Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Survivors of sexual abuse want to show other victims that they're not alone.
Siblings Ben Glade and Annaka Vimahi hope to encourage other survivors to talk about their abuse. Both said their psychologist abused them when Glade was 5 years old and Vimahi was 9 years old.
The two started a blog detailing their story and have launched Survivors Are to give a face or faces to the very personal childhood trauma they both experienced.
“We always knew we wanted to do something, and we got a huge response to that,” said Vimahi. “Mostly privately, people opening up to us.”
Glade said their first blog was their own personal story of childhood sexual abuse.
“The blog provides an additional space where people can feel safe,” said Glade. “We have therapy, we have the police, we have different avenues for healing.”
The siblings want survivors of child sex abuse to know that “survivors are everywhere; they are just your average everyday person,” said Vimahi.
Both said survivors have different progressions of healing and need resources.
“We can be a news reporter, a CEO, and there’s a lot of schooling and training for how to do those things,” said Glade. “But the identity of a survivor is a very isolated identity that not a lot of people are comfortable being.”
Glade said as survivors work to accept that identity through community support and most of all dialogue, then that identity can unite survivors and family members of survivors.
“We have to bring it out into the open and get comfortable about talking about being survivors,” said Vimahi. “And that part of the healing process, which takes away the shame."
Another sibling group also launched a child sexual abuse awareness campaign Tuesday.
We can be a news reporter, a CEO, and there's a lot of schooling and training for how to do those things. But the identity of a survivor is a very isolated identity that not a lot of people are comfortable being.
–Ben Glade
Deondra and Desirae Brown of the musical group The 5 Browns say it takes a lot of courage for child victims to report abuse. On the state campaign website One With Courage Utah, the siblings discuss the abuse suffered at the hands of “a man we trusted, a man we loved, a man who should’ve been our protector — our father.”
“Now you know our story,” the Brown siblings profess in the online campaign video, as they urged others to help victims tell their stories.
“In Utah, thousands of children are sexually abused every year but only a handful will speak up. It's never too late to come forward or take a stand for those who can't.”
Deondra and Desirae Brown also encouraged adults to learn the signs of abuse and to report abuse when it is suspected.
The awareness video campaign launch was in conjunction with the Utah Attorney General’s Children’s Justice Center (CJC), Utah’s Department of Human Services' Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and local survivors. Attorney General Sean Reyes introduced the campaign at the Megaplex Theatres at Jordan Commons in Sandy Tuesday morning.
A press release from Reyes’ office said that the ‘One With Courage Utah’ campaign is a local movement created in correlation with a national initiative to raise awareness about child sexual abuse while highlighting the unique role of Children’s Justice Centers in bringing partner agencies together and providing services.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted before they reach the age of 18. Perpetrators often consist of family members, friends and acquaintances. It is estimated that over 90 percent of child sexual assault victims know their perpetrators, and most of these children do not disclose abuse until adulthood, if ever.
“Child sexual abuse is a crime of silence that thrives because not only the perpetrator, but oftentimes the victim, and even the victim’s loved ones, do not want to share their dark secrets,” said Attorney General Sean Reyes. “It is time for all of us to be One With Courage.”
