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Women need the courage to confront their rapists

Published: Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 5:43 a.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 5:43 a.m. Winter Haven Police Department O Officer Patterson's Retirement Pierrot Awards

This editorial recently appeared in The Concord Monitor. Tina Anderson's horrifying treatment by Concord's Trinity Baptist Church made her story the subject of national attention. Anderson was 15 in 1997 when she was raped and impregnated by Ernest Willis, then a church member more than twice her age. In a scene that sounds like it occurred in a distant century, Anderson was called before the congregation by its then-pastor, Chuck Phelps, and told to apologize for being pregnant. She was sent by Phelps and her mother to live with a family Phelps knew in Colorado until the baby was born and could be put up for adoption. The specifics of Anderson's case were extraordinary in one other way too: Fourteen years later, she summoned the courage to return to Concord and confront Willis, not to mention Phelps and her mother. In doing so, she set an example for women everywhere who have been doubly victimized -- first by their attackers and then again by their fear of seeking justice. Anderson put a name and a face to a crime that usually goes unreported because women fear the attacks on their character and credibility that inevitably follow accusations of rape.
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http://www.newschief.com/article/20110607/NEWS/106075014/1013/opinion?Title=Women-need-the-courage-to-confront-their-rapists&tc=ar[6/28/2011 4:38:16 AM]

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http://www.newschief.com/article/20110607/NEWS/106075014/1013/opinion?Title=Women-need-the-courage-to-confront-their-rapists&tc=ar[6/28/2011 4:38:16 AM]