Lincoln Memorial Speech 

written by Kathleen Sullivan, NAFF founder and president 
for the FASCA Rally in Washington DC on 11/14/09 

My name is Kathleen Sullivan. I am a survivor of extreme abuse and a former slave. I am also a clinical social worker. Today, I’m here to represent the North American Freedom Foundation (NAFF), a nonprofit foundation that I started in 1996. At NAFF, our board of directors and other volunteers work together to accomplish three main things:   

I’m here because, like all of today’s speakers, I deeply care about the safety and security of fellow human beings.  I’m also here because there are many other survivors of extreme abuse who are too terrified to speak out. I am here to speak on their behalf.

As I do, I’m going to share some hard truths with you. They’re not going to be tied up with neat, pretty ribbons.  Some of the truths are ugly and some are going to hurt to hear. All I ask is for you to be willing to step outside your comfort zone for the next half hour and just bear with me. I promise you it will be worth the effort. If you find yourself crying, that’s all right. This is the place for it. 

The first truth I want to share with you today is this: because I am a survivor of the most extreme forms of child abuse, the abuse did not stop the day I stepped over the invisible line that legally divides our lives into “minor” on one side and “adult” on the other.  For many victims of extreme abuse, the horror does not magically stop at a certain age. This is because perpetrators, like the dad who raised me, see their human victims as less than human. They see us as things, as commodities to be used, bartered, bought and sold – temporarily or permanently.  As long as a victim is more of an asset than a liability, the victim will not be willingly released from his or her forced servitude. 

Like many other victims, the perpetrators who used me were not about to let me walk away if they could continue to use me to meet their own sick needs or to make more money. I was a thing to them, not a valued fellow human. And this is the most important truth I need to share with you today: they see us as things, not as fellow humans.   

Another truth: many victims of extreme abuse are still being held against their will, even if there are no shackles or prison bars. Although some are kept in cages and tunnels and basements and other physical prisons, the majority are kept in prisons inside their heads. This is why so many of us use the term “mind control” when we refer to the psychological abuse that we’ve endured.

In 1997 during a private interview, an extreme abuse perpetrator bragged to me that he and his business associates figured out that “whoever controls the mind controls the body”. Although you may occasionally see movies and videos about mind control that makes it seem mysterious and high-tech, it’s really nothing new. In fact, those of you who work with victims of domestic violence may understand that there are certain mental control techniques that batterers seem to use out of pure instinct.

I think the only really big change is that some groups of perpetrators have been borrowing brainwashing techniques from the government and, as a result, mind control has now gone mainstream. Here's an example of a commonly used brainwashing technique. How many of you know that one of the most effective ways to control a person’s mind is to first traumatize the person and then say certain phrases that will go deep into the victim’s mind? Perpetrators know this trauma-based mind control technique pretty well now, and I think it’s one reason why we’re getting more reports of perpetrators using victims’ pressure points to cause extreme pain, and then saying certain phrases that the victims have an unusually difficult time getting out of their heads later on.  

I believe widespread knowledge about trauma-based mind control is influencing larger numbers of perpetrators to use stun weapons to torture victims, leaving marks on the victims’ skin that too many investigators don’t know how to look for, or identify. The mainstream use of brainwashing technology is one more reason why we must take extreme abuse victims’ stories seriously and learn from them – so that they can help us help others more effectively.     

Another truth: very few of us truly understand the lasting neurobiological effects of extreme abuse.We’re still learning how the worst forms of abuse and trauma affect victims. One of the most telling signs that a person has experienced extreme abuse is that he or she displays extreme reactions. Three extreme reactions that are quite common in the extreme abuse survivor community are extreme fear and distrust; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).   

Another truth: extreme abuse is our survivor community’s attempt to describe, in just two words, the worst kinds of abuse that humans can perpetrate against each other. Although some of us in the survivor community might like to claim the phrase “extreme abuse” as being specifically about ritual abuse and mind control, I prefer to widen its definition and make it more user-friendly. This is why, at NAFF, we include all extreme forms of human-on-human abuse under the definition, including torture, human slavery, forced participation in pornography and prostitution, kidnapping and illegal incarceration, and group rape.

I have a lot of experience in dealing with extreme abuse, as a survivor of over three decades of extreme abuse and as an advocate for other survivors. Since the early 90s, I’ve communicated with hundreds of survivors of extreme abuse. Every one of them is a walking miracle, regardless of the condition they currently find themselves in.

Because our legal system is not, in general, victim-friendly, many of these victims weren’t able to break away from perpetrators until the victims were in their 30s, 40s and even 50s. Sometimes they just had to wait the perpetrators out; once the perpetrators died, the victims feel safer to try and start new lives.   

Based on what I personally know about perpetrators of extreme abuse, and from the reports I’ve received from other survivors, it seems that most perpetrators are reasonably intelligent. Many of them have degrees. If they are working together as a group, they are much more likely to have financial, technological, commercial, and perhaps political resources to which the victims are not allowed any lasting access.  These perpetrators are more careful to keep victims from talking to outsiders because the perpetrators’ crimes have much harsher legal penalties. 

Fear of victims telling others about the crimes may be one reason why the perpetrators force victims to participate in the perpetrators’ crimes.  My dad and his associates blackmailed me into silence by promising me that if I told what they did, they would tell what I had done.  One of the phrases they said to me after torturing me was, “You do the crime, you do the time.” I didn’t know that there are laws to protect victims who are coerced and blackmailed into participating in crimes. The less victims know about their legal and constitutional rights, they more likely they are to believe the lies the perpetrators have told them. 

Another truth: many perpetrators of extreme abuse are skilled and resourceful sociopaths. They are not the kind of people you are likely to read about in the news because they rarely are caught. And yet, even if this is true, we must not stop working on behalf of their victims. We must understand that if we choose to ignore or minimize the existence of extreme abuse, and if we choose to dismiss victims’ reports, our entire society will pay a very heavy price for our indecision, inaction, and lack of concern.

Even if we cannot do anything substantial to change what is happening in this generation, we can take active steps to make life safer for future generations. This is not unlike joining the environmental “green movement” or planting trees that we may never have the opportunity to enjoy.  This is about stepping outside our own needs and lives, and choosing to make a difference for the future.

What I’d like to do next is give you information from three research studies related to extreme abuse.

Gene Abel, an Atlanta psychiatrist, has worked with sexual offenders for decades.  He has conducted several studies of pedophiles, including The Abel and Harlow Child Molestation Prevention Study (http://www.yellodyno.com/pdf/Child_Molestation_Prevention_Study.pdf). This is what I want to share with you from his study of 2,429 male pedophiles:  

These statistics confirm one of my biggest ongoing concerns: I fear that we will pay a very high price if we continue to ignore reports of extreme abuse. I believe that at least some of the children who are experiencing extreme abuse today are likely to become members of our next generation of hardened perpetrators. In fact, the increase in the number of extreme abuse victims in the next few generations could be exponential.

Is this a judgment statement against victims of extreme abuse? Absolutely not. They cannot be blamed for having been severely abused. If they do not have access to the help, power, and resources they require to extract themselves and change their lives for the better, I believe our society must bear part of the responsibility for the crimes they may eventually commit against us and future generations.

In other words, it may be time for our society to adopt a practical new attitude: “The buck stops here. Right now. With me.”        

One technique that more investigators and concerned citizens are using, is to follow the money trail. Although it’s very human and noble to feel strong emotions about extreme abuse, we must force ourselves to use the logical part of our brain if we want to fight big-money extreme abuse operations more successfully.

In the late 90s, a private investigator told me that I need to understand that the bottom line in organized extreme abuse is money. He said that if I do not understand this truth, I’ll never be effective in speaking out against it. He explained that we will be much more effective in shutting down organized extreme abuse operations, and therefore helping the victims, if we stay out of our hearts and get more in our heads, and follow the money trail and use it to find the source of the business operations and then shut the operations down. We need to make child pornography, prostitution and trafficking such a liability that they won’t be worth doing as a business, anymore.   

In 1996, the first World Congress against Commercial Exploitation of Children met in Stockholm, Sweden. During that conference, they defined Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) as “the use of a child for sexual purposes in exchange for cash or in-kind favours between customer, intermediary or agent and others who profit from the trade in children for these purposes”.  (http://www.csecworldcongress.org/PDF/en/Stockholm/Background_reading/Theme_papers/Theme%20paper%20Health%201996_EN.pdf)

Five years later, in 2001, Dr. Richard Estes at the University of Pennsylvania released the results of his Social Work Department’s study, The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico (http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/~restes/CSEC.htm). That study provided a more expanded working definition of CSEC:     

        [CSEC] involves CSE [that is done] primarily or entirely for financial or other economic reasons. 
        The economic exchanges involved in the CSEC may be either monetary or non-monetary (i.e., 
        for food, shelter, drugs) in nature but, in every case, involves maximum benefits to the exploiter
        and an abrogation of the basic rights, dignity, autonomy, physical and mental well-being of the 
        children involved (ala Hughes, 1999).

In April 2004 The Source Magazine reported, “According to the CIA, 200,000 children are trafficked as slaves inside the U.S." More recently, Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, stated that 100,000 children are “involved in sex trafficking in the U.S.” Even if there has been a significant decrease in the number we still have a significant and disturbing flow of child sexual trafficking in the U.S. 100,000 victims is 100,000 too many.

There is one more reason why we need to take adult survivors of extreme abuse more seriously and provide them with more solid support and protection: they know about who is doing what to whom, and where, and how. But this isn’t happening…at least not yet. Why?

I am not using these statements to suggest that most judges and police officers and politicians in North America are involved in CSEC and related crimes. They are not.  And yet, I cannot ignore my own history, nor can I downplay reports I’ve received from numerous survivors of extreme abuse who stated that they were forced to “sexually service” law enforcement personnel, businessmen and women, politicians, religious leaders, and other adults who held prominent positions locally and even in Washington, DC.  For these and other reasons, I believe that until we are willing to accept that major corruption occurs in this country, we will never understand how difficult it is to discover and successfully prosecute the most serious forms of human rights violations that are being perpetrated by organized groups of criminals.  

I am convinced that the organized resistance of perpetrators of CSEC also contributes to the ongoing refusal of the U.S. to ratify the United Nations' 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is a great source of shame for our country. Thus far, 193 member countries have ratified the Convention - including Iran and Saudi Arabia. The only other member country that still refuses to ratify the Convention is Somalia.  

The ongoing campaign of corruption here in the U.S. frightens and intimidates extreme abuse survivors most of all. It’s terribly sad that we should experience this kind of fear and terror as citizens in this country. Most of us who have told "outsiders" about our abuse histories have subsequently been retaliated against in awful and personal ways by the perpetrators. A common report from survivors is that when they go to the local police, either their statements and supporting documentation are not taken seriously and they are told to get psychiatric help; or, their statements are taken seriously and then someone reports back to the perpetrators and the survivor is retaliated against for breaking silence. 

Lack of protection is perhaps the number one reason why most of us choose to remain silent about what we have suffered. There can be a hundred good police officers and DAs and judges...but all it takes is one perpetrator in the wrong position who finds out what we’ve reported, and we’re in danger again. A related problem is that perpetrators of organized crime can usually afford to hire top-notch attorneys and other legal counsel, whereas most survivors of extreme abuse cannot afford to take civil legal action to protect ourselves from those who continue to harm and terrorize us.    

Based on what I've been told by private investigators and law enforcement personnel, I believe that even if the authorities do act on what we report to them, investigating these kinds of crimes is often dangerous and dirty work. I've received reports of in-house ostracism and harassment, transfers and demotions, and more. Although I understand the risks that law enforcement personnel take whenever they act on our reports, we must remember that when an extreme abuse survivor’s information is not properly investigated, our collective inaction may enable legitimate perpetrators to continue harming victims in terrible ways.   

