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Witness (1985 film) - Wikipedia

Witness (1985 film) - Wikipedia



Witness (1985 film)

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Witness
Witness movie.jpg
Original poster
Directed byPeter Weir
Produced byEdward S. Feldman
Screenplay by
Story by
Starring
Music byMaurice Jarre
CinematographyJohn Seale
Edited byThom Noble
Production
company
Edward S. Feldman Productions
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • February 8, 1985
Running time
112 minutes
CountryUnited States
Language
  • English
  • German
Budget$12 million
Box office$68.7 million (US/Can)[1]
Witness is a 1985 American neo-noir[2] crime thriller film directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, and Lukas Haas. Jan Rubeš, Danny Glover, Josef Sommer, Alexander Godunov, Patti LuPone, and Viggo Mortensen appear in supporting roles. The screenplay by William Kelley, Pamela Wallace, and Earl W. Wallace focuses on a detective protecting a young Amish boy who becomes a target after he witnesses a murder in Philadelphia.
The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. It was also nominated for seven BAFTA Awards, winning one for Maurice Jarre's score, and was also nominated for six Golden Globe Awards. William Kelley and Earl W. Wallace won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay and the 1986 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay presented by the Mystery Writers of America. Harrison Ford was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Plot[edit]

In 1984, an Amish community attends the funeral of Jacob Lapp, who leaves behind his wife Rachel and eight-year-old son Samuel. Rachel and Samuel travel by train to visit Rachel's sister, which takes them into Philadelphia. While waiting for a connecting train at 30th Street Station, Samuel goes into the men's room and witnesses the brutal murder of an undercover police officer, but manages to evade detection by hiding in the stalls.
Detective John Book is assigned to the case where he, along with his partner Sergeant Elton Carter, questions Samuel. Although Samuel is unable to identify the perpetrator from mug shots or a lineup, he later sees a newspaper clipping in a trophy case of narcotics officer James McFee receiving an award and points him out to Book. Book investigates and finds out that McFee was previously responsible for a seizure of expensive chemicals used to make black-market amphetamines, but the evidence has now disappeared. Book surmises that McFee himself fenced the chemicals to drug dealers, and that the murdered detective had been investigating the theft.
Book expresses his suspicions to Chief of Police Paul Schaeffer, who advises Book to keep the case secret so they can work out how to move forward. Book is later ambushed and shot in a parking garage by McFee and left badly wounded. Since only Schaeffer knew of Book's suspicions, Book realizes Schaeffer is also corrupt and tipped off McFee. Realizing that Samuel and Rachel are now in grave danger, Book orders his partner to remove all traces of the Lapps from his files, and drives the boy and his mother back home to Lancaster County where they could disappear within their community. While attempting to return to the city, Book's loss of blood causes him to pass out in the vehicle in front of their farm.
Rachel argues that taking Book to a hospital would allow the corrupt police officers to find him while and put Samuel in danger. Her father-in-law Eli reluctantly agrees to shelter him despite his distrust of the outsider. Book slowly recovers in their care and begins to develop feelings for Rachel, who likewise is drawn to him. The Lapps' neighbor Daniel Hochleitner had hoped to court her, and this becomes a cause of friction.
During his convalescence, Book dresses in Amish garb in order to avoid drawing attention to himself. His relationship with the Amish community deepens as they learn he is skilled at carpentry and seems like a decent, hard-working man. He is invited to participate in a barn raising for a newly married couple, gaining Hochleitner's respect. However, the attraction between Book and Rachel is evident and clearly concerns Eli and others, causing much gossip in the tight-knit community. That night Book inadvertently observes Rachel bathing, but as she stands half-naked before him, he walks away.
Book goes into town with Eli to use a payphone, where he learns that Carter has been killed. He deduces it was Schaeffer and McFee who are intensifying their efforts to find him and have been joined by a third corrupt officer, Ferguson. In town, Hochleitner is harassed by locals. Book retaliates, breaking with the Amish tradition of non-violence. The fight between the bullies and the strange "Amish" man is reported to the local police, who then inform Schaeffer, who had previously contacted the sheriff in his efforts to locate Book, Rachel and Samuel.
The next day, the corrupt officers arrive at the Lapp farm and search for Book and Samuel, taking Rachel and Eli hostage. Book orders Samuel to run to Hochleitner's home for safety, then tricks Ferguson into the corn silo and suffocates him under tons of corn. He retrieves Ferguson's shotgun and kills McFee. Samuel, hearing the gunshots, heads back to the farm. Schaeffer then forces Rachel and Eli out of the house at gunpoint; Eli signals to Samuel to ring the farm's bell. Book confronts Schaeffer, who threatens to kill Rachel, but the loud clanging from the bell summons the Amish neighbors, who resolutely gather near and silently watch him. With so many witnesses present, Schaeffer realizes he can neither kill them all nor escape, and gives up.
Book says goodbye to Samuel in the fields as he prepares to leave; he and Rachel share a long loving gaze on the porch. Eli wishes him well "out there among them English" signifying his acceptance of Book as a member of their community. Book smiles and departs, exchanging a wave with Hochleitner on the road out.

