“I still however don’t understand why its okay for the friends and family of the victims to be quiet instead of leaving town.”
Threats could be very far reaching, into a vast network of family, into a vast area of where the Jewish community lives if they move there, in a vast network of yeshivas they can block ALL those children out of, and the biggest threat of all, when someone calls in the future to ask about shidduchim, they will surely call and get a HUGE negative report on the family.
“Why would the Ohel people agree not to report? So lose your job! ” Yes this is something unbelievable. But it is so intertwined. Ohel gets funding and support through Agudah and therefor they won’t rock the boat. They do what they are told. The employees of Ohel also did what they were instructed to do which was to report to their supervisor and that’s it, not to make decisions on their own. The job market is flooded with Social workers and psychologists. People need to make parnasah and it is not so simple as saying, so they will lose their jobs. People are afraid to lose their jobs, people have obligations and responsibilities to their families.
Syag, you can tell by this thread alone, there are those who have the courage to report and get knocked down. There are those who are encouraged and won’t because they are afraid of what will happen to them. If victims knew they had the support behind them, and the molesters would be stopped more people would. That is the feeling that I get from the community of survivors that I know.