DO VICTIMS LIE ABOUT SEXUAL ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION?



          The crucial central issue in the evaluation of a response to cases 

          of multidimensional child sex rings is the statement "Children never 

          lie about sexual abuse or exploitation. If they have details, it 

          must have happened." This statement, oversimplified by many, is the 

          basic premise upon which some believe the child sexual abuse and 

          exploitation movement is based. It is almost never questioned or 

          debated at training conferences. In fact, during the 1970s, there 

          was a successful crusade to eliminate laws requiring corroboration 

          of child victim statements in child sexual abuse cases. The best way 

          to convict child molesters is to have the child victims testify in 

          court. If we believe them, the jury will believe them. Any challenge 

          to this basic premise was viewed as a threat to the movement and a 

          denial that the problem existed.



          I believe that children *rarely* lie about sexual abuse or 

          exploitation, if a lie is defined as a statement deliberately and 

          maliciously intended to deceive. The problem is the 

          oversimplification of the statement. Just because a child is not 

          lying does not necessarily mean the child is telling the truth. I 

          believe that in the majority of these cases, the victims are not 

          lying. They are telling you what they have come to believe has 

          happened to them. Furthermore the assumption that children rarely 

          lie about sexual abuse does not necessarily apply to everything a 

          child says during a sexual abuse investigation. Stories of 

          mutilation, murder, and cannibalism are not really about sexual 

          abuse.



          Children rarely lie about sexual abuse or exploitation. but they do 

          fantasize, furnish false information, furnish misleading 

          information, misperceive events, try to please adults, respond to 

          leading questions, and respond to rewards. Children are not adults 

          in little bodies and do go through developmental stages that must be 

          evaluated and understood. In many ways, however, children are no 

          better and no worse than other victims or witnesses of a crime. They 

          should not be automatically believed, nor should they be 

          automatically disbelieved.



          The second part of the statement - if children can supply details, 

          the crime must have happened - must also be carefully evaluated. The 

          details in question in most of the cases of multidimensional child 

          sex rings have little to do with sexual activity. Law enforcement 

          and social workers must do more than attempt to determine how a 

          child could have known about the sex acts. These cases involve 

          determining how a victim could have known about a wide variety of 

          bizarre and ritualistic activity. Young children may know little 

          about specific sex acts, but they may know a lot about monsters, 

          torture, kidnapping, and murder.



          Victims may supply details of sexual and other acts using 

          information from sources other than their own direct victimization. 

          Such sources must be evaluated carefully by the investigator of

          multidimensional child sex rings.