Pattern? More like complicity in concealing the truth

It is curious how a comparison between cases has been published recently, claiming that there is a pattern and equating people who have been convicted by the courts with someone who is the target of one of the most aggressive smear campaigns, precisely for the opposite reason: for supporting the victims.

On the other hand, what pattern explains the concealment of key information that shows that the abuser has not stopped harassing me and attacking the people who have supported me for more than twenty years? I insist: there is irrefutable documentation proving his involvement in the smear campaigns of 2004 and 2016. How is it possible that this information, which has always been shared and for which we have proof, is now being silenced?

Firstly, survivors of sexual abuse are very familiar with this strategy – in most of the cases I know of – child sex abusers are experts in grooming strategies in the close environment of their victims, applying the DARVO strategy.  The abuser applied this strategy from the beginning of his campaign, denying the sexual abuse he committed as a private tutor when I was a minor, taking advantage of the trust my family placed in him to help me with my maths. In the middle of the private lessons, he asked me if I was a virgin. When the first sexual abuse took place, the first thing he told me was that I couldn’t tell my family and that it had to be kept secret. I remember as if it were yesterday how his friends in Madrid told him that he was crazy and couldn’t do that to a minor, and while he was doing it, he continued to attend meetings with my family with the coldness of knowing what he was doing to me.

Secondly, when I decided to break the silence, he began his attack. To discredit my testimony, he made up a story that I was in a cult (referring to CREA) to invalidate my complaint. He has been doing this for more than twenty years, becoming increasingly aggressive, and now he is on to his third attempt. I insist, more than twenty years of abuse, with anonymous smear campaigns, and now he wants to reverse the roles. Come on, man! This is as far as we can go!

But do you know why some women keep quiet? And why is the campaign so aggressive? Precisely to hide the abuser. Because they know they are making this case invisible, just like the other case of girls being abused by a priest. We already saw this in Rome, where my colleagues and I witnessed it at the most important international conference on the prevention of sexual abuse in this field. There, excellent researchers shared research findings from Germany and other countries, confirming how necessary it is to break the silence of women who are complicit in covering up and allying themselves with child sex abusers. We cannot close our eyes to this, they told us, because otherwise we will not be able to protect girls and boys.

And that is precisely why, I repeat, I will never submit to your violence or that of your allies.