Our silence won't protect Elizabeth

National Post, Tuesday, March 18, 2003
By Anne Kingston

Hanging over the miraculous return of Elizabeth Smart last week is the question no one really wants the answer to, for knowing the truth would mar the made-for-Hollywood happy ending. And that is whether or not the sweet-faced, sheltered girl was sexually violated during her abduction.

As of yesterday, the Salt Lake City police say they know what happened to Elizabeth but have declined to comment on whether she was physically or sexually abused. Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee have been booked but not charged with "aggravated kidnapping." Word from within the District Attorney's office was that it was evaluating whether to add sexual abuse charges.

Rightly, any child who is sexually violated and survives has his or her identity shielded from the public. But Elizabeth, at the centre of a media vortex, has been denied that entitlement. Her privacy is forever lost.

Which doesn't mean she shouldn't be protected. But one has to ask who is being protected by the silence. Is it Elizabeth? Is it Elizabeth's honour? Is it her family's honour? Or will it ultimately be her kidnappers?

We know that violence of a sexual nature is treated differently than other forms of violence precisely because it is sexual and thus freighted with morality. As such, part of the profound violation of a sexual crime often includes the vilification of the victim, to the point where women who have been sexually abused in religious fundamentalist cultures are murdered in "shame killings."

Obviously, such rabid extremism is not at play here, though religious zealotry, loaded with underlying sexual taboos and entitlements, is in no short supply.

The conduct of the alleged perpetrator Mitchell, for instance, has been oddly legitimized by his claims that he was following some kind of preordained religious calling.

The media, not wishing to appear intolerant, even when dealing with a self-proclaimed prophet, have referred to Mitchell as selecting Elizabeth as his "child bride" as if that term could mean anything other than sexual chattel. Some press reports have referred to possible sexual abuse, ludicrously, in terms of whether Mitchell "consummated" his relationship with Elizabeth, a word which suggests an actual marriage took place.

Mitchell's attorney, a man with no apparent interest in presenting his client as sane or innocent, is perpetuating the fiction. At a press conference on Sunday night, Larry Long said Mitchell wanted the world to know Elizabeth "is his wife, he still loves her and knows she still loves him."

In such a surreal landscape, one in which rape is recast as "consummation," it is possible to lull oneself into thinking nothing actually happened to her or even that Mitchell was preparing her for some kind of bizarre initiation.

Unfortunately, allegations now in the media about Mitchell's background read like a sexual deviant primer. As a youth, he was reportedly sexually abused and spent time in juvenile detention for exposing himself. Barzee's estranged daughter is now on the cable circuit claiming he made sexual advances toward her.

Understandably, the Smart family, devout Mormons, has said it wants to protect Elizabeth from more intrusion -- a proper instinct that appears at odds with its willingness, made public yesterday, to entertain the deluge of offers being made by Hollywood for the rights to her story. And there's no question that the Salt Lake City police, already under fire from the family for its handling of the case, will take its wishes into consideration when laying charges, which could mean sexual abuse charges, even if warranted, would be off the table.

Further complicating this case are the aftershocks Elizabeth could suffer within the Mormon community, one that places a high value on chastity. Heber J.

Grant, seventh President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, once wrote: " ... There is no true Latter-day Saint who would not rather bury a son or daughter than to have him or her lose his or her chastity -- realizing that chastity is of more value than anything else in all the world." More recently, Mormon women have been counselled to repent to God after being raped.

One can only pray that the Smart family is more enlightened, though its attempts at casting Elizabeth's return as a gauzy Hallmark moment give one pause. It has attributed Elizabeth's return only to the "power of prayer,"

claimed that she was "brainwashed" and reported that her first day home was merrily spent watching her favourite Disney movie, The Trouble With Angels.

An inadvertently censorious attitude towards Elizabeth's plight was apparent in a comment made by Bishop David Hamblin at the Smart's church last Sunday.

Despite anything that may have happened during Elizabeth's ordeal, he said, she is considered "pure before the Lord. People who are in the control of others are not accountable."

That Elizabeth's "purity," a term freighted with sexual moralizing, even needs to be defended is telling of the confused mindset that surrounds sexual violence. The statement also offers the ominous portend that no matter what version of truth emerges about Elizabeth's captivity, any violation she may or may not have endured is, sadly, far from over.

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