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What is the Abolitionist Response to Paedophiles? 

Part Two, by Eshe Kiama Zuri (Written age 26)

Part One by Aiyana Goodfellow.

Content includes non-graphic discussion of sexual violence against children. If this can be triggering for you, please take care when reading.

 

What is theory in the real world

Weaponising political theory against people who are or have been abused is never okay. But it is commonly seen and heard when people speak up about the rampant paedophilia in the left. The easy refusal to kick out an abuser due to the group being ‘abolitionist’ or ‘anti-carceral’ in politics, is commonly used. This whack faux-politics has become more easily seen with the rise in use of social media documenting it more openly, and goes together with the challenging of ‘cancel culture’. Even if you haven’t heard anyone say this directly, you will be within communities where these words have been used, especially if you are white or otherwise privileged. The expectation from the use of theory and political language to protect abusers is that it will not be challenged, for fear of retaliation and academic and activist shaming, and thus will have complicity through silence. 

When we lean on theory, we rely on it to create the ideals that we supposedly fight towards – and some depend on theory over experience more than others. Abolitionist theory, as with all radical, revolutionary and transformative theories, comes from the streets, the prisons and the marginalised first, with it’s ancestry in the fight for the abolition of the slave trade. Yet abolitionist theory is also academised and this is many peoples only exposure to it. When I speak about theory here, I am speaking on the weaponisation of academic theory to devalue and undermine radical practices, community care and victims and survivors of harm.

This is not to disparage theory and the importance of it as part of our politics. Theory through experience and from marginalised groups is imperative to our activism. But this is about how placing academic theory and perfectionist ideas as above lived experience or real non-hypothetical people promotes a ‘sacrifice yourself for the greater good’ demand. Where marginalised people cannot expect safety or support in activism. And as thus marginalised people must either non-consensually ‘volunteer’ through manipulation to be the martyr or regardless will be chosen as the sacrificial victim in order to fulfil the prophecy of the theory. This is a common trope that is used for everything from racism to paedophilia.

Theory is often warped into a classist patriarchal white supremacist trump card to silence, hide and excuse privileged people’s bad behaviour. Placing knowledge of (or belief in) theory as an inherent ‘good’ is something we see a lot in the ‘educated’ left (*1), replicating society’s ideal of educated = correct and righteous. The same ideals that as prison and state abolitionists we should be challenging. Academic theory is all well and good for working within the hypothetical – but marginalised and vulnerable people do not have the privilege of these speculative thought spaces. When we don’t expand beyond theorising about situations that real people have real lived experiences about and are impacted by, then we are not appropriately supporting each other. As a non-academic, as an ex-child, as a community activist, as all of who I am, my real world and theory cannot be separated. I want to keep our communities safe from paedophiles and I am also an abolitionist, to me they go hand in hand.

 

Why am I writing this

This essay was in part response to a situation where activists were unwilling to deplatform a self-professed paedophile. But it also is trying to address the deeper issues within the left about the protection of paedophiles through the resistance to their removal. The person (Eva Broccoli aka @renegade_broccoli @comrade_broccoli @heretical_broccoli @queer4anarchy @mothappreciationclub) publicly posted naming themselves NOMAP, a non-offending minor attracted person aka a paedophile. They had done this supposedly as ‘harm reduction’, yet they did not remove their accounts or explain why they had purposefully amassed a large following of young people on their accounts without consent or prior knowledge from any of the children following them that they are in fact a paedophile. They are using the term ‘non-offending’ to mean that they are not physically acting on their feelings towards children. But consent isn’t limited to physically touching, and are they not offending through the lack of consent in having young people follow them without knowing that they are a paedophile and will be interacting with them as such? 

 

Community care rooted in reality

The refusal to ‘view’ and act on harm within the left is a product of the co-option and white-supremacy-washing of radical politics and language. Weaponising the same terms that were created by marginalised people as a way to discuss harm or speak on ways to transform harm into attacks on anyone speaking up. When we refuse to witness or offer support, we are reinforcing the systems of oppression and structures that allow the harm to be done, and letting down the people who are being harmed. We do training on bystander intervention and talk about the importance of witnessing and offering support to help prevent further harm in regards to the police, yet we don’t carry across these same ideas to other systems of harm. There is still a very much a behind closed doors attitude to interpersonal harm within the left. If we can not build from a foundation of support for survivors (*2) of harm, how can we ever hold appropriate space for the perpetrators of harm? 

When we are ideal world dreaming, we can easily escape difficult situations and imagine spaces where there’s no need for so-called ‘harsh’ decision making. But harsh decision making isn’t the threat that many, especially privileged, people within the left view it as. Why are we still demonising vulnerable people who are asking for our spaces to be made as safe as possible? Why are we more concerned about receiving backlash from abusers or abuse apologists than the security of survivors, particularly in the context of children? In a patriarchal world, there will always be resistance to and against those of us fighting for liberation, freedom and safety. In order to be successful in our work we need to identify why this apologism happens and who, even in the left, is so against our communities being safe. 

Paedophilia exists across people of all backgrounds. However in my personal experience it has been prevalent in people in the left wanting to gain more power and ownership over myself, and weaponising sexual and emotional violence as a punishment for not knowing my place and for daring to exist in the same spaces as them without submitting. A violence that my Black enslaved ancestors understand deeply. This is not to undermine or ignore the very real problems with paedophilia in all communities, just to say that the emphasis on power over a vulnerable person, a child, is important to understand. The want to inflict violence on marginalised people, cannot be removed from the experience of living in a society that values power over all else. As Aiyana Goodfellow explains in Part One, the ‘true adult’ is the largely unattainable patriarchal ideal, an ideal which requires its subjects to participate in harm to unlock its privilege. Most people will never reach the full ‘true adult’ ideal but most will try and the impact of even just trying has very real effects on children and other marginalised people.

Paedophiles are not a ‘minority’, they are accessing and using the power and violence that comes from the dominant societal structure in the world. So why is it so difficult to understand that this is one of the forms of oppression that we are fighting against? When we aim to remove the power imbalance caused by patriarchy (*3) and co-systems of oppression, such as white supremacy, then we can start to heal holistically. However if people are working against intersectionality, then we will only replicate oppressive systems and cannot ever be transformative or revolutionary. Taking away the power that the ‘true adult’ has, also means taking away any element of safety that paedophiles have within thinking that they can harm children because they think there will be no immediate or community response.

