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”Amish women are not taught anything about sex, according to Garrett, which makes it even harder for a girl who's being abused to describe what's happening to h
by jquery 5y ago
”Amish women are not taught anything about sex, according to Garrett, which makes it even harder for a girl who's being abused to describe what's happening to her.
Mary said she didn't know how to describe what was happening. "I thought they were being bad to me. That was the only word I had to express it," she said.
In an Amish culture unaccustomed to women speaking up, Mary felt she got more scolding than sympathy when she told her mother what was going on.
She said her mother told her, "You don't fight hard enough and you don't pray hard enough." Mary said her mother made her feel as if the assaults were her fault. "Every time I would talk about this she would say that they have already confessed in church and you're just being unforgiving," she said.
…
"The funny thing is that they view drinking alcohol until you puke as bad a sin as raping somebody. They get the same punishment for either one," Mary said.
But Amish-style punishment was not going to bring Mary the justice she wanted. And for her, the final straw came when she suspected a younger brother, David, was molesting their 4-year-old sister.”[1]
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MCCLURE: The majority of my sources never made a police report. They never had a court case. Whenever I spoke with these women, they had dozens of other victims that they told me about, dozens of other cousins and friends and family members that - they told me that this had happened to them, too. And, obviously, I can't put a number out there that's unverified or not supported or corroborated by a court case or a police report. It's very difficult to do a story like this where the evidence is limited. And so just anecdotally, just based on my conversations with these women and men, there are a lot more victims out there in Amish country that we may never know of simply because there is no paper trail.[2]
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[1]https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1
[2]https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-in-amish-communities https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-...
- dash2 5y agoI think it's good not to idealize any community, but this comment needs a little more context if it's meant to convey more than just "Amish bad!!!"
- jquery 5y agoI’m suggesting that maybe we shouldn’t be getting our life pro-tips from a rape cult. The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They’re Hiding a Horrifying Secret. A year of reporting reveals a culture of incest, rape, and abuse. - January 14, 2020 by Sarah McClure https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/01/14/amish-sexual-abuse-assault/ https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/01/14/... EDIT: I shouldn’t be surprised that pointing out Amish sexual assault makes HN spitting mad. Few things make HN angrier than implying rape is a problem worth caring about.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chucksta 5y agoCalling them a rape cult is a little extreme. Although I do agree they are far to evangelized on the internet. For the most part they are just people with an 8th grade education, trying to get by with religion and community/family coming first
- sparselogic 5y agoIf your statements are coming from experiences you’ve had in this culture, I’m very sorry. Their authority-centered and closed culture has sheltered many abusers. This is a serious ongoing problem, and I’m aware of many people who have suffered. But to be clear: none of the religious practices of the Amish involve rape. The same weaknesses are present in many other similarly organized groups (see the ongoing scandals in the Catholic Church, less reported but similar patterns in southern Baptists, and even the military’s serious issues with sexual abuse). Singling out the Amish and claiming that something they’re deeply ashamed of is the focal point of their religion is textbook hasty generalization and hyperbole.
- ska 5y ago> Their authority-centered and closed culture has sheltered many abusers. This is a much broader phenomena I think; isolated communities with fairly centralized authority lend themselves to sheltering abusers.