Question for DU....14-year-old child missing for 10 years, is found -

[sojourner]

In recent news (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032300404_2.html) a 14-year-old girl was convinced to leave her family and manipulated into staying away for 10 years by a man who befriended her at school (he was a security guard) using standard mind control techniques intended to leverage feelings of isolation and inadequacy. It is clear from the article that this man’s motivation was at least partly sexual.

This seems so clear cut. I see a vulnerable child who was exposed to undue pressure by a person with questionable motivation into surrendering her relationship with her family. I believe the person who did this to the youngster to have committed a crime. He used his age and his intellectual cunning to psychologically influence a child into doing what he wanted - against her best interests and certainly against her family (so far it is unknown to what degree they contributed to the child's psychological state preceding her departure).

I also believe there had to be some vulnerability in the child to allow for this manipulation to occur, although I am not sure that the same thing could have occurred if she had been 19 instead of 14 years old. Perhaps some of those vulnerabilities include a poor self-image, a rocky relationship at home – between the child and her parents, perhaps between the parents or perhaps both – combined with a lack of social skills that made her feel isolated and unaccepted by her peers.

These are common vulnerabilities afflicting our young people for a variety of reasons, one of which is really developmental. Children mature at different rates and deal with issues like autonomy, self-reliance, and the development of a stable self-image differently. Some experience crisis-like trauma during the resolution of these various issues. Do you recall feeling alone, unacceptable, even ugly and awkward during your adolescence?

So, the question is, was this child manipulated and abused, as I feel she was, or must she take responsibility for the choices she made? In other words, who gets the blame – the child or the security guard?

I ask because adolescence seems to me to be a particularly vulnerable stage of development in the US, with our focus on beauty, acceptance and individual success – standards that are really at odds with the facts of adolescent development which include a certain awkward development of secondary sexual characteristics, along with a growth spurt that leaves many teens looking/ feeling gangly and ungainly, all part of the of process of growing into a mature adult. Boys’ voices start to crack as they make the transition from childhood to manhood; girls start to gain some womanly shape but simultaneously may seem knobby kneed and clumsy as their body adjusts to the many changes it undergoes in developing to reproductive maturity. Is it any wonder that young people so often feel self-conscious about themselves?

This leads me to wondering about all that talk about personal responsibility in youths who commit crimes of various sorts. Can a youth be influenced by adults into doing something so terribly wrong that the adult can be exculpated on the basis of the serious nature of the crime? In other words - when a young person "crosses the line" on some crimes, even though he/she was influenced by an adult, does that mean that this young person has made a deliberate and well-thought out choice that deserves punishment by the full force of the law? Or does the youngster rather deserve the protection of the law because of the limitations of development placed by natural and cultural circumstances? Is there some middle ground?

These questions naturally lead me to ask…what about the child’s rights? Where do a child’s rights and the parent’s rights as juxtaposed against those of society exist, or co-exist, and what boundaries are to be placed around such rights by a society that naturally cares about the well being and the health of its youth even as it cares about the individual and civil rights of its citizens? What about the event of pregnancy and consideration of its termination?

If we just declare that all people, young and old, possess the same moral abilities and therefore the same moral responsibility for their behavior we make it easy to choose an answer to all of the questions I’ve asked. Yes, the child is responsible for choosing to go with the man. Yes, a crime committed by a child is a crime deserving punishment to the full extent permitted by law. Yes, a decision to terminate a pregnancy is a valid individual choice for a youngster to make.

Or perhaps we respond differently – NO! A child whose vulnerabilities have been exploited by an adult cannot be held to the same moral and behavioral standard as a competent adult, and the exploitation of the child is a criminal act in and of itself. Nor can a child be held to answer to the law in the same manner as an adult – no matter how serious the crime – because of the very real (organic and psychological) differences imposed by human developmental processes. And no – a child must not make a decision about his/her body without the aid and support of family and/or the representatives of the larger society which looks out for his/her best interests.

How do you answer these questions? And on what basis do you do so? Are you relying on moral arguments arising from religious tradition, on scientific research into body and brain function, or on your own experience – which may or may not be “representative” of most experience – or, are you answering from deeply held convictions and biases? What does a society do with these questions?

What say you, DU?