We agree that we don’t want to send anyone, even paedophiles, to prison. Because prisons should be abolished. So then what happens to paedophiles? These are conversations that we currently cannot have, certainly not in a holistic sense, until we scrutinise the systems of oppression that created the prison system and would continue as the dominant system in place if it is not challenged and abolished also. The criminal justice and prison systems are not ‘broken’, they are functioning in the exact way they were set up to function, to focus largely on the capture and punishment of marginalised people and to protect privileged ‘offenders’. Most paedophiles and other rapists are not incarcerated. These systems are not something we can or should be looking at ‘reforming’. Reform politics do not help anyone, and have no part in revolutionary politics. 

We see in Black working class and other marginalised communities the ability to work in more creative and abolitionist ways, refusing to call the police for situations we can deal with ‘in house’. This can be flawed of course, however proving that is not the purpose of this essay. We cannot always know what will be the best way to support a situation, but we can know that we should be approaching it with the intent to protect those most vulnerable. I refuse to define the actions communities take when faced with harm as ‘carceral’ as some in the left move to place judgement as. Carceral implies that it is prison-like in nature, that there is equivalent power to the prison industrial complex coming from grassroots decision making, that stepping outside of the system inherently replicates the system. This inability to properly see and respect marginalised and diverse communities as the OG abolitionists is what is really in line with the mainstream system. How do you have the time to call community actions carceral or wrong, but then not be around to hear us when we speak on the impact of policing, prisons and white supremacy on our communities? 

Du Bois’ and later Angela Davis’ interpretation of abolition democracy explains that we can’t have prison abolition without there being change to help prevent people from causing harm or the system harming people. 

“When we call for prison abolition, we are not imagining the isolated dismantling of the facilities we call prisons and jails. That is not the project of abolition. We proposed the notion of a prison-industrial-complex to reflect the extent to which the prison is deeply structured by economic, social, and political conditions that themselves will also have to be dismantled.” 

– Interviews with Angela Y. Davis, ABOLITION DEMOCRACY – beyond empire, prisons, and torture

Abolition needs to include full spectrum community care (*4), prioritising the safety of those most marginalised by society. As ex-children, we have a duty of care to current children and to practise anti- child ageist politics within ourselves and our communities. As activists we have a responsibility to ensure that we stay dedicated to protecting vulnerable people, and that we look at all the ways that we enable and promote violence and adult supremacy. If people are standing against protecting children (and other vulnerable people), then we have to assess whether they should be within our communities or not. This shouldn’t be a controversial take.

There are no perfect solutions in an imperfect world. But there are decisions we can make every day to challenge harm and violence caused by individuals and society. And we need to choose that option, not the option of throwing vulnerable people and survivors under the bus or pretending that paedophilia doesn’t happen within leftist communities.

Abolition is not just theory. Abolition is community in action, tearing down harmful structures and building alternatives. Alternatives that start with safety. We cannot prioritise and be led by marginalised people on what a revolutionary future looks like if those same marginalised people are actively being harmed. 

 

Bun ‘bias’ 

There is a notion that survivors telling others about their experiences are coming from a place of ‘bias’ against people who cause the harm. You don’t have a bias because you have been harmed and are trying to speak on the harm you have faced in any way. Whether your words are transformative or reactive, unclear or cohesive, patient or angry, you deserve to be heard from the space in which you are speaking.

So I can’t write this piece as theory, because it was never just theory. The actions and impact of paedophilia within the left across many different activist communities impacted me as a child and is pain I am forced to continue carrying as an ex-child. This is not a final piece. This is an evolving piece. This is a piece that is traumatic to write and is bringing up a lot of harm I experienced. I do not have answers, but I am allowed my words.

I am a real person with feelings and emotions and this cannot be intellectualised. 

For those of us who are not pacifists, we need to let people know what will happen if they try to come and harm vulnerable people. Because it stays chat shit get banged and nonces get knocked out. Fact. Pacifism isn’t automatically peace-keeping. Pacifism isn’t the moral high ground. And abolition and community safety cannot be created through pacifism and we have seen that as a fact. 

Individual acts become systemic solutions once enough people decide to get involved. For example, one person punching a domestic abuser in the face—one time—is a short-term, temporary, reactionary solution to a single incident of domestic violence. But everyone … agreeing to punch domestic abusers in the face, all the time, is a systemic solution.

– Roderick Douglass

 

Minimising language does not minimise harm 

We are so scared to use the terms paedophilia and paedophiles, words that are still taboo to talk about. I know this because I’ve personally spoken about my own experiences and been told I have no authority over using these terms as a way to explain what happened to me as a child. As what I was saying wasn’t ‘bad enough’ to label the harm doers with such a ‘bad’ term. 

How can the act of paedophilia be seen as less bad than someone being correctly identified for what they are, a paedophile?

This dismissive and silencing behaviour is what we similarly see in the response to racism. In that the act of which is excused and ignored, yet the labelling of someone as racist instead is viewed as being the ‘real racism’. In the same vein, we talk about microagressions to describe racist acts, instead of calling it what it is… regular ol’ racism.

So, why are we so insistent on not using the real terms for what is very real harm? Across our society, we use minimising language purposefully. Minimising language is used as a weapon. To victim blame, to invalidate experiences and most importantly, to protect the instigators of harm. Because even if the act of harm is proven or believed (which more often than not it isn’t), protecting the instigators of harm (especially when they are privileged) is the priority. This intentional act of using minimising language has become such a normalised part of the response to hearing about harm and is a vital pillar of propping up white patriarchy. Failing to understand why it is easier to participate within the patriarchy than it is to be a voice against it – especially when in unity with someone who is abused and discarded by patriarchy – means we are not able to have full and critical conversations about what harm reduction, abolition and radical communities can look like.

Minimising language is an attempt to conceal in plain sight, as using coded words can be less easily challenged or may not immediately be understood. Being vigilant to how language and our voices are used to oppress is essential to how we understand what it means to care for our communities. 

