2023-08-31 06:26:00
August 31, 202303:26
Ezequiel I was 7 years old when her teachers and her mother noticed abrupt changes in her behavior. As have a pervasive developmental disorder that impacts their language, motor, and social skills, I was going to second grade with an inclusive teacher. What they noticed was that she did not control his impulses: In class, he threw things around, scratched the notebooks and “behaved very badly.” At home, sleep and eating disorders were added. Also, she had started wetting the bed.
Ezequiel’s parents were separated and he said he didn’t want to go to his dad’s. AND banged his head against the wallsomething I had never done.
The child’s psychologist recommended that his mother consult a child and adolescent psychiatrist “to see if he needed to be medicated”. He said the changes in Ezequiel’s behavior “were linked to his disability.” But during playtime with the psychiatrist, the little boy made a drawing that revealed what was happening: “It was a human figure, very clear, of an adult with a penis, and another smaller figure. He pointed to the biggest one and said, ‘Dad.’ Then the other and said: ‘Eze’, while he opened his mouth and spit ”, recalls the psychiatrist, who asks for identity confidentiality to keep the patient from him.
“What he was able to say to me later was: ‘Daddy peeds in my mouth.’ It was his way of putting into his words that his father forced him to practice oral sex on her, ”explains the specialist.
When the doctor spoke with the mother, her first reaction was: “My son understood something wrong.” In turn, the boy’s father said that “he was a sleepwalker”, that he had surely seen him get up to urinate at night and that he had “invented everything”.
For the professional, this case highlights the denial that there is usually of the stories of children with disabilities: “The drawing was forceful, but all the arguments in the environment pointed to disbelieve what he had said with phrases like: ‘he dreamed it’ , ‘it’s an invention’, ‘it confuses things’. The abuser was hiding behind the alleged misunderstanding of the child. There were even psychologists who doubted his story.
Requests for advice from families of people with Down syndrome who suffered abuse come “very frequently” to the Down Syndrome Association of Argentina Shutterstock – Shutterstock
Specialists affirm that sexual violence against girls, boys and adolescents with disabilities, especially when it is intellectual or impacts their way of communication, is much more frequent than in those who do not have it, because they are in a situation of greater vulnerability. In turn, they agree that these abuses are more invisible, with prejudice and the lack of training of professionals playing a key role.
Although in Argentina there are no statistics that reflect the problem, an investigation published in June of this year in the National Library of Medicine of the United States underlines that children with disabilities suffer sexual violence between two and four times more often than those who do not have it. In addition, the abuses are “longer and more severe” due to factors that make detection difficult.
“The first thing to do is accept this reality. Second, always listen to the victim and believe him. In the case of people with disabilities It looks a lot like not taking them seriouslywhich contributes to hide situations of abysmal violence”, affirms Pedro Crespi, executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Argentina (ASDRA).
In this line, Juan Pablo Mouesca, head of the Family Violence Unit of the Pedro de Elizalde Children’s Hospital, maintains: “Abuse in children with disabilities is not only more frequent, but it is more difficult to diagnose. In most cases, genital lesions or sexually transmitted diseases are not found, and it is necessary to rely on behavioral changes and in the game, but sometimes the same disability creates a communication problem”.
In the hospital they receive “a significant number” of inquiries, in general of children with intellectual disabilities or autism spectrum conditions. ASDRA also receives “very frequently” requests for advice from families of people with Down syndrome.
Beyond the cases that occasionally reach the media, such as the one involving children with hearing loss at the Próvolo Institute in Mendoza or the 10-year-old boy with Down syndrome abused by a group of peers in Córdoba, specialists consider that it is key to make this reality visible.
With regard to behavioral changes to be aware of, Mouesca stresses that they can range from “exaggerated excitement, such as excessive masturbatory behaviors” to refusing to go to school or meet certain people and sleep problems. and feeding. Other specific ones are the knowledge of sexual behaviors “that indicate that the child was exposed to adult sexuality”, the presence of injuries and the report.
“When a child with a disability is interviewed in a Gesell Chamber, adjustments must be made in communication, in how questions are asked and cross-examined. And when speech is highly compromised, you have to rely on other things, such as gestures and the body,” explains Elías Bustos, a lawyer specializing in accessibility at JusticeShutterstock – Shutterstock
“Within disability we include a lot of entities and subjectivities, but what unites all the boys and girls with this condition is finding themselves in a situation of greater vulnerability to be violated and reifiedsomething that unfortunately happened historically,” reflects Silvia Ongini, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Hospital de Clínicas and co-founder of the Center for the Prevention of Sexual Abuse in Childhood and Adolescence (Cepasi). All the myths that permeate society about sexual abuse, in the case of children and adolescents with disabilities “are amplified: they are not believed and it is common to hear phrases such as ‘he is fantasizing’ or ‘he saw it in another side and mix things up.’”
Paula Wachter, executive director of Red por la Infancia, adds another factor: prevention actions are not usually aimed at children with disabilities: “In itself, we have a significant deficit in awareness campaigns, but This is a population to which nobody speaks or gives accessible information. There is a vacancy from political power that does not have this especially vulnerable group as a target population.
