How do you help children forced to watch while their mom is gangraped? Or a shy, teenage boy whose mother remains silent when a gang threatens to rape him unless she reveals the safe? (*see below for help organisations)

Perhaps the more important question is why are there not massive campaigns in schools to help children traumatised by burglaries, those present during armed robberies, hijackings, the rape or murder of a parent? Why do we assume children are resilient, that their silence means they are coping, that their refusal to discuss the matter means we should desist from doing anything?

Yesterday I returned from lunch to find this note: “A week ago my daughter returned home in the evening. She saw a BMW higher up the street and thought it was safe to open the gates. As she got out of her car four armed men confronted her and forced her in at gun point.

“The family was rounded up, beaten and made lie on the floor. They kicked them and shouted for guns and demanded cash. They took her husband’s wallet but there was not much money in it then threatened to rape the son if they were not given more money. My daughter has a safe hidden in her bedroom where she keeps cash.

“Her son pleaded with her to please give them the money instead of keeping quiet. She took two robbers to the bedroom. They opened the safe and removed R10 000. They put a gun to her groin and asked if she wanted them to fuck her. They tied them all up and left.

“The family have a counsellor but the child is in a bad state. He complained that his mother should have given them the money straight away. What advice can you give me?”

This case is typical of many. Usually though the mother gets raped, most often next to her bound husband and always with the children forced to watch and sometimes even to hold her hands down.

The rape is a deliberate act of profound aggression against the men in that house. It wounds far more deeply and for longer than if they shoot the men. All men see themselves as protectors and when they cannot act against such criminality it emasculates them — and let’s be quite clear, we don’t want them to act, because if they do, the whole family dies. Their inaction is profound courage because it ensures life for all and there are ways to get over the deep scarring, but more about that in another blog.

Let’s get back to the children. They have imperfect ideas about sex and are then forced to watch their mother get raped. It’s worse if they are in a home where sex is a taboo because the family then collapses after such an assault and it requires a complete reworking of all.

If a child is threatened with harm it is critical that parents react immediately, no amount of money is worth harm implied or real, give robbers the car keys, show them the safe (and ideally never have a gun or a safe in your home, it always makes you a target), give them the ATM card and the correct PIN. We can earn more money, insurance will pay out most losses, we can replace jewellery, but life and the mind are fragile.

Let’s first deal with a mom raped in front of her children. In one case, a divorced mom was asleep in her bed when a rock was thrown through her window, destroying the burglar bars and allowing entrance to a gang of three. They woke the children and loaded loot into the mom’s car, then raped her, forcing the children to watch — hitting them when they averted their gaze.

They then forced the mother into the car with the son. They left the 10-year-old daughter at the house with one of the gang and made the mother drive the car, with a firearm to the 11-year-old boy’s head. At one stage the mother began sobbing but her son reached over and touched her shoulder, “mom, we’re going to be alright”. She says that somehow cleared her mind and she remained calm, but fearful, as they drove to Soweto. The robbers made them get out and kneel while they removed the goods from the car and disappeared into the night.

The mother and son raced home to find the petrified daughter locked in a bathroom. The robber guarding her, left not long after the mother drove off. She was not physically harmed. But the children refused to return to school. The son was perpetually angry.

And this is where psychologists and psychiatrists have to change the way they deal with these matters, the first consult with such traumatised individuals cannot be 55 minutes, with a clock being watched above their heads. It has to be as long as it takes and in my experience it is never less than three hours and often more.
While the incident is important and the initial recounting of it is critical, it’s most important that you get the family to move forward. I speak to the family together then each separately. I showed each child how they had behaved heroically and in a manner necessary for the family to live. Then I began negotiating about their return to school and asked their permission to address classmates and we discussed how I would do it.

Both went to exclusive schools. At each school I made the teachers sit at the back and started by asking children whose home had been burgled, nearly all. Who was present during a hijacking, armed robbery, who had been tied up, who had someone in their family raped or murdered, I could hear the stifled gasp of teachers as large numbers of children raised their hands. And this repeats itself at schools of all socio-economic strata.

The next step is to ask the children what actions from others helped — most often it is people who allow them to speak without giving advice, a supportive friend … What didn’t help — those who tell them what they should have done eg fought, who told them not to talk about it, not to cry, not to tell anyone.

The words that helped or didn’t help — most hated words include: time will heal, forget about it, get on with your life, aren’t you lucky (to be alive), don’t say anything it upsets your mother/father/grandfather etc …

And then I give a brief overview of what happened to the family — the kids have already heard rumours — so I begin a process of managing the information. I always point out the child’s heroic deed. Then I say, “John is nervous about coming back to school, what do you think you need to do to make it easier for him?” The teachers are not allowed to intervene, the children have to manage this process and they come up with wonderful ideas every time. They also have to say if it is better that the child returns, tomorrow, in three days or a week — usually restricted by whatever the children put in place to welcome their friend back.
And so they heal understanding that they all need healing. But we have to put them in charge; criminals remove our freedom, we have to help those harmed take it back and we need to honour them in that process.

In the instance where a child feels betrayed by a parent? We explain fear, how some people become very clear-headed and rational, others panic and fumble. When we don’t forgive each other, the criminals win. They leave, they’ve forgotten about us, but we, fallible humans, carry the nightmare they left behind, we argue, we blame and we forgot those who are really at fault.

Most of all, if there has been a violent event where children were present, take them for help; let them express themselves. Don’t respond to their anger with anger. Be an adult, a loving, courageous parent. How we cope will determine how they learn to cope.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.