The Boy Scouts’ Bankruptcy, and the Scourge of Childhood Sex Abuse
by Deborah W Soh, Quillette:
During my many years as an academic, roughly half my time was devoted to research and clinical work with convicted sex offenders, many of whom had sexually abused children. The experience was harrowing. And my decision to eventually shift research areas accompanied the realization that I had numbed myself emotionally as a coping mechanism.
Thankfully, everything I learned from those days stayed with me. I say “thankfully” because, while I don’t miss the negative emotional effects, the knowledge I gained allowed me to understand the truth about child sex abuse with a clarity that I wish every parent could be afforded. The sexual abuse of boys, in particular, is much more prevalent than many realize.
I wasn’t terribly shocked to learn that the Boy Scouts of America recently declared bankruptcy as the result of hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits. The Scouts have spent over $150 million on legal costs and settlements to date. The abuse allegations span a century. According to Boy Scout documents disclosed during litigation, more than 12,000 boys have been abused by at least 7,800 individuals since the 1920s.
The #MeToo movement brought increased awareness of the abuse and assault endured by girls and women. But boys and men who’ve been abused still often lack support. In some cases, they can even endure negative stigma when they go public with their trauma. Authors of a 2011 meta-analysis, drawn from more than 200 global sources published between 1980 and 2008, estimated that 7.6 percent of surveyed males had self-reported an experience of childhood sexual abuse (compared with 18 percent of surveyed females).
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