Madison says ‘I never wanted to go home ... it was supposed to be my refuge’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Madison was brought up in a large family as a Jehovah’s Witness.
She was physically and sexually abused by family members but the closed nature of their religion ensured there was no intervention from outside authorities.
Madison explains that she was not allowed to mix with other children who were not in the same religion as her. She says ‘We were brought up to believe we were different to everyone else’.
One of Madison’s earliest memories is from when she was about five years old, being left in the care of her brother Ian, who was 12 years older.
Ian sexually abused Madison in the family home. When Madison’s parents came back she told them what Ian had been doing to her. She vividly remembers her brother cowering in fear and her father beating him.
Despite this, Ian continued to abuse his sister over the next four years, usually at home but once on a holiday. On this occasion, Madison believes that her parents were aware of what he was doing.
The abuse was not reported to the police but she does recall some of the Jehovah’s Witness leaders coming to her home; she thinks it was to discuss Ian.
She explains that according to the teachings of their church ‘You are not obliged to comply with secular authorities’.
Ian was also abusing Madison’s older sister on a regular basis. Madison thinks that some teachers at their school were suspicious that ‘something was not right’ in the family. She recalls teachers being kind to them but nobody asked any specific questions.
Madison says that her sister confided in a friend about the abuse she was suffering and then told her father. Again, there was a meeting of the religious elders but no police involvement. Her sister’s behaviour became more erratic and she began to take drugs. Madison says the family ‘demonised’ her sister, and tragically she took her own life.
When Madison was in her 30s, she decided to report the abuse to the police. Her brother and other family members were questioned. They either refused to comment, or denied the allegations and it was decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute. Madison was disappointed not to be told about this in writing.
However, she feels that the police believed her and were frustrated they could not take the case any further. She says she takes comfort from knowing her statement to the police will stay on file and her evidence is there to back up any other victims who come forward.
As an adult, Madison says, she often still feels isolated and not ‘part of anything’. She has suffered depression and always feels the need to please people.
She would like teachers to have more power to intervene in cases of child sexual abuse. She says there was a time when she really wanted to tell a teacher what was happening but she was too scared. She says ‘That teacher would have saved us if she had had the power to say you are not going home and it will be an adult who will face your parents’.
Madison is having counselling and has begun to find this helpful. She says that coming to the Truth Project is ‘my last chance of getting some form of justice or at least being a voice, part of a change’.