There have been a lot of general lefty infographics with little quips like ‘kill the cop inside your head’ and whilst those can sound good and shareable, what is it actually saying? The language there is used to place responsibility on the individual, not to look at the wider issues. We are not automatically being carceral by having reactions or feeling upset, unsafe or hurt. That does not make us the equivalent of a fascist working to enforce an oppressive system. We are normalising the minimisation of our feelings and victim blaming without offering any alternatives. This makes already marginalised people feel less comfortable with speaking up out of the worry that they will be seen as problematic.

Social media influencers such as Clementine Morrigan, Africa Brooke, Seerut Chawla and many other fake ‘wellness’ and are using anti-cancel culture far right rhetoric to claim that holding anyone accountable is unethical or carceral. They use flowery language and try to use restorative/ transformative justice terms to try to hide the agendas they are pushing. It is of course a common theme to be peddling these alt-right positions as people who have all been called out for things like having rapist partners and friends, platforming paedophiles, being racist and anti-Black, publicly victim shaming and many other problematic things. It allows them to not only keep their platforms but also shut up anyone challenging them – and also gets them more followers by playing both sides. The ease in which these harmful sentiments get shared and accepted because it’s posted on a colourful fun graphic is scary.

Cancel culture doesn’t exist, as the power is with the harm doer not the person harmed, and no amount of public call outs or pleading gets enough people to care enough to actually divest from their faves or change the way we support survivors. Anti-cancel culture and fake wellness culture will always be pro-paedophiles and it’s more important to look at who you are supporting and why, rather than just clicking share to every catchy Canva designed infographic.

 

Growing up through paedophilia

Growing up in white activist spaces from a very young age, I was Black, Queer and a child who was seen as a girl. I was never asked if I was okay because nobody wanted me to be okay. Most of the time I was an unwanted reminder of the groups of people that white leftists don’t like, at best I was a novelty or the ‘exception’, and throughout it all, I was a sexual target. No one challenged their community or friends. And no one ever said the p word. But I was called a slut, called easy, judged for being young and sexual and seen as a flirt when what I was was just a child. The stereotypes and racism that comes with my identity made me unable to ever speak up or be cared about enough to be asked. It added layers of blame that made me feel that I was deserving of pain and harm. This is why we can’t talk about paedophilia or any other form of sexual, emotional or physical violence and harm without also looking at how it manifests, past and present, within white cis hetero patriarchal supremacy and the left. This isn’t something unique to myself, it is a shared experience with the children I grew and was groomed to be pitted against and thus isolated in activist spaces. We all have our own stories and live with the long term effects of poor mental health, addiction, self harm and more. I was abused from the age of 14, and already sexualised from way younger. But I am not going to share that side of my personal trauma here, as I’m still not even sure I can face it all.

The onus is on the child to act ‘correctly’ and make the right choice and if they don’t they are blamed and punished. For children, especially those who are Black and otherwise marginalised, before the choice is presented, there is already background grooming and blame happening. Young Black MaGes  (*5) are seen as ‘fast’, and autonomous enough to be asking for it. This will be backed up by the people around – not just to be used as an excuse but wholly believed. This adultification (*6) has been heavily researched in recent years, and needs to be understood and actively challenged by the left, but instead is amplified through the allowances of racism and misogynoir in leftist communities. 

The stereotypes of Black girls are that they are “hyper sexual [in] nature, strong, loud, rude” [and] that they can withstand any type of abuse.

– Where are the Black girls in our CSA services, studies and statistics, Jahnine Davis

No matter whether a child is actually pursuing a relationship with an adult or not, the choice lies completely with the adult not with the child. Children cannot consent to sex or intimate relationships with adults, and this idea should never be used to excuse paedophilia. Grooming is also paedophilia. And is a commonly seen part of the left – encouraged even. The same power, control and harm that is part of paedophilia, is also used by adults in relationships with ‘legal’ teenagers and in age gap relationships. Grooming is used to encourage children to ‘choose’ harm in many ways. From making it seem like it’s a child’s autonomous idea, making it the ‘good choice’ or through making it seem like the only choice with the threat of retaliation. It’s important to understand there are many different forms of grooming, and to identify them when you see them. What should be stating the obvious, unfortunately isn’t so. So to be clear. If a child tries to enter into an intimate or sexual relationship with you, it’s a no. And it’s your responsibility to act appropriately. 

 

Power dynamics of a paedophilic white supremacist left

Other ways we see people encouraging children to ‘choose’ harm through the guise of false empowerment is in the ways that activist groups, especially cult-adjacent groups like XR, recruit children to do direct action without full understanding of the effects it will have on them, mentally, physically and safety-wise. To go back to where I talked about the ‘sacrifice for the greater good’ of theory, this is a shared mindset in activist and leftist spaces. We’ve seen consistently that MaGes, young people, racialised people (especially Black people) and other marginalised groups get trod on and abused. And the same power dynamics that cultivate a culture of paedophilia, also creates other ways in which children are harmed. This is why ageism is rife in activist groups, both archaiomisia, or the oppression of elders, (*7) and anti-child ageism (*8). Whilst not all adults are consciously participating in anti-child ageism, we all are complicit in unconscious ageism and in not seeing or challenging it as it happens. Just as we expect with all anti-oppression work, eg checking ourselves and our communities constantly for racism, sexism, transphobia, to be intentional and consistent, we also need to be doing this for ageism, and yet it is not commonly spoken about.

Bullying and harassment of marginalised people in the left is sadly extremely common. From what I’ve seen as well as what I’ve personally experienced, the threatening of and then use of violence, exclusion and sustained harassment for anyone who dares ‘step out of line’ or speak up about harm is a fundamental part of the left. We see more ‘punishment’ towards people who are survivors and victims of harm than we do towards those who are harm doers. This is why the argument of abolition being exclusionary or carceral towards perpetrators of harm is so fucked up. Because the only people we see targeted consistently are survivors and victims. Any upholding of oppressive structures and protecting of harm doers allows space for paedophilia to be accepted and happen unchallenged publicly and privately.