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

Producer Edward S. Feldman, who was in a "first-look" development deal with 20th Century Fox at the time, first received the screenplay for Witness in 1983. Originally entitled Called Home (which is the Amish term for death), it ran 182 pages long, the equivalent of three hours of screen time. The script, which had been circulating in Hollywood for several years, had been inspired by an episode of Gunsmoke William Kelley and Earl W. Wallace had written in the 1970s.[3]
Feldman liked the concept, but felt too much of the script was devoted to Amish traditions, diluting the thriller aspects of the story. He offered Kelley and Wallace $25,000 for a one-year option and one rewrite, and an additional $225,000 if the film actually was made. They submitted the revised screenplay in less than six weeks, and Feldman delivered it to Fox. Joe Wizan, the studio's head of production, rejected it with the statement that Fox didn't make "rural movies".[3]
Feldman sent the screenplay to Harrison Ford's agent Phil Gersh, who contacted the producer four days later and advised him his client was willing to commit to the film. Certain the attachment of a major star would change Wizan's mind, Feldman approached him once again, but Wizan insisted that as much as the studio liked Ford, they still weren't interested in making a "rural movie."[3]
Feldman sent the screenplay to numerous studios and was rejected by all of them, until Paramount Pictures finally expressed interest. Feldman's first choice of director was Peter Weir, but he was involved in pre-production work for The Mosquito Coast and passed on the project. John Badham dismissed it as "just another cop movie", and others Feldman approached either were committed to other projects or had no interest. Then, as financial backing for The Mosquito Coast fell through, Weir became free to direct Witness, which was his first American film. It was imperative filming start immediately, because a Directors Guild of America strike was looming on the horizon.[3]

Casting[edit]

Lynne Littman had originally been in talks to direct the film, and even though she ultimately did not, she recommended Lukas Haas for the part of Samuel because she had recently worked with him on her film Testament. The role of Rachel was the most difficult to cast, and after Weir grew frustrated with the auditions he'd seen, he asked the casting director to look for actors in Italy because he thought they'd be more "womanly". As they were reviewing audition tapes from Italy, Kelly McGillis came in to audition, and the moment she put on the bonnet and said a few lines, Weir knew she was the one. The casting director recommended her old friend Alexander Godunov who had never acted before, but she thought his personality would be right, and Weir agreed. Viggo Mortensen was cast because Weir thought he had the right face for the part of an Amish man. Mortensen had just started his acting career, so this was his first film acting role, and he had to turn down another role as a soldier in Shakespeare in the Park's production of Henry V. He credited that decision and the very positive experience on the film as the start of his film career.[4]

Preproduction[edit]

During the weeks before filming, Ford spent time with the homicide department of the Philadelphia Police Department, researching the important details of working as a homicide detective. McGillis did research by moving in with an Amish widow and her seven kids, learning how to milk cows and practicing their accents. Weir and cinematographer John Seale went on a trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where an exhibition of 17th century Dutch masters was going on. Weir pointed out the paintings of Johannes Vermeer, which were used as inspiration for the lighting and composition of the film, especially in the scenes where John Book is recovering in Rachel's house from a gunshot wound.[4]

Filming[edit]

The film was shot on location in Philadelphia and the city and towns of Intercourse, Lancaster, Strasburg and Parkesburg. Local Amish were willing to work as carpenters and electricians, but declined to appear on film, so many of the extras actually were Mennonites. Halfway through filming, the title was changed from Called Home to Witness at the behest of Paramount's marketing department, which felt the original title posed too much of a promotional challenge. Principal photography was completed three days before the scheduled DGA strike, which ultimately failed to materialize.[3]
During the setup and rehearsal of each scene as well as during dailies, Weir would play music to set the mood, with the idea that it prevented the actors from thinking too much and let them listen to their other instincts. The barn raising scene was only a short paragraph in the script, but Weir thought it was important to really highlight the aspect of community. They shot the scene in a day, and did in fact build a barn, albeit with the help of cranes off camera. To film the scene in the corn silo, corn was really dropped onto the actor, and scuba diving gear with an oxygen tank were hidden on the floor so that the actor would be able to breathe.[4]
Originally the script ended with a scene of Book and Rachel each explaining their feelings for each other to the audience, but Weir felt the scene was unnecessary and decided not to shoot it. The studio executives were worried that the audience wouldn't understand the ending and tried to convince him otherwise, but Weir insisted that the characters' emotions could be expressed with only visuals.[4]

