The facts, in so far as they can be established, about the alleged systemic abuse of girls and young women in the care of Tusla, are horrifying.
Dozens, and possibly hundreds, of young women – some under the age of consent – are being enticed out of their residences by men posing as their boyfriends, where they are, according to the report, taken to hotel rooms, plied with presents, alcohol, and drugs, and then often subjected to the sexual attentions of groups of men. Yesterday, on these pages, Niamh wrote about what happened with the anger of a mother: How, she asked, can this be happening and why is it not a national scandal?
Yet there is another horrifying element to this story which must be understood: If the report is to be taken at face value, then much of this activity is happening consensually.
These girls are not being kidnapped. There are no gangs entering Tusla facilities and removing them by force. Grooming gangs, to use a popular phrase, do not operate like that: In return for sexual abuse, they offer their victims some excitement, and a glimpse of a more glamourous life. Relationships with older men at that age can offer feelings of belonging, and rebellion, and perhaps most importantly – independence and adulthood. The abusers offer abuse to their victims almost as a form of control and escape. From Tusla, or from any parental authority.
Yes, in cases where the child concerned is under the age of consent, any sexual intercourse is of course statutory rape, and a crime. But the underlying dynamic is the same. Rape can only be investigated, after all, if the victim is co-operating with the Gardai. Reading between the lines of the Tusla report, the more obvious question is what is it about being in the care of Tusla that makes young women wish to subject themselves to this kind of abuse in order to feel that they have some semblance of control or independence over their own lives?
Irish sex education is already, and is becoming even more, consent based. Consent based sex education is largely centred around the idea that what you do with another person sexually is always kosher, so long as your partner has consented to it. Consent is sexy, say the ads. But this is only a fragment of the story: The world is full of adults who harbour life-long regrets over consensual sexual encounters. Relationships can be toxic, and exploitative, and terrible for a person’s self-esteem, all the while remaining entirely consensual.
Consent also does not preclude dishonesty, either directly or via the dishonesty of implication. A person who consents because they believe the other person is interested in a long term relationship has not been raped, even if they have had sex under a false impression or expectation. What’s more, human beings are entirely capable of lying to themselves, let alone each other: There is no shortage of people out there who have consented to “casual” relationships while lying to themselves about the feelings they have for their partner, and who subsequently experience painful hurt when the reality of what they’ve agreed to sinks in.
This kind of sexual morality – where consent is the only thing that matters – is a paradise for those who feel no compunction about lying or stringing people along to get what they want. And we should face facts here: The only way a conviction will come about in the Tusla situation is if, in a few years, one of the alleged victims of statutory rape feels sufficiently cheated and abused to make a formal complaint.
We should grant Tusla some slack in one regard: By definition, children with a happy, well adjusted, wholistic upbringing do not usually end up in its care. It tends to be the parent of last resort from those who come from difficult backgrounds and troubled homes. By definition, ending up separated from one’s family and in the care of the state is likely to have a psychological impact on a young person that makes them more vulnerable to those who would predate upon them by pretending to offer love, and an escape, and feelings of adulthood and independence. Tusla’s job is to counteract those feelings and step in to do the job of parents, as parents would in a secure home. Nobody should pretend that it is easy.
But the fact that it is not easy is the reason why tens of millions of euro are allocated to Tusla every year. And if, despite all that funding, young girls are being enticed into abusive relationships and sexual exploitation, then Tusla is not doing its job. And “our job is hard” is no excuse for that.
But society is locked in a conundrum of its own making: The easiest way to rationalise this mess would be to identify and prosecute cases of statutory rape, making the abusers (who are villains, to be clear) the sole focus of the story. It is much harder to look at this case and accept that in at least some of the cases identified in the report, it is likely that no crime was committed. That is also, I think, why so much of the online reaction on the right has focused on the entirely speculative nationality of the abusers – wouldn’t it be so much easier if this was an imported problem, and nothing to do with Irish society?
But what about the country, and the culture, that we have built? Instinctively, we know that luring young women into group sex with the promise of alcohol and gifts and a boyfriend experience is deeply wrong. But it is not illegal, nor, in the right circumstances, even necessarily frowned upon. If the victims in this case were 19 or 20 years old and from “good homes”, then any trauma they suffered would broadly be regarded as the fault of their own bad decisions. It is not that long ago, after all, since a young woman was named and shamed online, and reportedly had to leave the country, for consensual group sex with two Irish rugby players. How was she any more responsible for her actions than a 17 year old in Tusla care who ends up in a hotel room with five men who offer her a feeling of adulthood?
There is, for my money, a much wider cultural issue here. And it starts with the idea that after consent is given, anything goes.