Sir, - It was with considerable disappointment that I listened to the contributions of President McAleese, Ms Olive Braiden and Ms Ivana Bacik at a conference last Friday at Dublin Castle to present the findings of the research study "The Legal Process and Victims of Rape".
Some time ago I myself went public about the sexual abuse I endured at the hands of Fr Ivan Payne and this decision apparently played a part in helping eight other people to take various courses of action and seek help about their own experiences with the same priest. It is my hope that others, men and women, who have either been sexually abused as children or raped as adults, will take encouragement from my decision and gain some strength from seeing at least one person prepared to be identified publicly as a survivor of sexual abuse and being seen to take control of the situation, identify the abuser, and put the guilt back where it belongs. All of these steps have been vital in my own recovery.
I readily agreed to take part in the research for this report by relating my own experience of the legal process to Catherine Maunsell, one of the authors of the report. On arrival at the conference I was informed that out of the five countries which had been studied closely, I was the only male survivor of abuse who had contributed to the report. What had been done with my contribution? It had been left out and the entire report was based on the experiences of women only.
To add insult to injury, almost all of the language throughout the report refers only to women, and sadly the speeches referred only to the "courage of the women" and "women being given a voice in the report". Is this the way to encourage all survivors of rape and sexual abuse to embrace recovery? Is it surprising that men find it difficult to talk about their experiences and seek help ? If anything, this report and conference should have drawn attention to this problem; instead it was decided to ignore the one male contribution.
I listened to President McAleese's speech and Olive Braiden's comments and then heard as much of Ivana Bacik's contribution as I could take before concluding there was no place for a male survivor of sexual abuse at this conference. Given that the Rape Crisis Centre has played such a substantial role in both the conference and the report, I don't see any place for the male survivor there either. - Yours, etc., Andrew Madden,
Mountpleasant Avenue Upper,
Dublin 6.