Help A Child - Speak Up When You See Abuse Happening!

Carolyn Hax: Witnesses didn't aid victim of child abuse
By CAROLYN HAX

Dear Carolyn: My stepfather physically, verbally and emotionally abused me until I fled at 15. His power trip was mostly conducted at home, but sometimes it would happen in public, and sometimes it would happen in front of his loser buddies. The years I lived with him were so hard, but it was vastly worse when someone would see it happening and do nothing. Then, the problem wasn't my stepfather -- the problem was the world.

I'd have taken 10 extra beatings with a smile if any stranger had ever stopped and communicated, directly or indirectly, that I was right to believe that what was happening was wrong. I can assure you I got those 10 beatings anyway -- they happened all the time and on any pretext -- just without the quiet anesthetic victory that a stranger's concern might have been.

For reasons that are probably obvious, I am enormously conflict-averse as an adult. But I hope so much that if I ever see a child suffering in any of the ways I suffered, I will be able to stand and speak. I hope anyone would.

This happens more often than people realize. Please, be ready to speak up if you ever see a child being abused. You may be the only person in the right place at the right time who would possibly be able to give this child a chance to be removed from their abusive situation. If we don't speak up, who will save these children?

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