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Although the term incest is frequently preferred by criminal, legal, mental health, and media professionals, in my work, I opt for the terms incestuous sexual abuse (ISA) and incestuous child sexual abuse (ICSA). Both labels grew out of the movement to prevent child sexual abuse in the United States. In the early s rape survivors and their allies drew powerful parallels between child sexual abuse and rape and made it a public issue. They pointed out that rape, like child sexual abuse, is not a “singular act of sexuality but rather an expression of power and violence” (Berrick and Gilbert , ). These early articulations formed the core premise of the anti–sexual violence movement, including the movement to prevent child sexual abuse, which was primarily galvanized by women who were subjected to stranger rape or incest rape in childhood (Berrick and Gilbert ). The terms ISA and ICSA more aptly communicate the violation of a person’s human rights, integrity, and wholeness, rather than merely a violation of laws or social mores. Both do not condemn certain customs, such as cousin marriage or uncle-niece marriage, that are practiced in different cultures and communities around the world but do not involve abuse. Instead, by attaching abuse to incest the focus shifts from problematizing the blood relationship to problematizing the dynamics of abuse facilitated by the trusting relationship with the victim and victim’s family. Those who commit ICSA choose to gratify their sexual needs at the expense of someone with very little or no power to give or withdraw consent. They take advantage of family connections where members are related not only by blood but also by marriage and/or historical ties. For instance, in South Asian households, the notions of family include current and past family friends, frequent visitors to the house, distant cousins, and houseguests who may or may not be biologically related or even closely connected to the family. In addition, South Asian children in most parts of the world are in regular contact with people hired by the family, such as priests, doctors, domestic workers, childcare providers, tutors, tailors, 8 bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb Silences That Prevail When the Perpetrators Are Our Own GRACE POORE 107 Ch008.qxd 11/3/06 5:09 PM Page 107 dance instructors, and chauffeurs. Consequently, children experience ICSA in these settings because perpetrators’ access to them is made possible by their access to familiar and familial spheres. U.S.-born Preeti (a pseudonym, as are names of all survivors) recounts how an uncle took advantage of the home-care arrangements and spatial considerations in their home: “He was immigrating to the United States. My father sponsored him to come. Until he could get on his feet and find a job and establish himself, he needed a place to stay. I don’t know how long he was with us when the abuse started. He had the responsibility for sometimes taking my sister and me to school, making sure that we took our naps, giving us baths. [My sister and I] actually had to sleep in the same room with him sometimes. He had access to everything in our family. Our house was his house.”1 Neesha was born in India and came to North America with her parents when she was six. In her case, childcare arrangements involved a religious institution that her newly immigrated parents were relieved to turn to as a source of cultural and familial support. I was six years old when my family moved from India where we had few South Asian friends. My parents moved next door to a Sikh temple. This immediately gave my parents a sense of security. These were other people who were also Sikh, thereby trustworthy, immediately trustworthy. My parents worked a lot, we were a working class family. So, they left me and my brother at the temple. My brother was three and I was six. My mother would drop us off in the morning and pick us up at the end of the day. There were other young children there also for the same purpose. Their parents were working and they thought this was a good place, a safe place to leave their children. The priests in the temple would teach us how to read and write Punjabi, teach us how to play the tabla. Because my parents so unconditionally trusted these men at the temple, my brother and I had a sense of security. We did not at any point feel that we...

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