Several weeks ago, I read a CBS News article (http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/23/
crimesider/entry5413428.shtml) about the hard and dirty work that investigators from Florida had to do, to find the body of a seven-year-old girl who had been reported missing.  They “tailed nine garbage trucks” from her neighborhood to a “Georgia landfill and then picked through...more than 225 tons of garbage before the little girl’s body was found”. Later, a sheriff said that had the investigators not taken these extraordinary measures, the girl's body “'would have been buried beneath hundreds of tons of debris, probably would have gone undiscovered forever’”.

Perhaps one of the reasons the investigators' determined actions affected me so deeply was that they understood how important it was for them to do whatever it would take to find the body so that the perpetrator would be caught, and wouldn’t be able to harm more innocents. I’m deeply grateful for their selfless actions, and for their superiors' willingness to authorize them to act.  

I look forward to the day when more law enforcement officials, who receive reports from extreme abuse survivors, will choose to act on our reports with the same diligence and commitment. Until that day comes, too many hardcore perpetrators, and groups of perpetrators, will continue to harm multiple victims in horrific ways.   

It has taken the extreme abuse community a long time to gather our voices and strength. Many of us do not yet have the resources to join together, to speak out, to make a difference for other victims. This is, in part, because most survivors have limited resources.  After all, a common tactic of perpetrators is to keep victims dependent on them for survival. Leaving the perpetrators is not unlike leaving a controlling cult; sometimes the former member must be willing to lose literally everything and everyone to go free. This is one reason why some victims of extreme abuse end up selling their bodies on the streets when they try to break free: prostitution may be only skill they’ve learned that can help them to survive on their own. 

Another truth: extreme abuse survivors who have been tortured cannot even receive the same rehabilitative aid from our government that’s provided to torture survivors from other countries. Although the 1998 U.S. Torture Victims Relief Act authorizes free specialized services for survivors of torture who are refugees from other countries, it doesn’t authorize the same services for citizens tortured in the U.S.  

It’s so disheartening to be abused in the worst imaginable ways by groups of perpetrators in this country and then, if we do find a way to break free and seek help, we discover that our current legal system is dangerously ineffective. This is one of the biggest reasons why some survivors of extreme abuse give up and go back to the perpetrators, even though they know they will be tortured – or worse – to punish them for having left the perpetrators. I think it’s a testament to the incredible strength of survivors that more of them don’t go back. Instead, they struggle with many hardships to gain more independence. 

Most survivors now live in silence. A few choose to tell about what we know. And yet, whether we stay silent or speak out, we remain unprotected and are at serious risk of being harmed or terrorized again. This is because the perpetrators, who view us as commodities, traditionally lose face with each other when they lose control of their victims. And of course, whenever we break away from their control, we set an unwelcome example for their other victims.   

Whenever survivors decide to speak out, we understand that we’re automatically increasing the odds that we or our loved ones will be hurt again, and perhaps killed. We know, better than anybody, what we’re up against. Each time we’re retaliated against for speaking out, we have to make the same decision: is it time for me to be silent...or should I risk being hurt again?  Because this decision is never easy, I have just as much respect for survivors who choose silence as I do for those who choose to speak out again. 

I still think the worst part for those of us who are outspoken, is the social isolation. Although there are wonderful exceptions among us, most of us aren’t good at participating in pleasant, light, news/weather/sports conversations when we’re privately wondering who’s being tortured or raped or murdered today, and when we can expect the next assault on our own person. 

It’s hard to be an extreme abuse survivor, knowing what we know. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Unless we have some kind of support network or system already in place outside the organized crime system, we have nobody we can go to who can help us feel safe, wanted, and valued as a human being. I am not aware of any established support network or system, outside our own limited community, that is safe and helpful. Even though some of us connect with each other at occasional conferences and workshops and through the Internet, we are generally left to fend for ourselves in a world that is easy to perceive as threatening, unwelcoming and hostile.   