Reception[edit]

Critical response[edit]

Witness was well received by critics and earned eight Academy Award nominations (including Weir's first and Ford's sole nomination to date).
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film four out of four stars, calling it "first of all, an electrifying and poignant love story. Then it is a movie about the choices we make in life and the choices that other people make for us. Only then is it a thriller—one that Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud to make." He concluded, "We have lately been getting so many pallid, bloodless little movies—mostly recycled teenage exploitation films made by ambitious young stylists without a thought in their heads—that Witness arrives like a fresh new day. It is a movie about adults, whose lives have dignity and whose choices matter to them. And it is also one hell of a thriller."[5] Ebert also praised Ford's work and claimed he had "never given a better performance in a movie."
Vincent Canby of The New York Times said of the film, "It's not really awful, but it's not much fun. It's pretty to look at and it contains a number of good performances, but there is something exhausting about its neat balancing of opposing manners and values... One might be made to care about all this if the direction by the talented Australian film maker, Peter Weir... were less perfunctory and if the screenplay... did not seem so strangely familiar. One follows Witness as if touring one's old hometown, guided by an outsider who refuses to believe that one knows the territory better than he does. There's not a character, an event or a plot twist that one hasn't anticipated long before its arrival, which gives one the feeling of waiting around for people who are always late."[6]
Variety said the film was "at times a gentle, affecting story of star-crossed lovers limited within the fascinating Amish community. Too often, however, this fragile romance is crushed by a thoroughly absurd shoot-em-up, like ketchup poured over a delicate Pennsylvania Dutch dinner."[7]
Time Out New York observed, "Powerful, assured, full of beautiful imagery and thankfully devoid of easy moralising, it also offers a performance of surprising skill and sensitivity from Ford."[8]
Halliwell's Film Guide chose Witness as one of only two films from 1985 to receive a four star review, describing it as "one of those lucky movies which works out well on all counts and shows that there are still craftsmen lurking in Hollywood."[9]
Radio Times called the film "partly a love story and partly a thriller, but mainly a study of cultural collision – it's as if the world of Dirty Harry had suddenly stumbled into a canvas by Brueghel." It added, "[I]t's Weir's delicacy of touch that impresses the most. He ably juggles the various elements of the story and makes the violence seem even more shocking when it's played out on the fields of Amish denial."[10]
The film was screened out of competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.[11]

Box office[edit]

The film opened in 876 theaters in the United States on February 8, 1985 and grossed $4,539,990 in its opening weekend, ranking No. 2 behind Beverly Hills Cop. It remained at No. 2 for the next three weeks and finally topped the charts in its fifth week of release. It eventually earned $68,706,993 in the United States.[1]

Legacy[edit]

Negotiation expert William Ury summarized the film's climactic scene in a chapter titled "The Witness" in his 1999 book Getting to Peace (later republished with the alternate title The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop) and used the scene as a symbol of the power of ordinary citizens to resolve conflicts and stop violence.[12]
This scene from the popular movie Witness captures the power of ordinary community members to contain violence. The Amish farmers were present as the third side in perhaps its most elemental form, seemingly doing nothing, but in fact playing the critical role of Witness. Like the Amish, we are all potential Witnesses.
— William Ury, The Third Side[12]

Awards and nominations [edit]

Controversy[edit]

