SO CALLED experts who have whipped up hysteria about child sexual abuse will be named and held up to public scrutiny, an Irish group with American links has pledged.
The group, VOCAL (Victims of Child Abuse Laws) Ireland, which represents people who say they have been wrongly accused of sexually abusing children, has a relationship with an American psychologist who has expressed controversial views on paedophilia.
VOCAL Ireland has been formed from the Accused Parents Aid Group (APAG) which has affiliated itself to VOCAL USA. It has a close relationship with psychologists Dr Ralph Underwager and his wife, Ms Hollida Wakefield who have been extremely active in the US in opposing child abuse prevention programmes and in acting as defence advisers and expert witnesses in child abuse trials.
In 1993, a Dutch publication, Paidka The Journal of Paedophilia, published an interview with Dr Underwager and Ms Wakefield. In the interview Dr Underwager is asked, "Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individual?"
He replies that "Certainly it is responsible. What I have been struck by as I have come to know more about and understand people who choose paedophilia is that they let themselves be too much defined by other people. This is usually an essentially negative definition.
Paedophiles spend a lot of time and energy defending their choice. I don't think that a paedophile needs to do that. Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose.
They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love.
"I am also a theologian and as a theologian I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A paedophile can say. This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I've made."
Dr Underwager says women are jealous of sex between men and boys. "The point where men may say that maleness can include the intimacy and closeness of sex may make women jealous. This would hold true for male bonding and paedophile sex, too. The woman is jealous of the connection. She says Waft a minute, we're not going to let you do that."
Dr Underwager himself has vigorously denied that his views represented support for paedophilia.
The chairman of VOCAL Ireland, Mr Eddie Hernon, also says Dr Underwager was not supporting paedophilia but was trying to explain it. He told The Irish Times that paedophilia is child abuse, abuse, no matter what way you look at it.
The Accused Parents' Aid Group sells articles by Dr Underwager and Ms Wakefield on child abuse, the extent of which they believe is exaggerated. The two psychologists also provided a briefing document for the APAG document opposing mandatory reporting of child abuse which formed the basis of APAG's submission to the Department of Health.
In the first issue of VOCAL Ireland's newsletter, Mr Hernon condemns what he calls "quacks and zealots" who cause "untold profound trauma to innocent parents and children" in order to keep the "child sexual abuse industry" going. He says he will name these people as well as the politicians who have failed to act on behalf of thousands of their constituents who have begged and pleaded for justice."