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JERRY LYNOTT jlynott@leader.net
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE – The age of the baby who police said was raped in her
parents’ Hazleton home might spare the infant a lifetime of psychological
trauma, child abuse experts said.
The 6-month-old suffered internal injuries to her reproductive organs and
underwent emergency surgery last month. She is expected to make a full
recovery, police said.
A 25-year-old Hazleton man, Robert E. Durant II, stands accused of rape
and aggravated indecent assault and has been jailed on the charges. Durant, a
longtime friend of the infant’s father, watched the baby while her father went
to pick up the child’s mother from work on Jan. 22, police said.
“This doesn’t have to be something that affects a child for the rest of
their life,” said Janet MacKay, executive director of the Victim’s Resource
Center in Wilkes-Barre.
She said that will depend whether the alleged assault was a one-time event,
there is intervention, and no permanent physical damage occurred.
MacKay spoke generally about her experiences dealing with infants who have
been sexually assaulted. She said the assaults at that age are not as common
as those in older children.
Infants “haven’t learned what social mores are … what is (sexually)
inappropriate behavior,” MacKay gave as one of the factors that might lessen
the trauma.
Attorney Merrilee Weiss of the Support Center for Child Advocates in
Philadelphia agreed that the number of infant sexual assault cases is lower,
but added “it’s not an unheard-of thing.”
“As far as a child, it’s almost more a physical abuse case,” because of
the development stage of the infant, said Weiss.
But psychologist Lisa Starr of Dunmore stressed that just how the Hazleton
child will be affected is unclear.
“It can be remembered,” Starr said of the reported rape. “But how much
trauma will occur depends on a number of different variables.” She listed the
infant’s family setting, the frequency of the assaults and the physical damage
inflicted as some of the variables.
The assault “doesn’t actually get coded in (the infant’s memory) as a
sexual experience … it goes in as something fearful,” Starr said. Later on
in life, the person might re-enact the behavior while in a situation that
“doesn’t intuitively feel right,” she added.
An infant can remember life experiences in sensory ways – visual, auditory,
olfactory or smell and body, Starr said.
MacKay pointed out instances of adults who had “body memory.”
“They might not have memory in their conscious mind of being abused,” she
said. “They feel in the part of the body that trauma.”
Call Lynott at 829-7237