To: Mr. Kenneth Roth Executive Director, Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org April 30, 2003 Dear Mr. Roth: In the cause of human rights, I would like to ask you for help to address the largest human suffering, nowhere mentioned by law, still denied by society and ignored by governments. This large number of people I am speaking of are adults who were abused as children. Although they are among us, they are forced to function on a daily basis while living in fear and depression as a result of post-traumatic stress disorders. They have no source of support and no clear laws to assist them. The first time we pay attention to them (as a society) is when their dysfunction becomes visible, that is, when they themselves become abusers. Then they finally get our full attention when they commit a crime: rather than treat their condition, we pay heavily for their incarceration. The problem is that although in certain countries childhood abuse is a crime, that crime and its victim cease to exist legally as soon as they are adults. Psychologically and physically abused in childhood, this group of traumatized adults are abandoned by law and ignored by society while they continue their suffering. How many adults abused as children are around the world is the question we ask on our website? Since 1995, all my attempts to bring awareness that child-abuse exists exactly because the crime is committed by adults who were also abused in childhood, have been ignored by governments and the media. In spite of documentation by leading experts and scientific researchers around the globe, stating that child abuse inflicts long-lasting mental harm such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and other disorders, and that experienced trauma exposes it self later, in adulthood, no action to address this fact has been undertaken. Every adult who experienced childhood trauma and never had a chance to address that early pain (inflicted by abuse) in psychological counseling, is to a certain degree a dysfunctional adult. If these dysfunctional adults are at the child-rearing age, the pattern of violent childhood-imprint from their own childhoods will repeat itself, and another generation of children will be abused... and consequently become yet another generation of adults abused as children. I know the issue is complex and needs to be explained in detail. I am willing to undertake this in a detailed report. An overview of this information will be soon published on my website, Adults Abused as Children Worldwide www.aaacworld.org under the link, About us/Introduction. The evidence missing to complete my work has to do with the gathering of the existing laws or more likely, the lack of laws internationally, as well as localized perceptions of exactly what constitutes child abuse. These are the points of question in my research: 1. What other possibility, besides a civil law suit, has the adult (abused in childhood) who would like to report a personal experience of child abuse, years after the fact? 2. What is the Statute of Limitations for reporting child abuse in each of the countries mentioned on this website? 3. Is there any country, besides Ireland, that recognizes in criminal court the adult abused as a child, that acknowledges the psychological and physical harm experienced as a child? 4. Which countries regard childhood abuse as a criminal act at all times and recognize no statute of limitations? To stop violence around the world we must start with the individual, the ones who are violent, support and teach violence. Every valid attempt to bring change starts always with non-judgmental awareness and by supporting and educating the individual human being with provided worldwide unified defined guidelines for, “What is Abuse”. My request for help to you is to assist in confirming or correcting my finding that there is no criminal law that protects the adult abused in childhood. Sincerely, Sieglinde W. Alexander www.aaacworld.org

www.aaacworld.org

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