HomilyfromthePew

If the Home Is Not Safe, Where Is Safe?

This is sick.

And it is sickening.

I have worked in child safeguarding and family strengthening for close to three decades.

Yet, since this matter became public, I have struggled to put myself together sufficiently to write about it.

Not because there is nothing to say.

But because what is alleged represents an assault on our shared humanity.

The home is supposed to be the safest place for a child.

But when the home becomes the trap, the gulag and the place of protection becomes the place of alleged exploitation, we have cause for the deepest concern.

Yet, can we say in all conscience that everybody in society is playing their part in strengthening the family?

If the home is the primary place of safety for children, what preventive attention are we paying to it?

Or do we wait for something terrible to happen, sensationalise it, express our outrage and then move on until the next tragedy?

What deliberate investment are government, communities, institutions and individuals making in building homes where children are truly safe?

This is not merely an African problem.

It is a global human problem requiring a coalition of interests committed to strengthening families and protecting children before rescue becomes necessary.

THE FAMILY DOES NOT EXIST IN ISOLATION

The husband has now spoken.

According to him, he left home in the morning for his business and returned in the evening. He said he knew nothing about the alleged abuse until a friend showed him a circulating video.

He said his wife initially claimed that the video had been generated using artificial intelligence. According to his account, she subsequently admitted during police questioning that it was genuine and stated that he had no prior knowledge of what she had done.

His account raises questions beyond one household.

What happens when economic survival requires a parent to leave home early and return at night?

How present can parents be when the economy consumes their time, energy and attention?

What support do families receive before their difficulties become emergencies?

This does not excuse abuse or transfer responsibility from anyone found culpable.

But families do not exist outside the economy, the law, the community or the prevailing values of society.

The pressures within the larger society enter the home.

The home is the tree.

What reaches the child is the fruit.

We cannot concentrate only on the fruit while refusing to examine the condition of the tree and its roots.

NOBODY WINS AND EVERYBODY NEEDS HELP

At this moment, nobody is a winner.

Not the children.

Not the father.

Not the mother.

Not the family.

Not society.

Everybody needs help, including the mother.

Saying this does not excuse what she is alleged to have done. It does not diminish its seriousness or protect her from whatever consequences the evidence and the law require.

Accountability and help are not opposites.

Something is profoundly wrong wherever a mother can do what is alleged in this case. Beyond the criminal investigation, she needs comprehensive psychological and psychosocial assessment.

What is her story?

What experiences, conditions, influences or vulnerabilities preceded the alleged conduct?

How did she arrive at the point where the exploitation of her own child could become possible?

What part did money, technology, an online audience or other persons play?

We do not yet know.

But we must ask.

Hearing her story is not the same as accepting an excuse. It is about understanding the pathway to the alleged conduct so that warning signs can be recognised and similar harm prevented elsewhere.

If we arrest, prosecute and punish her without learning anything from her story, the law may have imposed consequences, but society may still have learnt nothing.

Deterrence matters.

So do understanding and prevention.

She remains the children’s biological mother, notwithstanding what she is alleged to have done. Her removal may be necessary for their immediate safety, but it also leaves the children separated from their mother.

That separation, and everything surrounding it, must be handled with professional care and sensitivity.

The children need protection, medical attention, trauma-informed psychosocial support and carefully considered placement.

The father needs support to process what he says he discovered and to assume the responsibilities now resting upon him.

The mother needs investigation, accountability, assessment and appropriate intervention.

The family needs sustained professional support.

And society needs to examine its conscience.

We have normalised condemnation as if condemnation were a complete safeguarding response.

It is not.

WILL THE CHILDREN EVER WIN?

The children have been rescued.

That was necessary.

But rescue is not victory.

Whether these children ultimately win will depend considerably upon what society does after the headlines disappear.

What medical and psychological assessments will they receive?

Where will they live?

Who will assess the safety of any proposed placement?

Who will support the family?

Who will follow the children’s progress six months, one year or five years from now?

As someone who experienced child sexual abuse between the ages of six and eight, I know that psychosocial support does not erase what happened or automatically return a child to the life the child might have lived without the abuse.

Healing may be pursued.

A meaningful life may still be built.

But we cannot simply make the experience not to have happened.

The children’s eventual victory will depend upon the quality, consistency and humanity of our response.

Whether other children are protected from similar experiences will depend upon what we learn and what we change because of this case.

SOCIETY IS ALSO IN THE DOCK

It is easy to say that the parents failed the child.

But what about society?

What about the people who allegedly paid to view such material?

Can an online market exist without consumers?

What about those circulating the material in the name of advocacy, outrage or commentary?

I have not watched the clip.

I will not watch it.

Indeed, I do not watch material of that nature.

Watching or circulating it is not advocacy.

It is consuming or promoting child sexual abuse material.

Watching, downloading or forwarding it does not protect the child.

It continues the child’s exposure.

Report it.

Do not forward it.

Do not identify the children.

Do not convert their pain into content.

FROM SENSATION TO SOCIAL POLICING

No police service can be present inside every home.

That is why child safeguarding cannot depend upon official policing alone.

We need social policing for the best interests of children.

Social policing means that ordinary people are informed, equipped and prepared to act.

When we see something, we say something and we do something.

Its strength rests upon knowledge, skill and attitude.

Knowledge is knowing what to do.

Skill is knowing how to do it responsibly.

Attitude is possessing the inner strength to act upon what we know.

Protecting children requires a genuine coalition of interests.

Families cannot do it alone.

Neither can the police, government, schools, religious institutions, technology platforms or child-protection organisations.

Each must understand and perform its role.

We must examine our laws, our economy, our institutions, our family-support systems and, ultimately, what we truly believe about children.

The entry point of child safeguarding is the family.

Once we miss it at the level of the family, everything that follows becomes emergency intervention.

We build a culture fit for children by building people who are fit for children.

We build a world fit for children by strengthening the families, communities, institutions and systems surrounding them.

That, not the sensation, the noise or the endless circulation of the materialis the sober lesson this tragedy must leave with us.

Enlightenment is Superior to Enforcement®️

MinistryofClarity

Follower of Christ. Husband. Father. Egalitarian. Goodwill Investor. Attorney. Author. Thriver. Culture-Edge Family Strengthening and Child Safeguarding Pioneer, Innovator and Practitioner. Value-Based Parenting Ideologue. Change Agent. Rebel with a Cause. Three Decades in the Saddle.