Re: Corporal Punishment and Bystander Apathy to Child Abuse

[lfontes <lfontes@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In response to Heather Adams request:

In an article which I wrote based on qualitative interviews with Puerto
Rican survivors of child sexual abuse:

Fontes, L. (1983). Disclosures of sexual abus by Puerto Rican children:
Opprssion and cultural barriers. Journal of Child Sexual abuse, 2(1),
21-35.

I describe the participants' views that widespread acceptance of
corporal punishment facilitates keeping secrets around sexual abuse
(makes all abuses of children SEEM more normative). In particular I
report on the case of a woman who says that her father used to beat her
in public and rape her in private. Because her mother and the neighbors
did not intervene in the public beatings, she thought they would also
not object to the rapes in private, and so she did not disclose.

Perhaps this may be of some use.