The Fear
"Say you fell out of the scooter," his mother told five-year-old Felipe before getting into the school van. "I don't really remember much about what happened that day," says the boy, who is now 10.
His father, Gaston, fills the gaps in his story. That day it was his turn to pick him up from school. When he saw him, the question was instant: What happened to your face? “I overslept and got late, and then my mother got angry and bit me,” answered her son.
Gaston and Felipe's mother had a brief relationship and became parents at the age of 19. “She was always very intense and stubborn,” he says. After fighting with her family, who lives in a wealthy area of Las Condes, mother and son went to live alone in an apartment, “and things got complicated from there on,” says the father.
“When there were more people, nothing happened, but if we were alone I was always afraid to do something that would make her angry. She used to hit me and shout at me a lot. I always felt like I was doing something wrong,” says Felipe, who was four at the time. “Do it right, if not, don't do it,” repeated his mother.
That day of the bite was the turning point. "I immediately filed a report. There were long months where she made it difficult for me to see him, he told Felipe that I wanted to put her in jail and that he would never see me again," recalls Gastón.
When they were together, he noticed that the situation was getting worse: Felipe was always bruised. The boy had to take care of his younger sister, who was the daughter of a new partner of his mother, and if the baby cried or peed through her diaper because he “had diapered her wrong,” she would beat and punish him. “I made her milk and I had to keep her quiet if my mother was working,” explains the child.
It was after a holiday to the south that Gaston decided to sue for the personal custody of his son. During that trip, Felipe, aged seven at the time, told him in detail about the mistreatment. “He cried for about an hour and a half, non-stop. I blamed myself a lot for all the time he had endured in silence.”.
“There's a sense of degradation, of a loss that's not monetary.”
José Andrés Murillo, Fundación para la Confianza.
Silencing comes from the environment, not from the victim, and it is not the victim's fault, says José Andrés Murillo. "They believe they are going to be exposed to social criticism, stigma, and loss of social standing, belonging.” A woman once told him that she didn't want “anyone to know that her son had been a victim of abuse, because then ‘Larraín's son or daughter wasn't going to look at him.’” When sexual abuse reports against former priest Fernando Karadima began to emerge, others told him, “It wasn't that bad, why are you exposing yourself like this?” Not a few even confessed to him that they preferred to silence their own cases because they did not want to turn into another “Murillo or Hamilton.”
The testimonies he shares are consistent with the Child Sexual Abuse Prevalence survey in the Metropolitan Region that Fundación para la Confianza released last December. This survey confirms that the socioeconomic group that least dares to reveal an abuse is the ABC1 group.
The network that silences the violation begins, of course, in the family. “My mother spread her fear so that we would all hush up,” says I.M. Once, her sister said she would report her father to the authorities, after repeatedly hitting her arm for not cleaning the carpet, leaving her arm full of bruises. Her mother's response? “Are you out of your mind? Just imagine what he could do next, how he may react.”
Attorney-at-Law Francisco Estrada recalls the case of certain parents who asked him for advice. His daughter had been mistreated by a classmate at a very prestigious school. They didn't want to do anything against the school or the boy, but just to resolve the matter in particular. “I googled the name of the assaulter and he was the son of a prominent businessman. Both the director and the girl's family were scared, because the school was not going to hesitate who to choose from either them or that family.”
How far do parents go to hide a situation they believe may affect their status? Ana, the teacher, recalls a case where there was such an uproar that the family decided to withdraw the boy from school and take him abroad.
Carmen is 64 years old and has a long record of abuse that her family kept silent. “My mother used to hit us with her fists, her feet, with objects. I still remember seeing my younger siblings, aged seven and eight, trying to protect their heads while my mom kicked them.” She suffered depression for the first time at the age of 12 and had several suicide attempts.
It was her ex-husband who continued the abuse. Postpartum depression and financial abuse followed (her partner forced her to sign papers in which she assigned the management of almost all of her property).
“In the ABC1 family, it seems that the most important thing is that nobody knows. Shame is a thousand times more important than the safety of children and women.”