The film was not well-received by the Amish communities where it was filmed.[13] A statement released by a law firm associated with the Amish claimed that their portrayal in the movie was not accurate. The National Committee For Amish Religious Freedom called for a boycott of the movie soon after its release, citing fears that these communities were being "overrun by tourists" as a result of the popularity of the movie, and worried that "the crowding, souvenir-hunting, photographing and trespassing on Amish farmsteads will increase." After the movie was completed, Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh agreed not to promote Amish communities as future film sites. A similar concern was voiced within the movie itself, where Rachel tells a recovering Book that tourists often consider her fellow Amish something to stare at, with some even being so rude as to trespass on their private property.[14]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b "Witness". Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com.
  2. ^ Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth; eds. (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd ed.). Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Feldman, Edward S. (2005). Tell Me How You Love the Picture. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 180–190. ISBN 0-312-34801-0.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Keith Clark and Jon Mefford (2005). "Between Two Worlds: The Making of Witness". Witness (DVD). Paramount Pictures. OCLC 949729643.
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (February 8, 1985). "Witness". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
  6. ^ Canby, Vincent (February 8, 1985). "FILM: 'WITNESS,' A TOUGH GUY AMONG THE AMISH". Retrieved June 30, 2018.
  7. ^ "Witness". Variety. December 31, 1984.
  8. ^ "Witness Review". Time Out New York. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013.
  9. ^ Halliwell's Film Guide, 13th edition – ISBN 0-00-638868-X.
  10. ^ John Ferguson. "Witness review". Radio Times.
  11. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Witness". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
  12. ^ Jump up to:a b Ury, William (2000) [1999]. The third side: why we fight and how we can stop (Revised ed.). New York: Penguin Books. pp. 170–171. ISBN 0140296344. OCLC 45610553.
  13. ^ Hostetler, John A.; Kraybill, Donald B. (1988). "Hollywood markets the Amish". In Gross, Larry P.; Katz, John Stuart; Ruby, Jay (eds.). Image ethics: the moral rights of subjects in photographs, film, and television. Communication and society. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 220–235. ISBN 0195054334. OCLC 17676506.
  14. ^ "Amish ask boycott of movie 'Witness'". Pittsburgh Press. February 16, 1985. Retrieved January 4, 2013.

External links[edit]

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閉ざされたアーミッシュ社会、彼らが隠してきた「恐るべき秘密」

閉ざされたアーミッシュ社会、彼らが隠してきた「恐るべき秘密」

閉ざされたアーミッシュ社会、彼らが隠してきた「恐るべき秘密」


キリスト教の一派アーミッシュがひた隠しにしてきた驚愕の事実が、独自取材により明るみに。

by SARAH MCCLURE 2020/01/17

WILLARDGETTY IMAGES


アメリカ版『コスモポリタン』誌と非営利の調査報道機関『タイプ・インベスティゲーションズ（Type Investigations）』との1年にわたる共同調査で明らかにされた、アーミッシュの近親相姦とレイプ、性的虐待の戦慄の文化とは――。

Photos: Getty Images

From COSMOPOLITAN

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WALTER BIBIKOWGETTY IMAGES


※アーミッシュとは、アメリカやカナダの一部で自給自足の生活を送るドイツ系移民のキリスト教の一派のこと。宗教的理念に基づき、米国へ移民してきた当時のままの生活様式を送っている。



セイディ*の記憶は、断片的だ――真夜中、ベッドがきしむ音が聞こえる。兄弟のひとりが、部屋に忍び込んできたのだ。マットレスの端まで体を引っ張られ、下着を剥ぎ取られる。兄弟は片足を床の上に残したまま、体を覆いかぶせてくる。

夕暮れ時、豚小屋でエサをやり終えると、別の兄弟が掴みかかってきた。引き裂かれたドレス、エプロンの上に散らばった壊れた洗濯バサミ……。時には何とか逃げ出し、全速力で家に逃げ帰ることもあった。でも、兄弟たちは彼女より“大きくて強い”。彼らは大抵、欲しいものは手に入れる。

子供の頃のセイディは、注意深く外部の影響から遠ざけられていた。TVを見ることも、ポップミュージックを聴くことも、学校に通うことも許されなかった。その代わりに、彼女は一部屋しかない建物で勉強を教えるアーミッシュの学校に通い、馬や馬車で教会に行った。謙虚で、規律を守り、信心深い人になるための生活を送っていた。

セイディは9歳になる前に、兄のひとりにレイプされた。そして12歳になるまでには、父親のアブナー*からも性的虐待を受けるようになった。カイロプラクター（指圧師）だった父は、診療室の施術台にセイディを乗せて彼女の膣に指を入れ、“子宮を指先で軽くたたいてやる”ことで妊娠できるようになると言った。14歳になるまでに、セイディはほかの兄弟3人にもレイプされた。干し草置き場や彼女の寝室で、週に何度も襲われた。その後には、恥ずかしさと混乱で眠ることができなかった。

一緒の部屋で寝起きしていた（ベッドまで共有していた）姉や妹たちが、目を覚ますことはなかった――あったとしても、何も言うことはなかった。後になって、同じようにレイプされていたことをセイディに打ち明けた姉妹もいる。
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セイディの小さな世界は、規則に従うことを基本に作り上げられていた――静かにしていることも、決まりのひとつだ。「愛も、支えてくれるものもなかった」と彼女は言う。「行くところも、言うこともないと思っていました」

