Believe the Children

American organization that promoted claims of Satanic ritual abuse

Believe the Children was an advocacy organization formed by the parents involved in the McMartin preschool trial to promote the idea that allegations of Satanic ritual abuse were factual and not a moral panic. The organization's name was based on the slogan that the children, who were the primary sources of information about the alleged abuse (no physical evidence or corroboration was found for the allegations), should be believed without question. The organization became a clearinghouse for information about ritual abuse from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s.[1][2] Few, if any, of the claims of ritual satanic abuse promoted by Believe the Children have been substantiated.[3]

References

  1. ^ de Young, Mary (2004). The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic. Jefferson, North Carolina, United States: McFarland & Company. pp. 39. ISBN 0-7864-1830-3.
  2. ^ Victor JS (1993). Satanic panic: the creation of a contemporary legend. La Salle, Ill: Open Court. pp. 104. ISBN 0-8126-9192-X.
  3. ^ Oppenheimer, Mark (2015-08-06). "Review: 'We Believe the Children,' on Child Abuse Hysteria in the 1980s (Published 2015)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
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