Page 111 - Cosmopolitan - USA (February 2020)
P. 111
As #MeToo changes mainstream culture, Amish women are instigating a quieter movement to tell their own stories of sexual abuse.
Instead, Stutzman himself, perhaps sensing he’d been survivors and law enforcement sources say. This can com-
caught, confessed. pound the trauma of speaking out. “We’ve had cases where
Like Abner, he was shunned for six weeks. And again, no there’ll be 50 Amish people standing up for the offender
one reported him to outside authorities, especially since and no one speaks for the victim,” says Stedman.
the church had already disciplined and forgiven him. In one 2010 case, young female victims were pressured
Instead, the community turned on Lizzie for what they to forgive their father and brother for abusing them, with
FROM LEFT: GET T Y IM AGES; ASHLEY GILBERTSON/VII/REDUX. THESE PHOTOS ARE USED FOR ILLUSTR ATIVE PURPOSES ONLY.
saw as a consensual “affair.” She was bullied and mocked, one writing a pleading letter to the court (“Hello Sir, I’m
spit on and called a “schlud” and “hoodah” (Pennsylvania Melvin’s sister. Please have mercy. Melvin has made a big
Dutch for “slut” and “whore”). “They didn’t ask me how I change to let go of his committed crime in the last year. I’d
felt or my side of the story,” she says. Instead, the commu- like to have our family together.”), recalls former President
nity gossiped that she had “mental issues.” Judge Dennis Reinaker, who has presided over 30-plus
It’s common for Amish victims to be viewed by the Amish sexual assault cases in Lancaster County. In this
community as just as guilty as the abuser—as consenting case, the victims agreed to cooperate only in exchange
partners committing adultery, even if they’re children. for their abusers receiving no jail time. The deal likely
Victims are expected to share responsibility and, after the helped save the defendants from what could have been
church has punished their abuser, to quickly forgive. If 25- to 30-year prison sentences, says Reinaker.
they fail to do so, they’re the problem.
When the rare case does end up in court, the Amish T H I N G S G O T S T R A N G E R F O R L I Z Z I E . S H E R E M E M B E R S
overwhelmingly support the abusers, who tend to appear her mother telling her that she was being taken to a chiro-
with nearly their entire congregations behind them, practic clinic in neighboring South Dakota, and then
boarding a bus full of Amish adults for the 300-mile drive
to a facility where, for a week, “they watched me all the
time,” she says. She received daily deep-tissue massages to
“work through my emotional stuff,” she was told.
Lizzie’s is not the only account of an Amish victim being
“ W H E N A V I C T I M S P E A K S
taken to an alleged “mental health” facility staffed by Amish
O U T , T H E Y G E T S E N T T O or Mennonites (a similar, although typically less strict,
group) that provides Bible-based counseling—and, in many
A F A C I L I T Y A N D D R U G G E D
S O T H A T T H E Y S H U T U P. ” Continued on page 118
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