美国国家公共电台 NPR From The Frontlines Of A Sexual Assault Epidemic: 2 Therapists Share Stories

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Over the past week and a half, we've been airing an NPR investigation¹ that shows people with intellectual disabilities are sexually assaulted at rates seven times that of everyone else. In our series, we have heard from experts and prosecutors², families and people with intellectual disabilities themselves. Today we bring you the voices of two therapists who treat them. First, just a warning here, their stories could be disturbing to some of you. Here's NPR's Joseph Shapiro.

JOSEPH SHAPIRO, BYLINE³: Recently I sat down at a table with two women, both psychologists. They're good friends, in part because they share a rare specialty⁴. They're among the very few therapists who counsel people with intellectual or developmental disabilities who've been victims of sexual violence. And what they were saying about the violence and their clients' lives was disturbing, really stunning⁵.

KARYN HARVEY: Was abused by a van driver - raped⁷, it was a rape⁶. And he changed the route so she would be the last one.

SHAPIRO: That's Karyn Harvey, a therapist from Baltimore. She's sharing stories with Nora Baladerian, a therapist from Los Angeles.

NORA BALADERIAN: He was being sexually abused by his coach, and he was told that if he ever told anyone, he and his parents would be killed.

SHAPIRO: They see a lot of women and men with intellectual or developmental disabilities who've been the victims of sexual assault.

BALADERIAN: The young woman was being taken by her taxi driver, paid by Medicaid to take people to their medical appointments, people with developmental disabilities...

SHAPIRO: For people with intellectual disabilities across America, there's a hidden epidemic⁸ of sexual assault.

BALADERIAN: So they were driving home and he turned right and she said, no, no, no. You're supposed to turn left. And he said, we're taking a shortcut⁹. You know? How many times have we heard that? So he took her into the forest where he raped her, and then he started to go back to the car and she said, wait a minute. I've got to get home. My mom's going to be really mad that I'm late.

SHAPIRO: People with intellectual disabilities can be easy to manipulate because they've been taught to be trusting. Here's Karyn Harvey.

HARVEY: Yeah. I've seen - something that I've seen that happens in residential¹⁰ situations, I've seen a number of people where the staff have said, I'm your boyfriend and we're in a relationship.

SHAPIRO: They need to rely upon other adults - the parents, teachers, staff who help them.

HARVEY: Say OK, well, we're going to be boyfriend and girlfriend so this is what we do every night. And so there was ongoing¹¹ sexual abuse.

SHAPIRO: Women and men with intellectual disabilities do have romances, relationships. Sometimes they marry. They can have consensual sex. But Harvey's talking about how for predators¹² they can be some of the easiest prey¹³.

HARVEY: And the most shattering piece - 'cause I've done the crisis counseling afterwards. This is five or six situations - finding out that that person was not their boyfriend. Because the woman is usually proud about it - this is my boyfriend. And then we report, and then the devastation¹⁴ is that, I was raped? That's not rape. That was my boyfriend. I was deceived. He said he loved me.

SHAPIRO: We found multiple recent cases where a victim can't talk at all. The abuse gets discovered only when the woman gets a sexually transmitted disease or pregnant.

HARVEY: And that's actually very common in institutions, pregnancy¹⁵ where you don't know what happened. I actually was called in on a case where somebody was pregnant during a long-term hospitalization.

SHAPIRO: Most rapes¹⁶, of anyone, are committed by someone the victim knows. For women without disabilities, the rapist is a stranger 24 percent of the time, but less than 14 percent of the time for people with intellectual disabilities. That's what our analysis shows from numbers provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Most of the time, the perpetrators are people they've learned to count on the most, sometimes their own family. Therapist Karyn Harvey had a client who was HIV positive but he never revealed how that happened, until one day.

HARVEY: And then his sister moved into his mother and stepfather's home because she was getting divorced, and she brought her two young children. And so he went to his therapist and said, I have something to tell you. I'm very worried about my niece and nephew because of what my stepfather did to me all those years, and I don't want him to do it to them.

