One
of the most potentially sexually exploitative areas in a home is the bedroom.
As such, we should expect to see children who are experiencing imminent fear of
being sexually abused, react strongly to being alone in bedrooms with staff.
As
a matter of policy, staff commonly drag children to their bedrooms as
punishment and a method of control. Children at Valley of the Moon Children’s
Home were locked in their bedroom by use of force, threat of force, barrier or
other threat of harm 95 times. In 68 of the incident reports, children tried to
escape their bedroom while trapped inside. Grace, a small girl tried to escape
over twenty times but was not allowed to leave.[1]
When
staff use force to drag a child into a bedroom and to keep the children in
their bedroom, they are putting children at high risk of sexual exploitation
and children react as they would if they expected immediate sexual aggression. Children
use physical violence once they are trapped in the room to make themselves an
unattractive target for abuse, or to prevent staff from entering, or to get
staff out of the room. This act of protective aggression is usually what staff use
to justify another series of restraints against the child.
Phoenix was told by a female staff member to take a
time out in his bedroom. As soon as he got to his room, he began to throw
things around his room; blustering to make himself an unattractive target. He
ran out of his room and left the building. He made repeated attempts to climb
the locked fence but staff pulled him down. He was put in a more restrictive
restraint until he submitted to staff’s demands. [2]
Children
of all ages and sexes have had exaggerated reactions to being alone with staff.
Protective aggression across gender through five years indicates a widespread
fear, not an issue with a particular child. It is a pervasive, long-lasting fear created
by the situation children face at Valley of the Moon Children’s Home.
It
is possible that this reaction is not because staff are exploiting a child’s
abuse history, but that it is a response to ongoing sexual abuse in the Valley
of the Moon Children’s Home. A child would not have to act out with protective
aggression against only the staff member who is sexually abusing her in order
for her protective aggression to be a warning sign of sexual abuse. A child
would only have to have knowledge that a staff member is willing to use sexual
abuse in order to be afraid of any other staff member.
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