Even attempts to be more radical such as trying restorative or (what is labelled as) transformative justice leaves a lot to be desired in how it centres and prioritises the rehabilitation and ‘change’ of the perpetrator and often ignores the long term and community needs of the people who have experienced the harm. Unfortunately it’s become fairly understood that restorative or transformative justice as a community offering, especially when a popular person is the perpetrator, will be a way to quickly ‘deal with the problem and move on’ rather than offer any lasting positive impact to either side. Deal with the problem and move on comes from a similar place as sacrifice yourself for the great good, but is more common in groups that are seen as more progressive or are of marginalised people. As the weaponisation of restorative and transformative justice allows for the same power dynamic of blaming, shaming and excluding the person harmed under the guise of being ‘anti-carceral’ towards the harm doer. If vulnerable and marginalised people are being harmed and run out because groups would rather protect and platform harm doers through them being too popular to be removed or just through the sanctity of how ‘restorative/ transformative justice’ is currently being performed, then what good is that doing?

 

About Dim

There was a situation when I was 19 years old where someone, Dim, from within my friend group was outed as a paedophile. It broke my community and myself for a long time. Our mental health was in the drain, we drank heavily, we took substances and we were heavily traumatised, we still haven’t recovered. 

The older adults from outside of our friendship group who informed us of the situation didn’t give me any space for my feelings and still claim I dealt with it ‘wrong’. I had to take charge in this situation as no one else from my friend group was able to due to emotional distress – despite me being the youngest in our friend group that consisted of people (then) in their mid 20s to 40s, making them closer to the age of the paedophile.

I had to sit the paedophile down and tell him that he was banned from our activist spaces and from interacting with us, a distressing meeting that an older white male friend witnessed for my protection. But first I had had to ask the (very wealth, class and status privileged, white and NBPOC) people who told me if they could hold off from going public whilst we dealt with the fact there were vulnerable people living with the paedophile and we needed to tell them and get them to safety first. This was taken as me ‘trying to hide’ the issue. It wasn’t.

I had the horrible job of telling everyone within our community and wider about this paedophile and those around me know how much that fucked me up mentally. Because I was the Black person, the young person, the stereotypically ‘strong’ person and the easy target it was simpler to place the blame and misplaced anger on me than it was to create or be a part of a community plan or response. And we know there is no empathy in white activism. No one acknowledged or cared that I had known this paedophile since I was a minor myself, a very young teenager. And that we had spent time alone and as a group over my teenage years. He had been giving me alcohol and hard drugs during that time, as well as the fact he was working in a sex shop and had been talking to me about sex and other inappropriate and troubling things. So I also had my own trauma that I wasn’t allowed space or time to deal with. And that still makes my skin crawl.

His white privilege to be able to get a job in a sex shop with no background checks cannot be ignored as well. He is a convicted paedophile, something that even a Google of his full name from his ID would have shown. To be able to step into a job without any checks or DBS is definitely white male privilege, even more so with a suspicious back story and a ban as part of his bail which meant he was not allowed to use phones or the internet. If a non-white, non-man had applied for this job we know that they would have received far more scrutiny. As a Black multiply marginalised person I have been explicitly rejected from job and even rental applications from white people Googling my name and seeing my activist writing and work and then telling me my politics don’t ‘fit’ their role or home – this is what Black people expect to happen. Yet a white male convicted (*9) paedophile gets to work in a sex shop and no one knows. 

I wonder constantly if the way I dealt with the situation was wrong, but there was no rulebook, no support, no one to ask and no right answer. I protected the people who needed to be protected as well as I could and I live with the shame of not knowing about him despite being a child then myself. And I still feel the anger and the upset and I still have directed at me, the blame. 

 

What safety looks like

Believing children goes a long way. When we create spaces that people feel comfortable and confident in speaking up in, we are on the right track. We need to look at the boundaries and structures we should have in place when interacting with children when we are adults. Children cannot be treated as adults. Through an intersectional lens, we already know that equality does not work when people are all coming from different backgrounds. And so instead the left needs to approach how we engage with children from a place of boundaried and actively anti-oppressive justice. Children need to be treated differently to be kept safe, with care and respect, so that they can be autonomous and whole people without risk, attack or judgement. We should have intergenerational communities, places where children are safe to explore who they are and what they believe in without fear of retaliation. Where children can be nurtured, not persecuted and tyrannised. Replicating society’s abuse of children is not acceptable, we can and should be doing better to protect and support kids.

We should be using our adult privilege to challenge other adults on their anti- child ageism and to create spaces where children feel safe enough to confide in us if there are any issues. It’s horrific that we expect children to enter our spaces knowing that they may be harmed and that is a hostile environment for them to be in. Especially for multiply marginalised children, who already have to be actively aware of and faced with racism, sexism, transphobia and other oppressions, we are letting them know that we don’t care about them. We are fostering a culture of children who will not have trust in our communities and who will be burnt out and traumatised before they become adults. 

We do not currently have the tools to coexist with or appropriately support harmful people in a way that also protects vulnerable people in our communities. And not just that, nor do we have the tools to give the harmer the support that they actually need. And it’d do us good to have a harsh reality check on the current capabilities and capacity of the communities that we are in, because ignorantly believing we are both rehabilitating abusers and protecting children whilst actually doing neither, causes harm and tries to bury the issue. Not everything has to be a magic wand to fix all of society, sometimes we can just make our small communities and spaces safer. Small small acts of change can be just as revolutionary as big acts. Because what is more revolutionary than intentionally creating safe spaces? Spaces where we are looking at the ways we are all accountable to our actions and, with full sincerity and intentional honesty, placing our most marginalised community members to the front.

Neutrality is harm. Allowing unsafe people in our communities is harm. Start conversations that can properly express the reality of this harm.

Challenge your friends and the people around you when you see them interacting inappropriately with children. Talk to that inappropriate age gap relationship where someone has clearly just waited out till someone is of ‘legal’ age. Have community meetings and conversations that speak about how to safeguard and prevent harm towards children before a situation has already happened. Boot out your group’s favourite unchallenged paedophile. Change the ways in which you interact with children in your spaces and place more boundaries, unlearn your anti-child ageism and allow children to be children unharmed. Seriously look at the ways we allow white supremacist patriarchal power dynamics that promote paedophilia in our spaces. Join courses like Aiyana Goodfellow’s Has Oppression Found a Home in You? A reflective introspective course on ageism! 

