Making up for lost time

A community responds to ritual abuse

Page 10

They came from across Canada, in the cold of late January: Survivors of residential school abuse, cult abuse, child sexual assault and ritual torture. They came to share their pain, and offer support to each other, at a conference held in Thunder Bay, Ont.

Ritual abuse is a combination of severe physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse used systematically and in combination with symbols, ceremonies and/or groups activities that have a religious, magical or supernatural connotation. Victims are terrorized into silence by repetitive torture over time.

The Stone Angels are a group of women in Thunder Bay who have come to know each other because of the shared childhood experience of ritual abuse. They are committed to bringing ritual abuse out of the darkness of fear and silence, and into the light of knowing, and community healing.

The workshop was sponsored by the Faye Peterson Transition House, a crisis home in Thunder Bay.

"Women and children who access our services are supervisors of every type of abuse: physical, emotional, sexual, financial, childhood sexual and ritual abuse," said Peterson chairperson Nancy Lynch.

Stone Angels spokesperson Lynne Moss-Sharman said the core group is based

in Thunder Bay, but their networking has brought them into contact with abuse survivors throughout northwestern Ontario, Canada, and as far away as Britain and Australia.

"Also, we must ensure that proper training is provided for service providers, including Native crisis and support workers."

After Moss-Sharman wrote an article for the Globe and Mail, she began receiving

letters and calls from other survivors. As well, through word-of-mouth and from local service providers, more and more survivors contacted her.

She hopes the group will sponsor another workshop later this year, and is pushing for a provincial task force to investigate ritual abuse.

"In the meantime, we try and help survivors. The impact on survivors' lives must be done in the context of transition houses and abuse centres."

Among those she's spoken with are Micmac survivors from the Maritimes and Ojibway-Cree survivors. These included some who were subjected to the infamous electric chair at the Fort Albany residential school, where children were put into a converted barber chair and told they were getting a haircut; instead they were subjected to electric shock.

Among the conference speakers was Dr. Louis Million, co-author of Breaking The Silence, the Assembly of First Nations Report on abuse/torture in residential schools. A psychologist and therapist, Dr. Million has worked extensively in the addiction field, and with many abuse survivors.

"Ritual abuse is not a term that has been generally used in Native communities up to this time; it has been more intergenerational abuse, or family violence," she said. "It's important that they are brining survivors together to help themselves and one another. I support this conference 100 per cent."

"If people want to talk about their experiences, loss of language, loss of parentcy for instance, at the residential schools, it's important that they talk to one a another." Million said. "The pain must come out - it's the way to healing for wounded children and adults, the way to recovery and health."

Sam is a ritual abuse survivor who attended residential school in McIntosh, near Kenora, Ont. and later in Fort Albany, near James Bay. He spent four years in the schools.

"My older brothers and sisters didn't allow my parents to send me until I was 10," he explained. With a limited English vocabulary, and separated from his older siblings, he found the loneliness and separation from his family truly terrible.

He noted that the remote communities which had residential schools were separated by religion as well as distance.

"For Albany was a Roman Catholic place, but there were Anglican towns, and others."

Abused by a Christian Brother at Fort Albany, Sam elt he was truly isolated from everyone and everything.

"I thought I was the only victim."

He found it difficult to express his feelings.

"It was easier to hide them; I suppressed the memory of those times for many years."

He refused to return to school, and in order to find his roots, he began working at home.

"I was searching for something. I learned about my responsibilities to my family.

I learned respect for the Elders in my community, and for my own culture.

Despite many problems, he has remained married to his wife Martha for 22 years.

"I find that today there is little commitment to family," he said.

Three years ago, Sam went to a treatment centre and began to search for the answers to his problems, and the source of a terrible anger he felt inside himself.

"I had to let go of the anger so I could learn to grow."

He listened to the Elders, and now travels and works as he continues to seek help for himself, while working with others to help them.

"The answers are all within me, and they are starting to surface as I work through levels and steps. What I tell people comes from the heart, from my own experiences."

He works in 10 communities, as director of social programs for the Tribal Council based in Longlac, in northern Ontario.

"In my own small way, I work with people; it's very important that I share the knowledge I've gained with others."