – I nearly threw up. I remembered many details over the last several months, but not his private parts yet. I wasn’t ready for it. I also remembered how he took my step-mom, me, and my little sister (while we were in Germany) to a nudist beach, how he told us that we were simple uneducated Russian females, that we needed to learn from Germans, that we needed to appreciate the beauty of a naked body. He was the first who took his clothes off. I remember staring at his penis, terrified. I was 14, my sister was 8. He told us to undress. I was so ashamed, yet I couldn’t disobey him out of sheer terror, so I did. I remember some teenage boys who wore swim trunks and came to the beach to gawk – they laughed at me, pointing their fingers at my breasts. How can you prosecute someone for this? You can’t  - not in this age, not in any country – because in our society a daughter is still the property of her father. She wears his last name (as does his wife), she is given away by him into marriage (in some countries, the father still decides the fate of his daughter in marriage), she is controlled by him, as is his entire household.

We live in a patriarchal society. As long as we have this inequality of sexes, there will be no justice for child incest victims. But, it is changing. I’m one of the thousands of voices that are bringing about the change. I was inspired by others to speak about this publicly. I hope I will inspire more victims to come out and share their stories as well.