According to the ACCCE page, “The Stop the Stigma campaign was launched on Thursday 2 September by the Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon Karen Andrews MP, Grace Tame and Assistant Commsioner (sic) Lesa Gale.
The purpose of the campaign is to urge Australians to open the discussion about child abuse even if they find it uncomfortable.”
Author
- James Lee
This is just the latest in a long line of similar actions designed to placate an angry public in response to revelations concerning systemic failures and mistreatment of victims of child abuse. And Domestic violence. Elder abuse. Disabled services. Workplace bullying. Wage theft and unpaid entitlements. The responses to victims like Mason Lee, Tara Brown, and others, are shockingly similar. And they’re just the ‘isolated cases’ we know about. The rest were, clearly, isolated better.
Yet, despite all the inquests, Royal Commissions, and recommendations, the funding directed at these campaigns and initiatives, and promises of positive change are too often revealed to be as hollow as the empty, opportunistic rhetoric from politicians and other self-serving authorities. The promise of help and justice is not a light at the end of the tunnel, and simply reveals how little the folks in charge appear to understand things. Or even care.
It’s not a tunnel. It’s a deep, dark, miserable pit. Where there is no justice, dignity, or hope. And a lot of people at the bottom have already made the mistake of asking for help before. That light at the top too many times a flame thrower wielded by people who offer hope yet inflict greater harm, sometimes deliberately. Why? I asked an abuser that once, why they did what they did. “Because I can,” they said, “and nobody will stop me.”
The worst part about campaigns like these is that they simply pile more funding into what Daniel Andrews admitted was a “broken family violence system”. One that too often isolates and silences victims while concealing and enabling predators, crime, systemic failure and injustice. Self-regulated through ‘internal investigation’ that does the same, covering up an entrenched, toxic culture of corruption.
How do I know? I’m the eldest of several children who were subjected to extreme physical and psychological abuse, every day, by our various parents. As you get older, the abuse evolves and escalates. Since I first started asking for help, back in 1985, nobody has. In fact, the people who should have helped revealed themselves to be secondary predators, and only added to the trauma. I’ve met far too many people who’ve suffered the same.
Even if you can negotiate the unnavigable, cyclical bureaucracy to find the right people, overcome the fear and shame, and share your experiences (the word ‘story’ implies fiction and only exacerbates the negative attitudes) with them, you will often be referred to someone else. Even people you’ve already contacted. Even when you have told them you have already done that. And that’s best case.
Worst case, assuming they respond at all, you can expect indifference, apathy, insensitivity, idleness, negligence, mockery, insults, unfounded and defamatory accusations, and intimidation. Some of the responses are just staggering in their idiocy. That’s what passes for help. And there’s nothing you can do about it because you have no voice, and the primary and secondary abusers have all the power.
I'm sure there are good, hard-working, dedicated people in these fields, I've just never found them. The people I’ve encountered in the DSS, DHSS, as well as teachers, police, churches, politicians, CCCC, IBAC, Professional Standards, and so-called advocates like Blue Ribbon, Bravehearts, Legal Aide, Saint Vincent De Pauls, Civil Liberties Australia, and more, are sometimes so brazen in their hypocritical, unethical behaviour that they put it in emails, knowing full well you have no means to expose them, even if you report it.
The policy of ‘internal investigation’ in churches has attracted criticism and been branded, many times, a “conflict of interest” that is used to cover-up crime and injustice. I even heard rumours the Royal Commission demanded it stop. Yet the government and public services continue to use this practice, and it serves the same purpose. Those who remain silent may be said to condone, but those force others to remain silent are complicit.
They know damn well that a victim of abuse is usually so damaged, psychologically and financially, that they have no means to purchase a favourable legal outcome in a system where they cannot even access what passes for justice, let alone afford it. They know that abusers wage a campaign of their own to defame and discredit their victims, and deprive them of any support network and dignity.
In the end, I had to break contact with everyone I knew, changed my name, and relocated thousands of miles away. But you never escape. The damage they do stays with you forever. They have a space in your head and won’t leave. In your absence, they continue to inflict themselves on others to cause harm. Enforcing silence. And those corrupt authorities force you to be complicit, just like they are, in all of it.
Back in 2016, Daniel Andrews promised to fix a broken system. Four years later, he said he heard and believed victims of abuse. I wrote a letter to him about my experiences. The ‘help’ he offered only added more evidence to what I’d already shared with him. I wrote a second letter to share the results of that ‘help’ and reveal how bad the entrenched, toxic culture was. He never responded.
And here we are, with the Stop the Stigma campaign. Encouraging people to talk about something that takes more courage than some have, to come forward and ask for help from a system that is still broken. We, the victims, are the stigmata, the cruel wounds inflicted by corrupt authorities, the visible but ignored evidence of that failure, something too many offenders have been trying to cover up for decades.
We are tired of being treated badly and told we are getting help at the same time as being told there’s nothing that can be done for us. We are tired of being encouraged to come forward and then told to shut up and bugger off. We are tired of being told to speak about what we have endured, and that the authorities are listening… when we are denied a voice… and nobody is listening.
Telling a victim their suffering, no matter how extreme, is of less consequence or value than that of a victim who was sexually abused, does not help. Telling them you believe them but refusing to help, does not help. Using policies and procedures to find excuses not to help, does not help. Referring victims to new policies about changes to help victims like them while refusing to help, does not help.
I actually wrote to Assistant ‘Commsioner’ Lesa Gale to share my experiences, and pointed out how nothing had actually changed in the last 36 years, seeking assurances the campaign would actually help. The official response was a standard, sterile promotional piece about the campaign, and encouraged me to contact the police and other authorities I’d just explained had refused to help. Another sham.
Real positive change requires actual real positive change. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Yet we are encouraged and expected to ask these insane people, who treat victims badly, for help. The people inflicting themselves on victims, no matter who they are, need to be exposed and held to account. Instead, they are insulated from accountability by their positions and affluence.
Maybe it’s time the media did what others won’t, made good on the intent of the Stop the Stigma campaign, and triggered our collective conscience. Give the victims of these injustices a voice rather than simply providing a platform for politicians and their approved advocates to push false hope and that empty, opportunistic rhetoric on a public unwilling to look deeper. Let the public know what’s really going on.
Let the victims know, with actual evidence, that they are not alone. Give the victims a voice. Actually help them. No more throw-away three-word slogans. Tell the ‘stories’ nobody wants to hear. About the abuse, primary, then at the hands of the authorities. Welts and all. Be the catalyst that drives that positive change in culture we so desperately need. It’s time to learn from the past. “A true repentance shuns the evil itself, more than the external suffering or the shame.”
