Page 22 - Community Living Magazine 33-4

safeguarding
Accusing saints: when no one listens

After L’Arche founder Jean Vanier died, an inquiry found he had sexually abused six women.
Could women with learning disabilities also have been victims? Noelle Blackman and Lynne
Tooze report, and discuss why the odds are stacked against vulnerable people who speak up

llegations of sexual abuse against learning disability, autism or both, who difficult for people to accept any concerns
Jean Vanier, the charismatic have experienced trauma. they might have felt, to discuss these with
Afounder of the L’Arche communities, We work with people who have others or even to have been believed. It
emerged in February 2020, shortly after experienced abuse as well as those who would also have made it extremely
his death in 2019. They were made public abuse others. This helps us to understand difficult for the people abused by him to
following an independent investigation that the world is not full of people who make sense of what happened to them
commissioned by the charity. are wholly good and those who are wholly and to tell others.
Vanier set up the first L’Arche bad – everyone is capable of being both. The abuse was carried out through a
community in 1964 in a small house in It is unhelpful to hold such closed views relationship that had an extreme power
Trosly-Breuil in France. He invited two about people, because it can lead to blind imbalance. Vanier was a man of God and
men who were living in institutions to spots that are dangerous. couched his abuse within a spiritual
move in. The community was a response context. It was a complete abuse of his
to the plight of people with a learning power and this disabled these able women.
disability institutionalised in France. It is difficult to understand It may have been difficult for them even to
He wrote books, was nominated for the conceptualise what was happening to them.
Nobel Peace prize, received several why women with a learning In this context, it is easy to see why
awards and was admired by many. His disability were not included in the disabling effect of power would have
vision was for people with a learning the investigation, or the risk of been even stronger over women with
disability to be able to contribute to learning disabilities.
society and live equally alongside people this addressed at least We are very aware of the separation in
without a learning disability, our society between people with and
The investigation concerned mainly the without a learning disability. L’Arche is
relationship Jean Vanier had with his When we work with people who have well known for its aim, within its
mentor and teacher Father Thomas sexually abused others, we take a lot of communities, to create what it calls a
Philippe, but also considered specific time understanding their life histories up “culture of shared lives between people
allegations against Vanier himself. to the point we meet them. We often find with and without intellectual disabilities,
The news that then emerged – that they have experienced a lot of trauma and from which… to build a more human
Vanier sexually abused six women from may have been sexually abused by others. society” (L’Arche International, 2020a).
1970 to 2005 – is a real blow. It is similarly Understanding the person in the It seems difficult to understand why
distressing to discover that Father Thomas context of their lived experience enables women with a learning disability were not
Philippe was also known to have sexually us to see them as a person first and included in the investigation, or at least why
abused women. foremost, to develop a therapeutic the concept that there could have been a
At Respond, we were dismayed about relationship with them and to hold a risk of inappropriate sexual behaviour
what had happened and wanted to try to belief that they can change. towards them was not addressed.
make sense of it. Sadly, however, we were L’Arche’s initial comment regarding
not entirely shocked. Power weakens others whether any disabled women were
Respond is an organisation that offers Vanier was seen as a wholly good person, sexually abused by the founder was
therapy, advocacy and support to a saint – indeed, he was in line to be equivocal. Their statement says: “There is
children, young people and adults with a canonised. This would have made it nothing in the investigation to suggest
that Jean Vanier harmed people with
On their own: disabilities” (L’Arche International, 2020b).
the disabling This does not fit well with what we
effect of power know from research and what we hear
would be from women with a learning disability,
stronger over which is that they are more likely to
women with experience sexual abuse (End the Fear,
learning 2015). Anyone who works with survivors
disabilities Magdalena Roeseler/Flickr; Warren Pot/Wikimedia Commons
is likely to say that the abuse uncovered
so far is probably the tip of the iceberg.
Sexual abuse of people with a learning
disability remains a mostly invisible issue.
There are many barriers to disclosing.
These include an inequality of power with
others involved in their lives, not being

22 Vol 33 No 4 | Summer 2020 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk