On Sunday morning a friend and former colleague phoned. She had read a piece in the Sunday Independent criticising my Irish Times column of last week on the issue of child abuse. She had a story of her own to tell, writes Vincent Browne
She had adopted a child abroad in the past 18 months and since then had discovered that the child had been woefully abused and violated while in an orphanage there. So serious is the abuse that the child has already undergone a serious operation and is to undergo a series of such operations over the coming years to reverse the terrible damage done to her. My friend had been away over the last few weeks and had not read my column but wanted to communicate to me her abhorrence of any sympathy towards child abusers or any tolerance of child pornography.
Her message was by far the most powerful response I have had to that column, partly because of my special regard for her, partly because she is a measured, humane, intelligent person and of course because of that terrible story she had to tell. Other responses have been telling as well and, in a spirit of respect to those who have been offended, I wish to reply.
The point of the column was to complain that too little was being done about child abuse. I cited the SAVI (Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland) report which revealed that more than one in 20 women (5.6 per cent), over 110,000 in all, were raped as children and 2.7 per cent of all men were subjected to penetrative sex (anal or oral sex) in childhood - that is around 12,000 men raped as children.
I complained we have no strategy for dealing with it or any sense of urgency about it. Just occasional manifestations of outrage when a high-profile case comes along, a bit of scapegoating and then nothing. I inquired why there was not a requirement, for instance, under criminal law for Internet service providers to filter out commercial child pornography sites.
Two subsidiary points I made in the article have caused controversy and I am sorry these have diverted attention from the main point I wished to make.
The first was that there is a distinction between complicity in the abuse of children by paying for access to Internet sites and viewing such sites where no payment is required. (I accept some people think this distinction is trivial but, with respect, I differ.)
Of course in both instances one is viewing photographs of terrible criminal acts and the viewing of such acts for sexual gratification is a deeply disturbing perversity. But where one is paying for access one is going a step further: one is engaging in the business of the sexual abuse of children and, thereby, one becomes complicit in the abuse. If an impeachment process gets under way in respect of Brian Curtin, will those Oireachtas members who view the Internet sites Brian Curtin accessed, and paid for, be themselves causing harm to children? Of course they will be viewing images of terrible child abuse, but will the act of viewing itself cause harm? There is of course the issue of invasion of privacy - but is it suggested that invasions of privacy should be criminalised?
The subsidiary point which has caused controversy concerns my alleged "sympathy" for child abusers. If a child of mine were sexually abused, I think I would kill the abuser if I were able to. Indeed I think if I encountered the abuser of my friend's adopted child I would kill him/her if I were able to. (And, let me acknowledge, I think I would go berserk if, irrespective of payment, images of one of my children being sexually abused were circulated.)
But would I be right? I think child abusers are seriously sick. This does not mean we should not protect our children from them or invoke criminal sanctions and indeed other sanctions against them but it changes the way we view them.
Also, I think it unfair to write off someone because of a perversity, however malign. I cited the case of Roger Casement. Almost certainly he sexually abused young boys. Does the fact that he abused children (or probably did so) obliterate the good he did?
How he exposed a genocide and a campaign of mutilation in the Congo at the turn of the twentieth century by the regime of King Leopold of Belgium and later exposed similar abuses in the Amazon basin?
Why should a recognition of the good he did imply a "sympathy" for his abuse of young boys?
Back to my main point: the scale of child abuse is terrifying. There is an urgent requirement to adopt strategies to deal with the problem: encourage children to report abuse, convince abusers of the awfulness of their acts and how aberrant they are, the criminalisation of the business of abuse in all its respects (as well of course as the abuse itself), treatment programmes for abusers and much much more. Again, I am sorry controversy over what I regard as subsidiary issues has diverted attention from this mega problem.