Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 833

Tonight's special guest is Maralee McLean from Denver, Colorado, the author of "Prosecuted but Not Silenced: Courtroom Reform for Sexually Abused Children." As Ms. McLean writes, “A mother’s first instinct is to protect her child, and when the means and the power to do this are stripped unjustly from a mother, there are no words to describe the constant heartache that is felt as each day passes by.” McLean tells us “my heart was ripped out every time my precious little girl told me and others what most people would describe as unimaginable.” "Prosecuted But Not Silenced" calls our hearts and minds to sharp attention. We simply cannot look away from this reality, from this clear cut example of what can take place in and within all too common poorly informed, flawed, biased, and at times even dishonest judicial and legal processes. Far too frequently these processes and their professional participants actually enable the perpetration, and virtual protection of the perpetration, of child sexual abuse, often fallaciously applying “parental alienation syndrome” and "evidence" and "experts" which would be rejected outright in any other courtroom following the dictates of constitutional law. In her book, Maralee McLean takes on the abuse and litigation of abuse journey of the author and her daughter, a bloody path, a path fraught with double binds, trick twists, traps, and impossible choices. How does an abused woman who is a mother choose between the risk of losing custody on the one hand, and the risk of further sexual abuse of her child if she stays with the abusive parent? This is the story of how this woman made her way through the tangled web of sloppy, inadequate, nonsensical, uninformed, poorly administered, and cruelly denied justice.