CAGED: Extreme Child Abuse

by Sylvia Fraser

CAGED comes with 2 bonus features, see below.As a society we’ve become all too familiar with horrific tales of child abuse. Yet, in 2001 a legal case in a rural community near Toronto proved so bizarre that it gained international attention. It concerned two teenage boys kept locked in cages and forced to wear diapers. Unbelievably, their caregivers thought they were doing their best for these “difficult” youths. Even visiting relatives regarded this sorry state as normal.Why didn’t teachers, social workers and doctors in regular contact with the boys intervene? Why didn’t the boys complain when they had the opportunity?The extended family imprisoning these boys seemed unusually close despite occasional feuds. In fact, their secrets probably caused them to cling together in ways that gave dire meaning to the term “dysfunctional family.” Here’s proof of how abuse - physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual - spirals down through generations claiming new victims, and how good intentions can be overwhelmed by one’s own need to survive. Caged is a true story based on transcripts of a 2003 legal case with names changed to protect the victims.2 BONUS FEATURESMAGGIE & THE PEDOPHILESIn 1987 Sylvia Fraser published My Father’s a Memoir of Incest and of Healing - one of the first books to expose the sexual abuse rampant in our culture. The New York Times said it was “as telling a chronicle of the times as The Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mocking Bird.”After writing her memoir, Fraser thought she’d recovered all the memories connected to her abuse, so long denied. She was wrong. She began to recall horrifying experiences of how, age 8, she was taken by her father to a child brothel where she was photographed and abused. This isn’t a story about what perverts do to children - we know that. It’s a story about survival and our ability to cut off memories too terrible to endure. It’s also an inspiring story about the need to reclaim those painful memories in order to become whole. Most remarkably, it’s a story about the almost miraculous way in which the Universe seems to cooperate to help us to find what we need to know. On the simplest level, it’s the story of a parrot, an ice-cream cone, a strange rash, a broken leg and an unusually swift healing, leading to a climax that proves fact can be stranger than The Sexual Abuse WarsHardly a day goes by without a news story about the prosecution of yet another high-profile person accused of sexually abusing children. Most recently, sentencing of the once untouchable Jerry Sandusty, former Penn State football coach, to 60 years seems to send a clear warning to all child molesters that they will be caught and punished. The same is true of the outing of pedophile priests in North America and Europe, along with those who protected them. Yet, history has shown that the prosecution of child-molesters has typically been followed by a period in which the problem is buried all over again. Could this happen in Western society? Could children again become the unprotected playthings of lustful adults?Sylvia Fraser - herself an incest survivor - believes this could happen.In DENIAL she shows how children have been betrayed in the past, and suggests the unexpected guise in which a new wave of betrayal could occur. Rich in anecdote, DENIAL draws on Fraser’s own experience with other survivors, with the media, with accused abusers following the 1987 publication of her groundbreaking book, My Father’s a Memoir of Incest and of Healing.

66 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 8, 2012

About the author

Sylvia Fraser (born 8 March 1935 in Hamilton, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, journalist and travel writer. Fraser was educated at the University of Western Ontario. In her fifty year career as a journalist, she has written hundreds of articles, beginning as a Feature Writer for The Toronto Star Weekly (1957-68), and continuing with articles for many other magazines and newspapers including the Globe & Mail, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, the Walrus and Toronto Life. She taught creative writing for many years at Banff Centre and at various university workshops. She has participated in extensive media tours, given lectures and readings throughout Canada, the United States, Britain and Sweden. She served on the Arts Advisory Panel to Canada Council and was a member of Canada Council's 1985 Cultural Delegation to China. She was a founding member of The Writers’ Union of Canada and for many years was on the executive of The Writers' Trust, a charitable organization for the support of Canadian authors and literature. Fraser lived in Toronto, Ontario.

Reviews

[Krystel Dallas · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I was tempted to remove a star for the second part of this book for its overly and seemingly unnecessarily descriptive account of geographical areas, I came to appreciate that they were essential to the author's memories of her abuse as a child. While the option remains to give no rating at all when a book contains sensitive subject matter such as this one, the importance of no longer sweeping issues of child abuse under the rug should make books like this one essential reading. Therefore, 5 stars for all of the victims of child abuse who see themselves represented, defended, and fought for by authors like Sylvia Fraser. Yes this book is difficult to read, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be read.

In the first part of this book we learn, by way of court transcripts, of the 2001 legal case of two young men from the Greater Toronto Area who were caged, diapered, conditioned, and tortured, by their aunt. The details are abhorrent and justice hardly seems served. For anyone who remembers hearing bit of this case, the details herein will shock you.

In the second and third parts of the book, we learn some background of Sylvia Fraser's repressed memories of a horrible childhood and her experiences from when she published a book on these accounts. This woman had admirable strength and her purpose in life and legacy as a fearless advocate for human and animal rights is something we should all strive to honour and replicate.

[sandra kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

I enjoyed and was repulsed at the same time. This subject matter is one that must not be shoved under the rug, no matter how repulsive we find that it.