It’s no surprise that thousands of children are abused around the world every day. In fact, the number keeps rising each year because the advancement of communication and technology has also put the children under increased vulnerability towards sex offenders and criminals. Additionally, of all the crimes that infest humanity, it is those that are directed at children that gain attention and scrutiny the most. Thus, anyone who is found to have sexually abused a child is cursed and persecuted by society. But what about those falsely accused?
False allegations are a sad fact. Just like the trauma and pain experienced by child victims, victims of false accusations are also subjected to injustice, pain, and lifetime suffering.
In 2008, a man was released in prison after serving twelve years. He was supposed to serve a life sentence but was eventually liberated because of a new break in his case. Some few years back, he was accused and convicted of sexually abusing a then 3-year old girl. The facts relating to the case were a bit sketchy at the time of the trial and there was no trace of physical evidence. Nevertheless, he was convicted primarily due to the public outcry. The alleged abuse happened in a small farming town. But when it was revealed later that the victim admitted that she was actually forced to make up the abuse story, the years of imprisonment and the emotional and psychological torture attached to it will never cease to exist in the person of the one wrongly accused of the crime. Although the man is now literally free, the freedom from the trauma of the experience is almost impossible to attain.
Coercion is just one way of forcing a child to lie about sexual abuse. There are other reasons why children make up stories that they have been abused. But one thing is for sure, this trend must be stopped or many more people will become victims of false allegations themselves.
There are several motivational factors for manipulating a child to make false accusations. One of them is revenge. There are several instances where a person seeks revenge by using a child to accuse another person of sexual abuse. Usually, the child is close to that person and the accusation is supported by a fabrication of a series of false and unreal events. Another trigger is emotional revenge because of a failed marriage or relationship. Women who separate from their husbands frequently use child sex abuse allegations against the husband in order to gain leverage in future custody battles. Lastly, the most commonly driven factor is extortion. In this case, perhaps a group of persons or a syndicate uses a child or a number of children to accuse a prominent and rich individual of child molestation. The purpose of course is to extort money from the victim.
So these are the reasons why children lie about being sexually abused or molested. False allegations are somehow equally alarming to that of real cases of children abused. The biggest issue here is the tendency of the criminal justice system in favoring the accuser and prematurely labeling the accused as being guilty even without any proof or evidence.