At last week’s Zero Abuse Project conference we learned that most people don’t disclose sexual abuse or other maltreatment by trusted adults until they are over fifty.
Yet in Minnesota we require child victims of maltreatment to reveal their abuse in front of people who are allegedly hurting them today.
We won’t try to change this practice legislatively in 2019, partly because of County concerns and partly because African American professionals say that, based on experiences with their own children in school and elsewhere, child interviews could be influenced by racial bias and not produce facts anyway.
Before proceeding, we need to build a process that is trusted. This will take training and time.
Ultimately however we must discontinue this traumatizing practice and start interviewing child victims separately from adults.