After TLC star Josh Duggar was accused of sexually abusing his young sisters, his parents said their son had repented for his “very bad mistakes.” But those who have been through similar experiences say what happened to them was much more than that.
The Duggar family.
Facebook: duggarfamilyofficial
When Rebecca Trovitch was about 8 years old, her 12-year-old brother began coming into her room at night and sexually assaulting her. The abuse continued for about a year, but she never told a soul.
For the next few decades, the secret of what happened ate away at her. It wasn't until Trovitch told a therapist about the abuse three years ago that she finally felt some relief.
"This has been the first time in my entire adult life that I didn't think about it every single day," Trovitch, now 39, told BuzzFeed News.
Stories like Trovitch's are sadly much more common than many people realize. Evidence suggests that one is more likely to be sexually abused by a sibling than a parent.
"It is estimated that between 40% and 60% of intrafamilial sexual abuse occurs between people from the same generation," John Caffaro, a professor at the California School of Professional Psychology and the author of Sibling Abuse Trauma, told BuzzFeed News. "Estimates are that approximately half of all adolescent-perpetrated offenses involve a sibling."
The issue of sibling sexual abuse was thrown into the national spotlight last week after allegations emerged against Josh Duggar, who stars with his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, and the rest of his family on the TLC show 19 Kids and Counting.
Josh Duggar and his wife Anna.
According to a police report obtained by InTouch Magazine, Josh was accused of sexually assaulting five female minors, including some of his younger sisters, when he was 14. He allegedly did so while the girls were both asleep and awake.
Duggar, now 27, released a statement on Thursday along with his parents and wife Anna in which he admitted to behaving "inexcusably" and said he has apologized and received counseling.
"I sought forgiveness from those I had wronged and asked Christ to forgive me and come into my life," the father of three wrote. "I would do anything to go back to those teen years and take different actions."
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar said that their son "made some very bad mistakes."
"We had tried to teach him right from wrong… We pray that as people watch our lives they see that we are not a perfect family," they wrote.
Abuse survivors and experts told BuzzFeed News the Duggars' description of the abuse as a "mistake" diminishes both the effect on victims and the seriousness of the crime.
"I wouldn't say it's a mistake, I would say it's sexual abuse, something that is such a serious crime," one survivor of sibling sexual assault, who wished to remain anonymous, told BuzzFeed News. "You say, oops I dropped my coffee, that's a mistake."
Professor Caffaro agreed, telling BuzzFeed News that the incidents described in the allegations against Josh Duggar are "clearly more than a 'mistake.'"
"[The abuse] potentially signals the presence of individual psychopathology, developmental trauma, and significant family dysfunction," he said.
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