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Male sexual abuse survivors isolated in the darkness
Richard Old had been dead for about three weeks before anyone found him. And it wasn’t because he had no friends to check on him. He did. But Old was a survivor of sexual abuse and would isolate himself. He didn’t always want to interact with others. So the fact that he wasn’t answering his door in March wasn’t unusual. Those who knew him knew it meant he wanted to be left alone. They had no idea he had died alone in his sleep.Sadly, he was just one of tens of thousands of men left damaged and isolated by sexual abuse.
A Ministry of Social Development report into male sexual abuse says about one in 16 men and one in six boys will report experiencing at least one episode of sexual victimisation in their life. Often, it is an experience that engulfs their life, leaving them forever changed and forever apart.
Tautoko Tāne Taranaki (Male Survivors Taranaki) social worker Marion Mauga visited Old at his New Plymouth home in the middle of February. The group works alongside about 60 male sex abuse survivors in Taranaki, providing peer-to-peer support in a bid to build meaningful relationships that help overcome years of fear, distrust and shame. Old had been part of the group since 2021, accumulating 118 contact hours before his death, but overall he still wasn’t very communicative.
This was not unusual, Mauga says. Survivors often hide themselves away. They are disconnected from family and friends, and they prefer it that way.
“The men that we engage with, they also have rules when we turn up to their place. ‘Call first; text first. If I don’t respond, then don’t just show up out of the blue.’ Those were the difficult things.”
