Analysis: Rural women are more likely to face domestic violence or be killed by an intimate partner

Physical and social isolation can keep abused women from 
asking for help. (Getty Images photo via Conversaiton CC)

Not only are rural women more likely to face violence or be killed by a partner, they also face fewer intervention options and stigmas that discourage them from asking for help. Regional acceptance of violence against women, social and physical isolation, and gun ownership can all be contributing factors.

"I analyzed aggregate 1992 to 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey data, and this data conclusively shows that rural women across the U.S. report physical and sexual violence at higher rates than those in more densely populated areas," explains rural violence expert Walter S. DeKeseredy for The Conversation.

While many people may think rural living is safer, for many women, it's often the opposite. "Rural women in the U.S. are more likely to be killed by their current or former male partners compared to their urban and suburban counterparts," DeKeseredy writes. "A study looking at data from 2005 to 2017 across 16 states, for example, found that female homicide rates are higher in rural places."

Why rural women are more at risk for violence is a complex mix of shared misogyny, fewer witnesses, higher gun ownership rates and social stigmas. DeKeseredy writes, "In rural sections of Ohio and other states, as my research uncovered, there is common acceptance of abuse of women. In many rural areas, community norms often prohibit survivors from publicly talking about their experiences and from seeking help."

Gun ownership is more common in rural places, but it has been correlated to "intimate partner violence in rural parts of the U.S.," DeKeseredy explains. "Moreover, firearms are used in 54% of all rural domestic homicides. . . .Gun ownership can create safety concerns for social workers, many of whom work alone."

So far, efforts to prevent violence against rural women has been focused on gun control or firearm background checks. And rural libraries "have proven to be a vital resource in the struggle to end interpersonal forms of abuse of women," DeKeseredy writes. "They are more accessible in many U.S. rural communities than are shelters, public transportation and other services."

Child sex trafficking and abuse ring uncovered in Bibb County, Ala., leaves community stunned

Bibb County, Ala.
(Wikipedia map)

 

After their county sheriff, Jody Wade, announced his office had uncovered an alleged child sex trafficking ring that included at least 10 children ages 3 to 15 years old, residents of Bibb County, Alabama, were at a loss for what to think or do, so they met at a small Presbyterian church and prayed.

"There were Baptists and Methodists and some who claimed no denomination at all, heads bowed and eyes closed in a rare show of interfaith unity amid criminal allegations considered so evil that some openly wondered if Satan himself had taken up residence here," reports Holly Bailey of The Washington Post.

“We can’t assume that just because we’re in small towns that everything operates like it did in the days of ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’” Robert Turner Jr., the district attorney for Alabama’s 4th Judicial Circuit, which includes Bibb County, told WAKA-TV.

The closely-knit rural county was shocked to hear a child sex trafficking ring 
was operating on the outskirts of town. (Ala. Conservation photo)

At the center of the finding was an isolated, underground storm shelter on the "dusty outskirts of Brent, an adjacent town of about 3,000 people located an hour south of Birmingham," Bailey explains. For at least the last three years, children were taken into the bunker and "allegedly drugged and abused in an operation that included sex trafficking [and] torture."

After the bunker was discovered and one of the defendants agreed to cooperate, "seven people were arrested and charged with a laundry list of crimes, including numerous charges of rape, sexual abuse, trafficking and kidnapping," Bailey reports. "The defendants include the parents of at least four victims."

Wade warned the community that the initial "revelations are probably only 'scratching the surface,' with additional victims and more arrests expected," Bailey writes. He told her, “I know God’s forgiveness is boundless, but if there was a limit to it, I think we reached it.

'Culture of silence' envelops sexual abuse of rural kids; training program in Oregon and California seeks change

Photo by Kristina Flour, Unsplash

Wikipedia describes the culture or conspiracy of silence as "the behavior of a group of people of some size, as large as an entire national group or profession or as small as a group of colleagues, that by unspoken consensus does not mention, discuss, or acknowledge a given subject."

Silence can proliferate problems; however, "A program that educates adults in rural Oregon and California about child sexual abuse is increasing the likelihood that victims will get the help and protection they need, according to a new report issued by one of the program’s funders," reports Claire Carlson of The Daily Yonder. "The report, made in collaboration with Oregon State University and the [Oregon-based] Ford Family Foundation, found that adult participants in the Protect Our Children training are three times more likely to know the signs of sexual abuse in children and five times more likely to know how to prevent abuse in their community after taking the training."

