Persecuting Athena

Persecuting Athena is the true story of a sexual assault survivor. This story is told from my perspective, as the mother of a beautiful, caring and honest child who becomes irreparably damaged: first as the result of being raped by a boy she thought was a friend, and then repeatedly by the police and the legal system my family once believed in.

There is a silent epidemic in North America, it is the rape of teen-age girls by boys they know, and very often trust. It is not the dark alley and strangers that you need to fear most for your child. According to familytimeccc.org/sexual-assaults, eighty two percent of sexual assault victims know their assailant. By the time your daughter is eighteen years old, she has a one in four chance of having been sexually assaulted (Copyright 2012 Rape Victim's Support Network @www.assaultcare.ca). And shockingly, eleven percent of those victims will be under the age of eleven at the time they are assaulted (©Canadian Women's Foundation @ www.canadianwomen.org/facts-about-violence).

A report from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Profile Series on Sexual Assault in Canada 2004 and 2007 (Catalogue no. 85F0033M-No.19 ISSN 1496-4562, ISBN 978-1-100-11163-6) states that “about" one in ten sexual assaults are reported to police.

Following my daughter's rape, I learned that there were three other reported rapes at her school in the same year. This school had a student population of less than one thousand.

If statistics are correct–and according to all other research, a ten percent reporting rate for sexual assault is very high–there were at least forty young women in one year at this small high school who were sexually assaulted. And sadly, this is not an unusual school; similar rates of sexual assault occur all over North America.

Yet the treatment my child and my family suffered at the hands of police and the legal system was unfathomable. Prior to experiencing profound disrespect, intentional humiliation, and complete disregard for the wellbeing of a child, I would not have believed this would both happen, and be condoned in Canada. This lack of ethics, professionalism, and integrity began with the police, and remained constant throughout the entire legal system up to and including the Justice Department. The legal system not only failed my daughter, but actively tried to destroy her for seeking justice.

The effects of sexual assault are more profound than I could ever have imagined. Rape does not just steal the victim's body; it destroys the victim's soul. When atrocities provided by police and the legal system are added, the very survival of the victim is at risk. For several years I did not know if my daughter would survive this ordeal, and it was treatment by police and the legal system that pushed her close to suicide. While rape is horrendous, being raped repeatedly by the people you believed in, and believed were there to save you, is beyond what many of us can emotionally deal with. If those who are there to save us actually persecute us instead, our faith in God, and all people is irreparably destroyed.

Finally, I write this book in an attempt to change societal attitudes. Sexual assault is one of the last taboos of our culture. Topics that were once never mentioned in polite society are now openly discussed and accepted. But mention that you have been raped, and one of two things will happen. Either the room will clear, or the victim will be scoffed at and bullied. The victim soon learns that speaking of the assault is socially unacceptable, which leads to feelings of isolation and shame for something they had absolutely no control over. We have cultural traditions that teach us what to do when there is illness or death in a family. We have no guidelines to tell us how to provide comfort in the case of a rape. Yet because the incidence of rape is so out of control, we are in contact every day with women and girls who are victims of this crime, and we are unlikely to even know it.

It is time to demand that society and government take the lives of our daughters seriously. The one very sad truth I have learned is that in Canada we are only minimally better than the countries we see on the news who place no value on the lives of women.

From Chapter One,
Ground Zero:

It was early fall. Athena was attending the same rural high school she had attended the previous year. She loved to be physically active, and was enrolled in a Physical Education class. On this particular day, the class was practicing soccer skills outside. Running after the soccer ball, Athena and another girl collided. Athena lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital. She was diagnosed with a concussion, a broken nose, and a sprained jaw. She was told to ice her nose, and sent home.

After two weeks of massive headaches, Athena returned to school to find her entire world changed. She had gotten behind during the time she was away, and was expected to compete with other students for the limited academic help. She had never been assertive, let alone aggressive, and was rarely successful in this competition. She suddenly found herself unable to concentrate, and could not remember even the simplest steps. Literally overnight she went from being a top student to struggling. She failed math, with a final mark of forty-six percent.

Her father and I met with the math teacher, the special education teacher and the principal. They were completely unwilling to compromise, and were not willing to factor in consideration for the injury she suffered. She was told she would have to repeat the math course. Although her grades in other courses also showed marked decreases, she managed to pass them, but with far less than her previous honour student marks.

With the same suddenness, Athena began to have social issues, and seemed unable to accurately read, or deal with social situations. Immediately following the injury, she became unable to comprehend innuendos, and the subtleties of words and comments. She lost the ability to assess the world around her in a way that made her seem even more naive. Almost immediately she became the focus of a group of nasty, mainly female, bullies. She was diagnosed with depression.

By Christmas Athena was in counselling and on antidepressants. She managed to maintain a few friendships, but was no longer comfortable and confident around the big group she once had been so much a part of. She felt isolated and very alone.

As parents, we struggled to determine what was at the root of her sudden academic and social problems. Athena had been diagnosed as an intellectually gifted student in grade seven. The tests completed at that time would serve as a baseline to compare the results of new tests against her original test scores. I made an appointment to have her retested. The testing took two days; the results would take some months to be analyzed.

Between being bullied and not getting the support she needed to achieve, Athena began to dread school. She began to talk about transferring to a different high school, in a town called Rivertown. Initially, her father and I were against this move, but when the situation continued to deteriorate I visited the Rivertown high school with the intention of just 'checking it out'. I learned that Rivertown high offered a program that would enable Athena to recover the areas of math she failed, without re-taking the entire course. The staff seemed very accommodating, and she would be away from the bullies. I decided on the spot. We would enroll her at Rivertown starting the next semester.

Athena was elated; happier than she had been in months. The new school was bigger and offered more choice of courses. It had a better reputation. Athena had a couple of acquaintances at the new school. One of which, within the first two weeks, would change her life forever.