Ritual Child Abuse
Ritual abuse is as evil as any form of abuse that exists today. Although not as mainstream as it was in the 1980’s to the early 1990’s, ritual abuse is something that should be taught within the schools curriculum. The abusers of innocent children hold no mercy as they psychologically, physically, and emotionally torture their victims to do their bidding. When the victims are finally set free, they are forbidden to talk about what happens to them in fear that they, or their family, will be killed. It has been stated that ritual abuse occurs within every region of Canada, however no concrete statistics are currently present to substantiate this evidence (MacDonald &ump; Sarson, 2002); therefore most of the evidence presented in this paper is solely American. This paper will go into detail on what ritual abuse is and some background information on it, who it affects, why it happens, and the effects it has on the victims.
According to Harvey Wallace’s book, in reference to the Los Angeles County Commission for Women in 1989, the most widely used definition of ritual abuse is as follows:
“A brutal form of abuse of children consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and involving the use of rituals. Ritual does not mean satanic. However, most survivors state that they were ritually abused as part of satanic worship for the purpose of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs and practices. Ritual abuse rarely consists of a single episode. It usually involves repeated abuse over an extended period of time (Wallace, 2008).”
This is just one of the many definitions given to describe ritual abuse, as there are different forms of it that occur within communities. These forms of abuse are as follows: Ritual child abuse is the repeated abuse of children by their caretakers through such acts as cruelty to animals, and threats or harm to either the child, an animal, or other persons; Cult ritual child abuse is the repeated abuse of children by a religious group and/or the child’s caretakers through cruelty to animals and threats to harm family and friends to reinforce the cults beliefs; Group ritual child abuse is the repeated abuse of children by a group of people responsible for the child through acts such as cruelty to