Antonella agrees. She lives in Parque Patricios, she is 18 years old and has an autism spectrum condition. At 8, she was sexually abused by a 26-year-old cousin. At that time, he “didn’t have any friends”, was bullied at school and had a hard time interacting with other people and being able to communicate his emotions. Last year she managed to put into words the violence she suffered and His family’s first reaction was to think that he had surely “misinterpreted” the actions of that cousin.
“As a girl I never had sex education and at first I couldn’t understand if what was happening was right or wrong,” the young woman emphasizes. However, her symptoms were jumping all over the place: from eating disorders to a depression that brought her down. “The worst thing is to feel that the other does not understand you, that he does not believe you,” she sums up.
His case is not isolated. According to a study carried out in the United Kingdom in 2022, almost 9 out of 10 autistic women claimed to have been victims of sexual abuse. “And two-thirds were very young when they were first abused,” the authors emphasize.
What is the outlook in Argentina? Verónica Ríos is a psychologist and co-author of the book sexualities and autism. Also, she is the professional behind the Instagram account. Sexuality.Inclusive and is part of the interdisciplinary team Sexuality and Affective Life, which works with autistic people. From December 2021 to March 2022, they conducted an online survey with the participation of 156 people diagnosed with autism, between the ages of 16 and 46. Among other issues related to education, love experiences and barriers to access to sexuality, They were asked if they had ever been abused: 64% answered yes, and of that percentage, 75.7% were women.
“We still have to deepen the data because they are not very representative for scientific rigor, but unfortunately the percentage does not surprise us,” says Ríos. The fact that people with autism do not have adequate and accessible information is one of the many factors that exposes them to a greater risk: “We need health professionals with an active outlook. Lack of knowledge is a shield that they resort to many times in order not to fully commit and go deeper. We seek that more and more are trained. The myths and prejudices that infantilize and take away the capacity of autistic people deepen this problem.
“Abuse in children with disabilities is not only more frequent, but it is more difficult to diagnose,” says Juan Pablo Mouesca, head of the Family Violence Unit at the Pedro de Elizalde Children’s HospitalShutterstock – Shutterstock
Being believed has a direct impact on the prognosis of victims of sexual violence, both children and adults. That was the case of Juan Octavio Gobet, a 28-year-old with Down syndrome who was abused by a golf teacher and family friend in Bragado. “One day our son began to say things that caught our attention: he overflowed and began with a vocabulary unknown to him, very obscene. When we inquired, he told what had happened and we filed the complaint ”, detail his parents, Fernando and Leticia.
And they add: “We managed to get the court to make the Gesell Chamber and the prosecutor said that it was ‘forceful’. A few days later, the abuser was arrested. That was in February 2021 and the trial will be in March of next year. Let’s hope there is an exemplary sentence: we want this to end”.
From ASDRA they followed the case closely. For Crespi it was “a before and after”, because he exposed the need for training of the police and judicial actors. Today the association organizes training workshops for officials and families.
Luisa was 12 years old and had an intellectual disability. She was attending an educational center in a province in the north of the country when she told one of the psychologists about the abuse to which she was subjected by a family friend: “The complaint was made and I went to testify at trial, where they finally sentenced the abuser. What surprised me was how several professionals intervened during the process to discredit the girl, from a gynecologist who said that she “made up some things” to court officials who assured that, due to her condition, it was very possible that she had “invented” what happened”, says the psychologist.
He assures that the fact that the girl was able to give very precise details in the Gesell Chamber of how that man had repeatedly raped her was key to the conviction, “But that doesn’t always happen.” In this sense, Mouesca warns that during the judicial process, the Gesell Chamber is usually considered “the gold standard” when there are no injuries. This generates enormous difficulties in access to Justice: “If ensuring that children can express themselves in these contexts is always difficult, when disability is added it is even more complex.”
There are initiatives that seek to impact this reality. Elías Bustos is a lawyer and member of the National Assistance Program for Persons with Disabilities in their Relations with the Justice Administration (ADAJUS), which has, among other objectives, “to propose reasonable and procedural adjustments to judicial operators” to act in different cases, including crimes such as sexual abuse. He says that almost every week they receive at least one consultation regarding this type of violence.
“Cases of children and adults arrive, many of deaf people and people with intellectual disabilities. We intervene with an interdisciplinary team made up of a lawyer, a psychologist and a sign interpreter when required”, says Bustos. “For example, when a child with a disability is interviewed in a Gesell Chamber, adjustments must be made in communication, in how questions are asked and cross-examined. On the other hand, when speech is highly compromised, you have to rely on other things, such as gestures and the body”. For the lawyer, that there is training in this sense from the university, is a pending account: “I did not have any subject on criminal law and disability.”
María Fernanda Rodríguez is a lawyer, she was undersecretary of Access to Justice of the Nation and today she is a member of the Buenos Aires Public Ministry. In tune with Bustos, he warns: “You have a silenced humanitarian drama that is abuse in childhood and in this context the obligation to generate mechanisms that allow girls and boys with disabilities to listen: from school, the family environment and the health, until when you arrive at Justice, which is when you were already late because the events occurred. In this sense, he concludes: “Before making a Gesell Chamber, it is essential to carry out a preliminary hearing accompanied by specialists to evaluate, for example, if it is a boy with autism, what the environment must be like or how to adapt the professional’s communication to a language clear, concrete and simple. This previous interview is key because it involves building a custom suit”.
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