Abolitionist politics and theory doesn’t mean pacifism and sitting back and letting harm happen. It means the opposite. It is going to be a battle to tear down the systems and violence that is in power. And it is going to be a never ending fight to ensure those powers don’t take control again. We see the mass sanitising of abolition, in the same way that all radical politics is watered down and made to fit privileged people continuing to be allowed access to white supremacist patriarchal societal power. But abolition means abolition of all oppressive power structures, and it is not going to be easy, so look real hard and critical at spaces and people who are not looking inward whilst also talking about outward. Because our politics starts with us first, and we all need to be constantly fighting the comfort of staying quiet, allowing the status quo and dismissing harm.

Aiyana’s upcoming book, INNOCENCE & CORRUPTION, talks about anti-child ageism and goes into a great depth of the things we all need to challenge ourselves on and do better as a community. I greatly recommend you read that when it comes out.

 

Footnotes:

(1) When I say the ‘left’, I am usually speaking on the white, middle class, academic, cisgender, heterosexual, and/or other ways privileged left. I am not differentiating from mainstream-politics-faux-left to the horseshoeing-to-fascist-yt-anarcho-antifa-saviourists to the post-hood-Blacks-and-POCs-in-politics-charities-academia purposefully as I want everyone to read in for themselves. Where there needs to be specificity, I will be specific. But the more privileged you are, the deeper you need to be delving into this. Intersectionality or bust.

(2) Not everyone feels comfortable with the term survivors and that is valid.

(3) Continuing to use the definition by Aiyana Goodfellow in Part One.

(4)  Coined by Eshe Kiama Zuri

(5) Coined by Crystal Michelle, MaGe means Marginalised Genders and is an umbrella term. This term includes and centres trans and cis women, non binary people and all people under the trans umbrella including indigenous and traditional genders and non-genders.

(6) Adultification bias is a form of racial prejudice where Black children are treated by adults as being more mature than they actually are. In direct comparison to the way white children are treated as angelic, innocent and deserving of care, Black children are seen as jezebels, sexual, dangerous and undeserving of care or trust.

(7) Coined by Rhizome Syndrigast Flourishing.

(8) Coined by Aiyana Goodfellow.

(9) The criminal ‘justice’ system is corrupt and I am an abolitionist, so my use of convicted here is not to say that a conviction is necessary to see that harm has been done or that a conviction automatically proves harm is done. However, in this case, it was important to note the legal context.

What is the Abolitionist Response to Paedophiles? 

Part One, by Aiyana Goodfellow (Written age 16-17)

 

Thanks to Sef and Esmé Friel for proofreading.

Content includes non-graphic discussion of sexual violence against children. If this can be triggering for you, please take care when reading.

 

Many of us in “leftist” spaces learn about abolitionism as a practice that counters our current carceral system. Despite its radically survivor-centred roots, many of us find ourselves falling into ‘abuse apologism’. For whatever reason, good-intentioned or not, some are consciously or unconsciously refusing to interrupt harm and therefore feeding into a patriarchal system.

My definition of patriarchy as a system wider than only gendered hierarchy, as it is usually described, is essential to the understanding of this essay. Patriarchy affects our connections with others and ourselves, usually on deeply personal levels, and therefore I consider it to be a system of relational hierarchy. Patriarchy aims to control the ideas that are associated with and therefore the possibilities attached to our gender, sexuality, family or relationship structure, and age. The patriarch or “true adult” is a largely unattainable ideal consisting of a very specific type of cisgenderism, heterosexual monogamy, and productivity (so by extension, this person is also thin or muscular and able-bodied). Adulthood is defined by patriarchy, and patriarchy is defined by adults. Those who fail to conform to patriarchal adulthood are dismissed as either “childish” (*1) or dangerous to children. For example, disabled people whose personhoods’ are undermined or queer people who are falsely portrayed in fascist media propaganda as ‘groomers’. It is important to remember, patriarchy is intimately related to the systems of white supremacy and capitalism: they cannot be separated. This leads to a wide-spread cultural desire to uphold and maintain the power that can come from the marginalisation or abuse of others.

Because we live in a patriarchal society, it is easier for people to relate to a loss of hierarchical power (i.e. systemically reinforced control of someone else’s behaviour) than it is for people to grasp what it truly means to be the object of power (i.e. for one to be dispossessed of one’s agency). This is true even when people have no direct experience with utilising the form of power that someone else loses as a result of a callout or intervention. 

– Estelle Ellison, Pushing Back Against Mass Abuse Apologism

The focus of this writing is to address the behaviour that the majority of society views  – on the surface – as the worst of the worst. Is there really a difference between so-called NOMAPS (non-offending minor attracted persons) and “active” paedophiles? How do we define peadophilla in a wider abusive culture? What, from the perspective of a child and an ex-child, could be an abolitionist response to paedophiles? I don’t expect this writing to have all the answers or get everything right; knowledge evolves with us. This essay is part one of two, the second of which will be written by Eshe Kiama Zuri, that will aim to explore and answer these questions, guided by our own experiences of adult supremacy, abuse, and our Black abolitionist politics.

 

Understanding Ageism & Abuse

Firstly, we must examine what I mean when I say “the majority of society views  – on the surface – as the worst of the worst“. Modern western society – according to my experiences in the UK – would position itself as staunchly against the maltreatment of children. This is intentional. Children are pawns in a game of appearances because nothing could be farther from the truth: ask the teenagers who are stopped and searched on a daily basis, migrant children who are torn from their families at the border, Palestinian young people bombed by UK-funded weapons. Countries like Britain are colonial powers and these imperial dynamics of abuse, which directly harm children, are not only subtly embedded in our culture, but also actively encouraged. 

Therefore most of us are nonconsensually engaged in abusive dynamics as we move through life, both as abusers and abused, simply by the way the world is currently set up. This does not water-down the intense impact of intentional, interpersonal abuse but acknowledges the wider context for its existence. Whether between teachers and students, bosses and workers, religions and followers, or governments and citizens, coercive control is the underlying scaffolding. Abusers are not always “terrible evil monsters” but the everyday person, because in reality the everyday person has enough power to harm others. (*2) The everyday people who have access to harm children are our parents, caregivers, religious leaders, teachers, police, and others who are in “social service” positions so are automatically trusted. Like the UK state itself, abusers can and will work covertly, convincing those around them that they are kind or caring. 

Specifically with regards to peadophilla and child abuse, we must recognise what systems allow or encourage it to occur. Children are oppressed by patriarchy – a hierarchical system that aims to control how we are perceived because of our sexuality, relationships, gender expression, and importantly our age. The value of our voice and the allowal of our autonomy is undermined. Institutions like school, media, work, family, and more all teach us that a good child is a child who obeys and respects authority, even at the cost of their own sense of self, providing the perfect groundwork for grooming to occur. So many adult survivors of abuse are questioned on why they did not disclose their experiences sooner, but how can we come forward about such things when we are silenced by adults, when we are purposefully made to be emotionally illiterate as young people. Childhood is often a period of disempowerment where we must rely on adults (our oppressors) to protect and care for us. Yet, whether we are or aren’t is simply the luck of the draw. As we have established, adults are usually the ones harming us, using the power of adult supremacy to do so. This power over young people means we cannot often safely speak out about our experiences – the sheer amount of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse (*3) which happens to children as well as the lack of conversation around it, speaks to how our society clearly enables abusers and represses survivors (*4) of abuse.

Sexual violence is usually something talked about with regards to women and, if we are remembered, trans people. However, we don’t often extend the same conversation and awareness to children despite the fact that NSPCC statistics show that around 1 in 20 children in the UK experience sexual abuse. Furthermore, statistics are under-represented due to unreported or hidden incidents and abuse recovered later in life. Contrary to popular belief, paedophilia is not some rare bad thing: it is a significant part of patriarchy. High numbers of sexual assault – accross genders and ages – must logically correspond to high numbers of rapists and abusers. And specifically with young people, the manipulation and abuse of children is made easy by the pervasive existence of what I call anti-child ageism.

I define ‘ageism’ as the discrimination, disposal, and control of people falsely justified by preconceived notions about their age – which affects old people and young people the most. Anti-child ageism, a term coined by me (Aiyana Goodfellow), describes ageism specifically in reference to children, teenagers, and young people. In contrast to youth oppression, adults are offered power through adult supremacy – which can and will be taken away if they fail to fulfil their adult “duty” to be a productive member of capitalist society. For example, disabled adults may be denied access to the privileges of adulthood because of their inability to work. This means that our world is actively against children and childhood (or those who cannot be binary ‘adults’), which is seen just as a preparation phase for adulthood rather than a time where we are legitimately whole, full beings. 

So much so, that most “leftist” and even abolitionist spaces fail to recognise it, to the point that in conversations about peadophilla there is more time made for how we will respond to abusers, than how we are protecting children from exploitation. There is no use in reacting to violence if we are not also building ways to stop it happening in the first place. The former is undeniably important, but not more so than our most vulnerable community members.  Abolitionism centres the most marginalised, in this case children, and commitment to our young community looks like establishing grounded responses as opposed to reactivity. Quite frankly, we will not achieve liberation by healing individual abusers over abuse prevention through youth empowerment. Similarly, Black power does not come from teaching white people about racism but supporting our Black communities to be resourced outside of a white supremacist state. We don’t need to focus on the rehabilitation of rapists, paedophiles, and abusers – this is reform. We need the abolition of societies and communities that tolerate their behaviour and existence.

It is unlikely that most abusers – or oppressors – will electively choose true accountability as it requires letting go of the easily obtained power society gives them. Abuse exists, unchallenged, in most parts of our collective cultures. If oppression is formalised trauma, abuse, whether interpersonal or institutional, is the means through which it travels.

Trauma, decontextualised over time in a family, can look like family traits. Trauma, decontextualised in a people, can look like culture. 

– Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands

Patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism are what I consider the big three oppressions of our time; this is the base of our current culture. I think of them as three umbrellas, all containing forms of violence. For example, capitalism includes classism and ableism; white supremacy includes racism and colourism; patriarchy includes transphobia and ageism. Of course, there is often overlap. ‘Transmisogynoir’ is one such word that identifies how patriarchy, specifically transphobia, and white supremacy intersect to hurt Black trans women.

To break it down even further, the “big three” have their own main methods of oppression used to uphold different “isms” and “phobias”. Capitalism uses policing of our minds, bodies, resources, imagination, and more. White supremacy uses colonialism to control and homogenise us. Patriarchy uses abuse.

Although cis men are disproportionately more likely to engage in (statically reported) instances of sexual violence, it is essential to remember abuse can be perpetuated by those of all ages and genders. Women are not automatically safe; even other children are not automatically safe. I don’t make this point to create anxieties about being around others, but to highlight that our, usually, state-assigned social identities are not signals of inherent (un)safety. Moreover, nobody is above accountability: we must all consider how we contribute towards violent cultural norms. Abuse is the manipulation/use of a power dynamic. Within the nuclear family structure men are the head of the family, followed by the women, and finally the children. Each hierarchical level corresponds to the amount of power we are given, with children having the least. Abusers utilise patriarchy’s weapon of choice – abuse – to establish their own dominance.

Many iterations of feminism have taught us that males and men are “bad”. He is, apparently, inherently violent or patriarchal in a way a woman cannot be because she, as the oppressed, is exempt. This is obviously not true. Not being the most powerful within an oppressive system, or in other words having closer proximity to the “ideal way of being” as defined by the big three, does not exclude you from commiting violence. Any Black or brown person can tell you that white women are just as racist, any child can tell you our mothers can be just as oppressive a parent, if not more, than men. Contrary to the narrative of mainstream feminism, men are not the enemy, abuse is. And in extension, so are abusers who fail to choose accountability.

A parent who beats their child as a form of punishment may convince themselves that it’s “for their own good” but in reality they are reminding this child that they are subordinate to adults. They are ensuring that the child stays within the lines of age-patriarchy. Often, this can happen to support the functionalism of the family unit and in extension, capitalism: when children are controlled through punishment (read: abuse) or reward (read: reinforcement of capitalist values) the familial institution becomes more socially acceptable. If a child fails to do as required, they are disrespecting and dishonouring the symbolic social capital of the family. The loss of social capital can have very real consequences for families who are already marginalised in some way, therefore becoming socially acceptable may create a (potentially inadequate) sense of safety. Yet, this cannot become justification for violent behaviour. 

