Child abuse cases are
always shocking whatever the circumstances. But, when the abuser is
supposedly a person of high moral standing and in a position of
trust, the level of deceit that goes with the actual abuse tends to
add fuel to the flames of anger. Dispatches, Channel 4's flagship
investigative current affairs programme, recently aired a brilliant
documentary exposing Rabbis within the Jewish Haredi community
discouraging victims of child abuse from going to the police,
preferring to deal with matters in-house and within the community. We
later find out that what is meant by dealing with matters within the
community is to do very little.
The Rabbis featured
showed no interest in gaining justice for the victim and no interest
in protecting children from future abuse. It's about time we stopped
assuming that a religious man is necessarily a man of morals. Time
and time again it has been proven that the former can lack the
latter. And vice versa, one can be moral and yet have no religious
faith whatsoever, this is a point I think that needs making. Child
abusers should be punished accordingly, and so should their enablers,
whether a rabbi, a priest, or anyone else that sits in a position of
authority and fails to adequately protect the vulnerable under their
care.
If you haven't already I highly recommend watching the documentary:
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