Carlson writes, "Protect Our Children participants also reported change in their communities’ norms surrounding conversations about abuse. In the United States, reluctance to discuss the topic creates what the report calls a 'culture of silence' that isolates survivors of child sexual abuse, despite the likelihood that they are surrounded by others with similar experiences. Of the 10,748 program participants who were surveyed for the report, a third said they were survivors of childhood sexual abuse."

“Historically, the topic of sex is taboo, and it’s hard to talk about,” Mary Ratliff, Protect Our Children project director, told Carlson. “The way we talk about child sexual abuse sometimes can inhibit kids from disclosure.” Carlson notes, "This culture is especially prevalent in rural areas, where a 'not in my town' attitude – the perception that small towns are safer – can prevent people from reporting or discussing abuse, according to the nonprofit ValorUS."

"The goal of the Protect Our Children training is to normalize conversations about sex and child sexual abuse. . . The training also encourages conversations among adults regarding child sexual abuse, like asking fellow parents what their closed-door policies are when their child’s friends are over," Carlson reports. "Normalizing those conversations is a key way adults can decrease child sexual abuse, which is usually caused by someone the child already knows, not a stranger, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization."

Carlson notes, "While Oregon has a law that requires child sexual abuse prevention programs to be taught in public schools, nothing exists for adults, even though the program emphasizes that the duty to protect children from sexual abuse lies with adults, not the child." Ratliff told Carlson, "There are tools for kids, but we want to make sure that we instill that responsibility in adults, too. We have to have these conversations and social norms changes and policy changes because that’s what’s going to protect kids everywhere and all the time.”

Misbehaving teachers move from district to district and state to state with relatively little scrutiny

Teachers who have committed sexual misconduct are able to move from district to district and state to state without close checking by school administrators and state governments, and the issue appears to have been widely ignored.

In Kentucky, the Lexington Herald-Leader "found that over a five-year period, the top reason the majority of teachers voluntarily gave up their licenses or had them revoked or suspended was due to sexual misconduct," report the paper's Beth Musgrave and Valarie Honeycutt Spears. Despite some teachers eventually leaving the profession, many are allowed to move to multiple teaching posts without consequences for prior abuse even when the abuse resulted in suspensions.

Take the case of Kentucky teacher Jason Earlywine who was "a physical education and health teacher, was disciplined for sending a student more than 1,700 voice or text messages in 2011 and 2012 and for other inappropriate conduct while a teacher at Paris Independent School District," Musgrave and Spears write. "He eventually left the district and got a job at West Jessamine High School in 2019. Students said in the first several months on the job that Earlywine made inappropriate comments to female students. . . . according to Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board documents."

Kentucky does not have enough prevention policies or training that would help keep possible abusers out of the school system and prevent those that do gain access from traveling from school to school. "Kentucky teachers receive training on sexual harassment but has no requirement that they undergo training on sexual abuse or appropriate boundaries between teachers and students," Musgrave and Spears report. "33 states and the District of Columbia mandate that training."

Kentucky is not alone. Many states that struggle to prevent the hiring or discipline of teachers who act inappropriately with students. In Cabell County, W.Va., a gym teacher faced charges for sexually abusing multiple students. "The alleged incidents happened from August 2019 through January of 2022, according to the criminal complaint," says Eric Fossell for WSAZ-TV. "It also states that an administrator with Cabell County Schools told investigators that Miles had been reprimanded before for similar allegations. That administrator asked Miles in a letter to refrain from 'jovial touching of students' or the matter would be referred to the superintendent."

A Montana school district was sued in 2020, "over its hiring of a teacher and coach who was accused of sending sexual messages to the student," reports The Associated Press. The suit said the teacher "had a pattern of inappropriate behavior toward underaged girls and that the school district was negligent in hiring him. . . . Botsford had been fired from a different high school in 1999 after two girls reported him for inappropriate contact. . . . Centerville Supt. Jan Cahill investigated the reports and found Botsford had 'unethical and immoral relationships' with at least three students, the lawsuit said."

While laws can be passed, it's up to school boards and administrators to set policies and stop abuse. For instance, the Montana legislature passed the "Creating a student safety accountability act" in May of 2019, but it did it keep the teacher from continuing his pattern of abuse.

