Marian - A Story of Sexual Abuse at Valley of the Moon Children's Home

Marian:

A frightening act of sexual abuse was used to coerce, punish and humiliate a child we named Marian.[1]

Marian tried to run away from Valley of the Moon Children’s Home on February 1, 2011. Two male staff members restrained her eight times to keep her in the facility, then they locked in a room as punishment. Marian finally submitted and stopped trying to escape. The two staff brought in a shirt and they demanded that she change her shirt while she was still in the locked room. They asserted that the shirt she was wearing was off dress code. The locked room has a window, and she was in the view of all staff and her foster sisters.

Forcing Marian to strip in front of them was an act of sexual exploitation and dominance which humiliated and shamed her while making her an example for children at Valley of the Moon Children’s Home.

Even though incident reports of restraints are required to be filed with Community Care Licensing within seven days, this incident report was withheld by Valley of the Moon Children’s Home staff for over two years. This incident report was one of a pack of incident reports withheld after a citation for locking children in rooms. 

This missing report only came to light when our advocates noticed a discrepancy in the number of restraints given to us by Family, Youth and Children’s Division head Nick Honey in 2013 and the number of incident reports we obtained in 2013. After we informed Community Care Licensing of the missing reports, they obtained them in July 2013.

As far as we know, the police were never contacted to report this act of sexual abuse, locking her in a room, or physical assault.

Marian was only seven years old at the time of her sexual exploitation. It might be tempting to think that because Marian was so young, she was less affected by nakedness in public. The courts have ruled that children, no matter their age, have an expectation of decency and to be free of such humiliation.

In Darryl H. v. Coler in 1986, a police officer examined the vaginal area of a two year old. The courts found the search illegal and a violation of the child’s rights. In addressing the case the judge said,

 “[a] child of very tender years may not exhibit a subjective expectation of privacy in the same sense as an older child. He is, however, a human being, entitled to be treated by the state in a manner compatible with that human dignity.” [3]

A child’s age does not create an excuse to violate the sanctity of the private areas of their body and to do so is a violation of their dignity. The first right in the Foster Youth Bill of Rights is a right to dignity. When the courts have found a behavior a violation of dignity, then it is axiomatic that such a behavior violates the right to a dignity as well as the right to be free of sexual abuse.  

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[1] Incident Report 5742-6887

[3] 801 F.2d 893 (7th Cir. 1986)