Carmen, 64
She says that many times, if parents split up, women are left with nothing. Because this also has implications for their children, those mothers are forced to postpone or simply dismiss that option.
I.M. also suffered that financial abuse. “If you don't go out to eat with me, I'm going to fuck up your mom and sisters with money,” his dad once threatened him. At that dinner, after five minutes of arguing, the boy stood up and left. “Dad took one hundred thousand pesos (around 140 USD) away from mom because you are not following the rules," one of his sisters berated him once he got back home.
Children from the ABC1 group are quite isolated, experts say, and when faced to silencing families, the role of schools and health centers is very important.
However, those environments are also filled with fear. Fear of an angry client, says psychologist Sofia Hales, who can put you in a complex situation with your boss. “I've met teachers who have tried to file a report. Parents complain and the principal believes them, shrouding any possibility of mistreatment, while also leaving the professional in a very questioned position,” she says.
Ana says the fear to the parents is real. She believes that it involves keeping the institution’s good name, not losing its prestige, not scaring parents. “Let’s not forget that, in several cases, the ties also extend to work, and family, social and religious life, so it is always advisable to maintain an appearance of normalcy.”
“We work with extremely posh schools,” says Jose Andres Murillo, “and some of them told us that they do not file reports because once they got sued for 400 million Chilean pesos (around 563,480 USD) and almost go bankrupt.”
This is why Irene, in her work as an educational psychologist, always tries to mediate. “Doing it on the best terms, because many times parents find it difficult to recognize that they are not handling parenting very well, that they are doing it wrong.” Sometimes they refuse to give psychological reports where complicated matters emerge, “and you have no way of knowing.” If you go against the parents, she adds, they will close the doors and you will not be able to reach that child, who will be deprived of any support.
“Obviously, not all parents are like this. There are some who are very concerned about their children, but I wish they were more," she says.
A similar scenario occurs in health centers. If the adult who pays for the child’s care does not like what he or she is hearing, s/he may simply change clinic or healthcare provider. “I worked in a private facility and received what might be called ‘threats,’ especially in cases of sexual abuse and mistreatment. I saw very frightened or openly traumatized children and a lot of uncontrolled parents,” says Felipe Lecannelier. That's when you hear phrases like “let's handle it with care,” “it's better not to know” or “this is not beneficial for anyone,” recalls the psychiatrist.
Although clinics have protocols for handling these cases, pediatrician Fernando Gonzalez, president of the Children's Commission of the Chilean College of Physicians, admits that in the private sector there is a “transactional” relationship that may lead to a conflict of interest with respect to the child’s rights. “The priority should be the minor, but the risk of losing one’s job could push a professional to remain silent and let it slip.”
Gynecologist Andrea von Hoveling believes this scene is slowly changing. “I have felt well supported for filing a report, but I know colleagues from other institutions who have been afraid to talk to their bosses. That barrier must be broken down.”
Schools have also begun to take action on the issue. “They are taking mistreatment seriously and abandoning that view of 'I better not do anything because it's going to be worse or the parent is going to complain' because of the bullying situations. The case of the girl Winter -a student at the Nido de Águilas school who committed suicide in May 2018 at age 16- disrupted them all,” says Francisco Estrada, who says that the 10 top establishments from the ABC1 group have inquired him or other experts to review their coexistence protocols and determine what to do in the event of detecting a violation.
Today, Felipe lives with his father and attends a school near Apoquindo Avenue, where he plays basketball and goes to boy scouts. Although he was only a preschooler at the time, he blames himself for failing to alert the mistreatment he underwent sooner. “It makes me angry. Why didn't I say it sooner? It would have been better if I had said it sooner,” he reflects.
I.M. recalls every time an adult asked him with some concern how he was doing and he replied “fine.” He was sincere: “What was going every day at my house was the usual. It was not a particular experience, but it was just the day to day.” He wouldn't dare to judge anyone for not having done something to protect him.
But Sofia Hales is critical of those professionals who, suspecting a violation, fail to act in time. “Nobody is saying it's easy, but if you're not willing to take risks, don't work with children, because we're their voice, they need us.”