Nebraska campaign claiming that sex ed 'grooms' kids for pedophiles is a case study in the spread of misinformation

Many conservatives object to comprehensive sex education in public schools, claiming without evidence that it makes children more vulnerable to "grooming" by pedophiles. The notion first gained a foothold in Nebraska last spring when a conservative group helped incite popular opposition to proposed standards for teaching students about issues like consent, gender identity and sexual orientation, Beth Reinhard and Emma Brown report for The Washington Post. 

It's a case study in how misinformation-fueled claims spread when they're not nipped in the bud.  

Retired pediatrician Sue Greenwald led efforts to object to the new standards in Nebraska, co-founding a group called Protect Nebraska Children Coalition to further her cause. "The message also spread through screenings at libraries and churches of 'The Mind Polluters,' billed as an 'investigative documentary' that “shows how the vast majority of America’s public schools are prematurely sexualizing children,'" Reinhard and Brown report. 

"Greenwald and others who have endorsed that claim acknowledged to the Post that there is no scientific body of research that shows such lessons make children more likely to be victimized," Reinhard and Brown report. "The American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics both back a comprehensive approach to sex ed that includes discussions of sexual orientation, contraception and consent. Leading child abuse experts say that arming children with information helps protect them against harm. Nonetheless, the claim that comprehensive sex ed amounts to grooming has simmered on the right for decades, often fanned by Christian conservatives who disapprove of same-sex relationships and favor home schooling and private schools over public education."

Reinhard and Brown continue, "The foundation was laid in part by Judith Reisman, a self-styled expert who opposed gay rights, claimed that gay people are more likely to sexually abuse children, and spent decades trying to discredit pioneering work by the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey."

Objections to comprehensive sex ed—along with accusations that teaching it will groom children for pedophiles—have become inextricably entwined with smears against LGBTQ people. The movement has also brought about explosive political consequences. It "helped activate an army of self-described Nebraska patriots who rose up against the standards, took over the local Republican Party and propelled a wave of far-right candidates for local and statewide school boards, a Post examination found," Reinhard and Brown report. "Earlier this month, these activists were part of a broader, anti-establishment insurgency that toppled leaders of the state Republican Party."

Southern Baptist Convention CEO resigns after committee votes for more transparency in sex-abuse investigation

Ronnie Floyd addresses the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, which he headed. (SBC photo)

"Ronnie Floyd, the acting CEO of the business arm for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, has resigned from his position as head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee after a weeks-long internal battle over how the denomination should handle a sex abuse investigation," Sarah Pulliam Bailey reports for The Washington Post. "Floyd’s resignation comes after weeks of intense debates that played out on Zoom and Twitter over an internal investigation into how the Executive Committee has handled sexual abuse allegations."

The debate centers on a 2019 Houston Chronicle investigation that revealed hundreds of reports of sexual abuse. The SBC has cut ties with churches that hired pastors named in the report and created resources churches can use to help prevent sexual abuse, Bailey reports. But many survivors said the SBC hasn't done enough and must track abusers.

"Delegates to the Southern Baptists’ national meeting in June had approved the independent probe and voted for the committee to waive privilege if asked to do so by the investigating firm. The initial vote to defy their decision upset a huge swath of Southern Baptist leaders and lay members. As the controversy escalated, several church leaders had threatened to withhold funds, angry that the committee did not follow through on the will of the messengers," Bailey reports. "During Executive Committee meetings over the past several weeks, some members argued against waiving attorney-client privilege, which would have given investigators access to records of conversations on legal matters among the committee’s members and staff. They said doing so went against the advice of convention lawyers and could bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits. Some committee members resigned over the issue."

The committee voted against waiving attorney-client privilege on Sept. 21, but passed the measure on Oct. 5. Floyd resigned on Oct. 14 through an open letter and said waiving attorney-client privilege put the SBC at too high a risk of liability. "Several Southern Baptist insiders said Floyd’s resignation was inevitable. Ahead of his resignation, 25 members of the Executive Committee had planned to call a meeting to discuss issues of leadership within the panel, according to a letter shared with The Washington Post," Bailey reports.

SBC President Ed Litton and many others in leadership supported waiving privilege, but Floyd was against it from the start, said committee member Dean Inserra, who also pastors a large Tallahassee church. "He won’t accept any blame whatsoever and has made this about his integrity," Inserra told Bailey. "He could’ve been the leader of doing what the messengers wanted and could’ve been a hero. Since he did not do that, there had to be a grass-roots movement to counter it."