UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune
November 21, 2017
By Danielle Braff
When she was 15, Michelle Forbes’ high school teacher reached up her skirt between her legs.
Shortly after, the same teacher brought her to a secluded area in the woods and taught her how to perform oral sex on him. And on her 17th birthday, he had intercourse with her for the first time.
When a false rumor started going around school that Forbes was pregnant with the teacher’s child, he called her into his office and berated her, saying, “‘I thought you were mature enough for this: Do you want me to lose my job? If you tell, I’ll humiliate you.’”
It wasn’t until two years ago that Forbes, now 46, told her parents the details of the sexual abuse she endured.
She’s not alone. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that 8.5 million women and 1.5 million men experienced sexual violence before the age of 18. According to Darkness to Light, a nonprofit organization committed to preventing child sex abuse, only 38 percent of child victims disclose their abuse, and many of those tell a friend, not a parent.
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