Many people prefer to bury the pain and to try to forget. In the mid 1980s, a few Canadian Aboriginal communities began the process of recovering and healing related to sexual abuse. Although almost all communities are struggling with this issue, and some communities are very open about their struggle, there are still many in which powerful people will not allow the issue of sexual abuse to come to the surface and be addressed head on. This manual is written for communities that are ready to address the issue of sexual abuse. The law requires that all suspected cases of child sexual abuse be reported and prosecuted.
Canadian society tends to want to push sexual abusers into prisons as quickly as possible.
Aboriginal communities, on the other hand, tend to see the problems of abuse as an imbalance or a sickness in the person, the family, and the community. A sickness calls for healing, not jailing. Sexual abuse is fundamentally an abuse of power. Abusers use their power, control, or influence over victims in order to gain access to sexual contact. Because there is a power imbalance, healing usually requires an infusion of power into the situation.