SHAPIRO: Harvey and her staff encouraged the man and helped him report the abuse to police. The man was very close to his mother, but the case split the family, especially after the stepfather was charged, brought to trial and convicted of abuse.

HARVEY: This guy was sentenced. I was standing¹⁷ with him and his mother came up to him and said, you just ruined our lives. I will never speak with you again. And she stopped talking to him, and he lost his family. And I've seen this happen multiple times.

SHAPIRO: Prosecutions¹⁸ are rare. Convictions, even more rare, partly because people with intellectual disabilities often have difficulty testifying or they're easily confused on a witness stand, or they're just not believed. Nora Baladerian had a client who said she was sexually assault by men in the family. But at trial, the men were acquitted¹⁹. The young woman had been the main witness, but her testimony²⁰ didn't go over well with the jury.

BALADERIAN: The jury said, found him not guilty. When polled afterwards they said, why? And they said, she was too weird²¹. Well, they just could not believe her because she was too weird.

SHAPIRO: Baladerian thinks flat out prejudice gets in the way throughout the criminal justice system.

BALADERIAN: For people with developmental disabilities who speak perhaps more slowly or use a vocabulary that's not equal to their age or expected educational level, they're seen as dumb, worthless, less than. And there is just a bias²² that they're not worth it or they must have been complicit. More than anything, they're not worth the effort.

SHAPIRO: There's one more thing that really troubles these two therapists, the trauma²³ of all this sexual violence almost never gets treated. Sometimes a victim with an intellectual disability acts out. If they have difficulty using words, that's a way of communicating distress²⁴. Maybe they destroy property or they cut themselves or bang their head against the wall. Karyn Harvey.

HARVEY: Also, the other thing that goes unrecognized are their repeated suicide attempts because they're not shooting themselves or hanging themselves. They're running into traffic.

SHAPIRO: Harvey says she's seen five cases like that. What's most common is that the person is medicated on powerful anti-psychotic drugs.

HARVEY: They're looked at as somebody who just needs more and more medication, and the medications interact. They create all kinds of problems, and death occurs as a result of that, as well.

SHAPIRO: It's a spiral of bad outcomes, an unrecognized mental health crisis that's created from an unrecognized epidemic of sexual assault against people with intellectual disabilities. Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.

1 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

2 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

5 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

6 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

7 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

8 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

9 shortcut   

n.近路，捷径

参考例句：

• He was always looking for a shortcut to fame and fortune.他总是在找成名发财的捷径。
• If you take the shortcut,it will be two li closer.走抄道去要近2里路。

10 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

11 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

12 predators   

n.食肉动物( predator的名词复数 )；奴役他人者（尤指在财务或性关系方面）

参考例句：

• birds and their earthbound predators 鸟和地面上捕食它们的动物
• The eyes of predators are highly sensitive to the slightest movement. 捕食性动物的眼睛能感觉到最细小的动静。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

14 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

16 rapes   

n.芸苔( rape的名词复数 )；强奸罪；强奸案；肆意损坏v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的第三人称单数 )；强奸

参考例句：

• The man who had committed several rapes was arrested. 那个犯了多起强奸案的男人被抓起来了。 来自辞典例句
• The incidence of reported rapes rose 0.8 percent. 美国联邦调查局还发布了两份特别报告。 来自互联网

17 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

18 prosecutions   

起诉( prosecution的名词复数 )； 原告； 实施； 从事

参考例句：

• It is the duty of the Attorney-General to institute prosecutions. 检察总长负责提起公诉。
• Since World War II, the government has been active in its antitrust prosecutions. 第二次世界大战以来，政府积极地进行着反对托拉斯的检举活动。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

19 acquitted   

宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现

参考例句：

• The jury acquitted him of murder. 陪审团裁决他谋杀罪不成立。
• Five months ago she was acquitted on a shoplifting charge. 五个月前她被宣判未犯入店行窃罪。

20 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

21 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

22 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

23 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

24 distress   

n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛

参考例句：

• Nothing could alleviate his distress.什么都不能减轻他的痛苦。
• Please don't distress yourself.请你不要忧愁了。