What does a victim require to feel that justice is served? That is a question that everyone feels they have the answer too. But just like offenders, victims are a homogeneous group and have different needs when it comes to the completion of justice. The completion of justice is what it takes to allow the person or entity seeking justice to feel that the balance of life is restored. There are several Fundamentals that are true for all victims of child sexual abuse:
1) They need to feel protected. A child who has been abused has lost trust in the people who were supposed to protect them. They need to be given an opportunity to regain that trust.
2) They need a venue in which to voice their thoughts on what happened to them. They need to feel that they have no reason for shame. If they have guilt or shame about what happened it needs to be dealt with in such a way that it does not follow them to adulthood because by then it will have become something infinitely more difficult to deal with.
My reaching out with this site is part of me trying to do something positive. It is my way of reaching out to victims of all kinds. I want to help in some way. This is part of what is called restorative justice as it means for an offender. For a victim restorative justice is a way to empower them to confront the person who hurt them. This is especially true for the victim of child sexual abuse who may always wonder why someone who most of the time should have been the one protecting them, hurt them. There is also guilt as to the child "telling". They need to hear that the person who hurt them does not hold it against them. This is especially true of a father who hurts his children.
There is a nationwide program called Victim/Offender Mediation. It is a program that is dedicated to empowering victims to confront their offenders in an effort to help them in the completion of justice. Offenders who agree to participate are given extensive training on how their crime affected the victim. It is done in a controlled environment with a mediator. It is intensive and emotional. If you have ever been a victim of child sexual abuse and have never confronted your abuser and think that it would help you in anyway contact your state's victim advocate or go online and type in victim/ offender mediation and your state. I firmly believe that this program can be boon for anyone who has been victimized.
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