Sexual abuse by family members
09.03.2006
It's real and it's happening in homes in our region. Elder abuse, including sexual abuse, is an evil and growing trend. Nathan Crombie reports on the terror some of our older
residents face.
Sons committing incest with their elderly mothers in Wairarapa are part of a silent and increasing pattern of elder abuse across New Zealand, says Heather Evans, regional elder abuse and neglect prevention co-ordinator.
Ms Evans has worked as a social worker out of Turret House Social Services in Featherston for 14 years and first became aware of the incestuous abuse of an elderly Wairarapa woman about two years ago.
Last year Ms Evans became involved with two other similar cases in the region where dependent and vulnerable women were living with their sons in a "miserable and horrifying marriage of inconvenience".
In each case the husbands had died sometime earlier, she said.
"The men are all in their late forties, all white, and all struggling to find work. Two have never married and one has divorced and returned to the family home.
Besides one of the men, known to mental health, and one woman "on the fringes of dementia" the other sons and their mothers seemed of sound mind and intellect, she said.
One of the women was almost 80 years of age and the other two are older again, she said.
"If I know of three cases, how many are out there going completely unreported. There's a definite increasing pattern emerging here in Wairarapa and across the country," she said.
At a national annual meeting of elder abuse prevention officers last year, she said, several regional co-ordinators working throughout New Zealand also confirmed reports of similar cases in their areas.
"There is so much secrecy and shame for these women – they don't want other family members to know what's happening let alone their neighbours and social circles," she said.
"These men are taking their mothers for Sunday drives, getting the groceries, chopping the wood and mowing the lawns. They're also demanding sex and just like when tea's not ready on time, they give their mothers a slap if they say no."
"All these women, as wives, were victims of long-term cycles of domestic violence from their husbands. The sons have simply taken up the baton from their fathers."
None of the cases have been reported to police, Ms Evans said, as each of the women refused to pursue prosecution for fear of their sons being jailed and the upheaval in their lives and living arrangements that may follow.
"One day the man's a bastard – the next he's my baby. These women are terrified of being left on their own or of being abandoned to a nursing home.
"I've not asked them directly about their having sex with their mothers but I have talked about the heavy workloads they're placing on these elderly women.
"They just shrugged their shoulders and grunted," she said.
"All I can do is monitor these women and act in a support role – give advice and help where needed and just show them someone outside the home is still on their side."
Ms Evans said none of the men still live with the women and one of the women had since died of natural causes. The sons of the other two women still regularly visit their mothers.
"Elder abuse of this kind is absolutely shocking and it could be happening right next door to any one of us. It's as appalling as child abuse and very similar in that the victims are vulnerable, weak and helpless," she said.
"There are other types of abuse as well, especially financial abuse, where in almost every case it is being committed within the family by a son or daughter, niece or relative."
Ms Evans also trains nursing home staff from Cape Palliser to Pahiatua in elder abuse prevention. She now has a workload of more than 20 active cases – seven received in the first two months of this year, she said.
"Elder abuse and neglect, and this includes self-neglect, never diminishes. Cases are replaced by others or workloads simply increase."
Most present cases involved financial abuse of the elderly, she said, by family members
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Originally Posted by froggyfrenchman
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