When our whole society is based on benefiting through the oppression of others, through showing off with violence or through competing to get to the top of the hierarchy, it will lead us to leverage whatever privilege we have over others. When we recognise this, and that ageism is both overt and implicit, we can acknowledge that all of us have likely contributed to it. We all have the potential to be abusers.

 

Definitions & Debates

Therefore, the difference between so-called NOMAPS and “active” paedophiles is frankly insignificant. A NOMAP is just somebody who has not yet caused direct harm. In the context of child sexual abuse, the definition of “offending” is unclear and doesn’t mean that they, for example, have not watched/intentionally imagined child abuse pornography or sexualised the children in their life. These things may not be an “offence” however they remain to be incredibly harmful. We cannot allow abusers to define abuse; we cannot allow them or the state to continue its monopoly on what is considered true violence. Consequently, if you find yourself qualifying whether or not the things mentioned are “bad enough” to be part of a paedophilic culture or even doubting the realities of anti-child ageism, you too are upholding this monopoly. 

To re-contextualise this in a more commonly acknowledged oppression, someone who thinks about lynching Black people, searches for anti-Black trauma porn, and imagines killing many of the Black people they interact with, is very much an active racist, still a problem and in many important ways not so different to someone who actually has murdered Black people. Moreover, those who would deny the clear racism in this way of being would be contributing to the preservation of white supremacy. This comparison wouldn’t be necessary if we validated the traumatising oppression of children as a real thing. It is a violation of children’s consent – whether we are aware of it or not – to sexualise us. Just because something happens internally, behind closed doors, or in someone’s head alone does not negate its violence. 

So far, I have been using the word ‘paedophile’, almost colloquially, as a catch all term for people who engage in sexual violence towards children, whether direct or indirect, subtle or unsubtle, because to sexualise children in any way is abusive. The HEAL Project, an organisation led by adult survivors working to prevent and end child sexual abuse, define the ‘culture of sexual violence’ as “the normalization of physically and mentally harmful practices that lead to violent sexual actions and relations. These practices may or may not be illegal or criminal and are perpetuated at every level of society from interpersonal to institutional.”. Following this concept and definition, paedophilia is the part of this culture which affects children and youth people in particular. Paedophilia is the interpersonal manifestation of a combined culture of sexual violence and anti-child ageism as a wider whole. It takes many forms, not just as direct, physical acts of violence but also things like purity culture which teach young people we are to blame for our own abuse. Young people, teenagers in particular, are told and encouraged to repress our sexuality and dress “appropriately” – if we fail to do this, we are somehow deviant or delinquent. At the same time, patriarchy emphasises the ‘attractiveness’ of youth and youthful qualities, in contrast to the old and ageing. Sometimes it looks like adults preying on teenagers and young people they fetishise who may not ‘legally be children’ but are still experiencing this kind of grooming and harm. Paedophilic behaviour may not always be perpetuated by adults, as older teenagers who have proximity to adulthood can leverage this over younger children. In many ways it is complex, and should be defined by those most impacted by it: children and survivors. An abolitionist answer to child sexual abuse requires an abolitionist definition of child sexual abuse – one that is in recognition of an analysis of age-based power dynamics, rather than primarily deferential to the state’s definitions. How many people’s experiences are minimised or outright denied by the narrow lines drawn around “what counts”? Or even the legal hierarchy of what types of sexual violence are considered “worse”, qualified by the different imprisonment sentences perpetrators can receive? Or cultures that disallow and ignore the cries, screams, and silences of children who are loudly, quietly, or unable to articulate and express the terrible things they are experiencing? And how have you contributed to it? How have I? These are the difficult but essential reflections we must be engaging with.

Often, people tend to bring up those who live with POCD, complex trauma, or age-regression in conversations about paedophilia within the abolitionist community as a point of debate or disagreement, as if (what may be pathologised as) illness and violence are synonymous. Please stop using disabled people as a counter argument to important conversations about widespread abuse: our lives are not pawns in an argument. As many mad and neurodivergent activists have been screaming from the rooftops, we must stop conflating abuse with madness/mental illness. Additionally, someone’s trauma, including their own experiences of child sexual abuse, cannot be reason for us to excuse their violence. Furthermore, this apologist argument is simply untrue: less than 10% of men and 1% of women who are sexually abused as children will go on to perpetrate. Abuse is not a form of neurodivergence, paedophilia is not a form of neurodivergence and to name it as such is insulting. (In fact, it is reminiscent of the deplorable efforts of those wanting “MAPs” included in the queer community.) To continue, illness and insanity isn’t chosen, our behaviour can be. This is in no way a call for mental purity – we can aim to support those of us experiencing trauma or illness without allowing them to be excuses for paedophilia.

To be “sexually attracted to children” is to be attracted to abusing children, it is to fetishise abuse as well as vulnerable people. It is not an illness nor sexual orientation, in the exact same way that being an adult rapist is not. The fact that we do not usually make the same excuses (that it is a ‘disorder’ of some kind) for people who rape and abuse other adults speaks to how little we value the rights of children. It is offensive to me as a child and would be to any decent youth liberationist. You are either with paedophilic behaviour, or actively against it. 

There is a big difference between someone repelled and disgusted by paedophilic thoughts who reaches out to seek help where available and set boundaries to minimise their interactions with children whilst they deal with their experiences, than someone who embraces abusiveness and in it finds pleasure or enjoyment. And overall, the people I am talking about in this essay largely consist of the latter. However, sexual violence against children is not necessarily even about a so-called “sexual attraction to children” but the power dynamic between adults and children that specifically exists because of patriarchy and anti-child ageism. Rape has historically been, and continues to be, a form of subjugation to further the interest of enslavers, colonialists, and patriachs. Peadophillic rape, abuse, and sexualisation functions quite similarly to policing, in that they are efforts to control a population. Peadophillia keeps children subordinate to and afraid of adults, damaging the possibility of intergenerational community and reinforcing the narrative that we young people are owned by those older than us. Child rape is a symptom of an anti-child a culture of exploitation. It is a significant part of rape culture. If we want to address and prevent child sexual abuse, we need to directly dismantle ageism and the patriarchal entitlement of adult supremacy that deems young people’s bodies the property of adults. Children are our own people. We are whole.

 

Humanity

Paedophiles are not our chosen community members, because paedophilia should not be part of the world we want to create. The fact that this even has to be said is shocking. And whilst it is true that, like all humans, abusers can change, if they actually do they will no longer be abusers – but actively anti-abuse. Whilst individually people can grow, socially much work needs to be done. Truly accountable former abusers would be working to counter the harm they have caused in every way possible, as well as working to create a better world altogether. Unfortunately, although I hope to, I have never witnessed an example of this actually happening and to be frank, it will continue to be an unlikely occurrence whilst we live in abuse-centred societies.

Many highlight that abusers are often traumatised people – even if it is the case, this does not excuse their behaviour. We are constantly reminded of abusers’ humanity, their trauma, their pain. Of what harm they may experience from the state and from others. But this is often the thing that keeps survivors from disclosing their experiences, particularly for children who are psychologically and culturally predisposed to trust adults. Whilst, of course, everyone is deserving of basic dignity by virtue of existence, the idea that we must ‘humanise’ abusers over the survivors who have been objectified, creates an apologist narrative.

Furthermore, we must delve deeper: what does it truly mean to ‘humanise’ an abuser when the continually re-enforced definition of what defines a human adult is someone who is powerful, violent, and privileged. White supremacy defines a valid human as someone who is white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, adult etc. The truth is, abusers are already human. Their humanity – and the power that comes with it – is actually the very thing that allows them to abuse. To the point where young people growing into adulthood are expected to become more violent.

Survivors are intimately aware of our abuser’s humanity. It is our abusers that deny our humanity. When you tell survivors to quiet our rage, to go back to accepting all manner of excuses for abuse, you are ultimately advocating for us to return to the conditions of the abuse itself. You’re telling us to elevate our abuser’s humanity above our own. Our abuser’s past trauma matters when we challenge their abuse, but our own past trauma never does. Our abuser’s feelings and comfort take precedent, ours are sidelined. 

– Lee Sheveck, Our Abusers’ Humanity

None of this means we can’t support the accountability and growth of those who have been abusive and are willing to change, but this is the key: they must be willing. Aside from this being part of the basic building blocks of consent, it is also strategically unwise for abolitionists to use our limited resources on chasing those uninterested in liberation. The feelings and needs of child sexual abuse survivors and potential survivors (i.e. children) is what we must centre to create abolitionist aligned environments. We must build cultures where youth are liberated, safe, and empowered. Where we don’t have to rely on adults and therefore be forced to stay in abusive relationships. The abolitionist response to paedophiles is to make our communities intolerant to them. We must eliminate power structures and dynamics, so they are unable to be “misused” in the first place. As long as adults have power over children, we will all continue to experience violence.

 

The Importance of Empowerment

In the same way I understand that anti-racism work cannot centre on mass white education, I also know that abolitionism cannot centre on abuser rehab. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that if along the way white people authentically show up or abusers change their behaviour, but this cannot and should not be the focus of our movements. We will only achieve liberation through the empowerment of the most marginalised peoples, because that is most dangerous to the state. Empowering the underclasses of people whom oppressors need enslaved to keep them rich and in power upends capitalism itself. Even if all the white people and all the adults in the world woke up tomorrow with an in-depth knowledge of how white supremacy and patriarchy works, it would be unlikely that much would change. We have the internet now, if people really cared to give up their privileges worldwide revolutions would have come and gone. We would be living the life we dream of. Survivor and child empowerment is key to fighting against and healing from the sexual abuse of children.

In that case, what does empowerment look like? To me it is a multitude of things, across a range as wide as our various cultures and countries are spread. It can look like a comprehensive and holistic education – including learning about boundaries, relationships, sexuality, care work, disability, trauma, social justice, and more – in order to combat the emotional illiteracy children are left with once we have made it through the school system. It therefore must also look like the abolition of our current school systems which favour repression and obedience over creativity and expression. Furthermore, it must also look like the death of capitalism as a social structure which prioritises functionality and production, for us to instead make way for the birth of community. I stress the word ‘community’, as opposed to the institution of ‘family’ which reinforces the same limiting and hierarchical ideals as school. Empowerment also exists on smaller, interpersonal levels. The website of the DELINQUENTS movement has some suggestions. Lastly, I encourage you to consider your childhood experiences – whether childhood is something you have already survived or something you are currently living through – and reflect on what you need or needed? These practical solutions and responses are not just things for the future; we must work on and towards these things in the present. 

I have heard – and used to agree with – arguments that question the attainability of youth liberation without adult solidarity. But I now call this into question: children do not necessarily need adults. We know this because we rarely have the true support of the older people around us. Young people are constantly being abandoned, physically, materially, and emotionally, by adults. We are made to work, due to poverty or neglect. We are parentified by others and we can be parents to our own children, our siblings, or even ourselves. We are carers for adults and carers for each other. We can and do guide ourselves. We are intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, and creative. We resist oppressive teachers and parents. We support our friends through crises and emergencies, both big and small. We are and can be so much more talented and powerful than we think. We can achieve freedom by any means necessary. Adults are not automatically good at caring for others; it is not something contingent on age but a practice anyone can learn at any time. Of course, it is ideal for our liberation struggle to have as much support as possible, but if this cannot or will not be the case, we have the tools to do it ourselves. Young people have the ability and capacity as a community to care for and liberate ourselves if we believe it. DO NOT underestimate us.

So, what is the abolitionist response to paedophilia? We are.

 

Footnotes:

(1) I don’t believe that being childish is negative: in fact, I think it is beautiful. Therefore, I would like to specify in this context I’m referring to people using it as an insult.

(2) Do not mistake my use of “everyday” for “normal” because abusiveness is not something that should ever be normalised or accepted as such.

(3) Financial or material abuse is something also experienced by children, but as people who are legally and literally owned by our parents until we turn 18 and have no financial or social standing, it is unlikely we have access to (much) money. Romantic and sexual relationships where one person has complete financial control over another would be rightly seen as incredibly controlling and abusive – why don’t we extend this same understanding to children?

(4)  I use the word ‘survivor(s)’ to refer to those, of all genders and ages unless otherwise specified, who have experienced (sexual) abuse and violence. I recognise the complex nature of this word: not all people who experience this survive and some of those who do may prefer alternative terms/language. In the context of this essay, it is a shorthand.