And still, some of us choose to speak out on behalf of those who are unable or unwilling to. We do it because they are our brothers and sisters, and we love them. And we continue to fight the good fight because there so many other victims out there - children, teens and adults - whose names we may never know, whose faces we may never see, who are being harmed in terrible ways even as I speak these words to you in this beautiful, safe place. Can we please have a moment of silence to honor and pray for them, right now?    

(Moment of silence)

In closing, I’d like to share about the international Extreme Abuse Survey (http://extreme-abuse-survey.net/).  I have great respect for the survey’s developers - Wanda Karriker, Thorsten Becker, Bettina Overcamp, and Carol Rutz – because they chose to do the survey, despite knowing they might incur the wrath of the multibillion dollar CSEC organized crime industry.  

Thus far, over 2000 survivors, professionals, and caregivers for victimized children have participated from over 40 countries during the first three parts of the survey. The Extreme Abuse Survey will undoubtedly go down in history as the first study to empirically measure the experiences of a large number of survivors of extreme abuse. Already, the results have become a major source of validation for an untold number of survivors who have experienced – some for decades – a private hell that no one should ever have to experience.

I’d like to end with a quote from an article, Survivors of Extreme Abuse: The Awful Rowing Toward Social Emancipation (http://akaunk.wordpress.com/). This article provides an accurate overview of the difficulties the extreme abuse survivor community has experienced, here in North America.

Survivors have an invaluable gift to share with society: intimate knowledge of crimes perpetrated in their midst, and the criminals who committed them. Their knowledge and insight could theoretically lift the great rock of our cultural denial and officially sanctioned version of reality, and expose the dark and dangerous world of child, drug and arms traffickers, rapists, child pornographers, serial killers, cults, secret societies and government corruption. And that exposure would surely mark the beginning of the end of the widespread abuses that plague our society now.

But that doesn’t happen.

My only disagreement is with the last sentence. I believe that if we’re looking for sudden and large changes to signal to us that the beginning of the end is occurring; then no, we will not recognize that it’s happening. But just as it has taken many generations for the public to acknowledge the existence of domestic violence and child sexual abuse and then work to make life safer for women and children; perhaps it will take several more generations before we witness a similar public recognition and support for victims and survivors of extreme abuse.

Although some survivors have understandably lost their faith in most of humanity, and although some believe that our society will never become safer and more welcoming towards them, I believe that it can and will. I believe that every time a group of people comes together to hear very hard truths and embrace them in their hearts, they have already begun to improve the world in significant ways…starting in their own selves.  And I believe it’s happening again today.

On behalf of the extreme abuse survivor community, I want to thank you for being here today. I thank you for caring, for giving of your time, for being willing to hear hard truths, and for choosing to grow and heal. 

Thank you.  Namaste.

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TENNESSEE

Catholic Charities of East Tennessee, Inc.
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Stop Abuse for
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Stop It Now!
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Suicide Prevention
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Virtual Global Task Force (VGT)
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CANADA  

Abuse
Consultants
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Centre for Treatment of Sexual Abuse & Childhood Trauma
Serves Ottawa-Carleton 
613-233-4929

Hot Peach
Pages - Canada  
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Kids' Help Phone
National phone counselling svc. for children and youths
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Stop Abuse for
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Telecare Distress
Centre
Confidential 24-hour crisis and befriending phone support line:
(905) 459-7777
(Not toll-free)
Email address: telecare@on.aibn.com

Victims of Violence
For victims of violent crime - Ottawa, Ontario
(613) 233-0052
vofv@victimsofviolence.
on.ca

Virtual Global Task Force (VGT)
"...made up of police forces from around the world working together to fight online child abuse."

Many more helpful contacts are listed on NAFF's Recovery Resources and More Resources  web pages.

Every day around the world, and even here in the United States, children are sold into virtual slavery or traffic for the worst forms of sexual abuse -  President Bill Clinton, U.N. Protocol Orders Signing Ceremony July 5, 2000.

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