I will say without giving details that the abused who “get over it” still suffer terribly in different ways throughout their married and child rearing lives. If, GD FORBID, my child comes to me with any story, I would like to believe I would leave no stone unturned to find out if it is true before showing no mercy.
Still, I do know that identifying perpetrators is not so simple. Even when the listeners are willing to believe it, the stories the kids tell are sometimes unclear and leave out details that indicate the severity of the situation. I still kick myself when I think of the three or four times that a friend of mine mentioned something his teacher did and I kept telling him to shut up. He said it half joking – I guess in case I didn’t believe him – and I thought he was being funny. It is only 20 years later that I realize what he probably wanted me to know.
I also was friends with someone who was a victim of abuse by an adult (NOT a rabbi) but she and several other victims would not testify because they were fragile people and all of their testifying would have brought only a misdamenor charge.