だから、彼女は何も言わなかった。12歳の時、家に警察がやってきて、娘たちに対するアブナーの性的虐待の疑いについて質問した際も、そのおよそ2年後、アブナーが巡回裁判所（控訴裁）で判事から5年間の保護観察処分を言い渡された時も。

14歳の頃、兄弟のひとりに食料貯蔵室の奥に追い詰められ、流し台の上でレイプされた時でさえ、何も言わなかった。この際セイディは大量に出血したが、その場にひとりで残された。体を拭き、冷水を張ったバケツにそっと下着を入れ、家事に戻った。この時自分がおそらく流産したのだということに、彼女は何年かたった後で、友人の言葉によって気付いた。

セイディは今になってようやく、こうして自らの経験を話し、一見すると牧歌的な子供時代の裏に潜んでいた暗闇について、明らかにする決心がついた。黙り込んでいることに、嫌気がさしたのだ。
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ここ1年間、筆者はおよそ30人のアーミッシュと警察などの法執行機関の関係者、判事、弁護士、ソーシャルワーカー、学者たちにインタビューし、話を聞いてきた。そして、それらを通じて知ったのは、アーミッシュのコミュニティにおける性的虐待が、世代を超えて保たれてきた公然の秘密であるということだ。

被害者たちから聞いたのは、不適切な接触や愛撫、性器を露出されること、性器に指を入れられること、オーラルセックスの強制、アナルセックス、レイプなどの話だ。加害者はすべて、被害者自身の家族であり、隣人であり、教会の指導者たちだった。

アーミッシュの暮らしに関する研究で知られる、ペンシルベニア州・エリザベスタウン大学の再洗礼派・敬虔派ヤング研究センターによると、北米におよそ34万2000人いるとされるアーミッシュは、ペンシルベニアやオハイオ、インディアナ、ケンタッキー、ニューヨーク、ミシガン、ウィスコンシンなどの各州の地方部に暮らしている。

出生率が高く、コミュニティを離れる人がほとんどいないことから、アーミッシュはアメリカ国内で最も急速に拡大している宗教グループのひとつになっている。ひとりの指導者が主導する中央集権的な組織ではなく、教会の“教区”の単位で生活しており、それぞれが20〜40世帯で構成されている。そして、筆者が被害者たちから聞いたようなことは、そのいずれにおいても起こっていた。

筆者のまとめたところでは、過去20年の間、アメリカの7つの州にあるアーミッシュのコミュニティで、子供が被害者となった性的暴行事件は報告されているだけで52件。恐ろしいことに、この数字は氷山の一角にすぎないのだ。
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筆者が話を聞いたアーミッシュの被害者（主に女性だが、男性もいる）は、ほぼ全員が、被害を警察に届け出ることを思いとどまるよう家族や教会の指導者たちから説得されたり、外部の助けを求めないことを条件にされたりしていた（セイディも、被害を公にすれば冷笑されたり、非難されたりするだけだとわかっていたと話している）。

被害者たちのなかには、脅されたり、コミュニティから追放すると脅迫されたりした人たちもいる。こうした話からわかるのは、アーミッシュの聖職者による子供たちへの性的虐待が、あちこちのコミュニティで隠ぺいされていることだ。9歳の時に兄と近所に住む少年から虐待を受けたというエスター*によれば、「通報は、キリストがするようなことではないと言われていた」という。「とても深く根付いた考え方なのです。教会に行き、ただ耐えているだけという人たちは本当に大勢います」とエスターは言う。

それでも、#MeToo運動がこれまでの主流文化に揺さぶりをかけるなかで、アーミッシュの女性の間でも、自ら主導する運動は起こり始めている。子供への性的虐待を防ぐための活動を行う非営利団体「セーフ・コミュニティズ（Safe Communities）」の創設者でありディレクターであるリンダ・クロケットによれば、この運動は「はるかにペースが遅く、特に目立たつものでもない」のだとか。

「でも、一歩前に踏み出そうとするアーミッシュの女性は、ここ10年の間に確実に増えています。彼女たちはお互いの話に耳を傾けています。ツイッターやフェイスブックを通じてだけではありません。彼女たちのコミュニティには、強力な情報伝達システムがあるのです。お互いの勇気と力を引き出し合っています」
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ペンシルベニア州ランカスター郡地方検事局の元検事で、現在は判事を務めるクレイグ・ステッドマンは、「電話がかかってくるようになりました。私の携帯電話の番号を知っているアーミッシュの人たちは数多くおり、彼らが電話をくれるのです。女性のために、男性が連絡してくることもあります」と話す。

およそ4万人からなるアーミッシュのコミュニティがあるランカスター郡には、アーミッシュと警察などの法執行機関、社会サービスを結びつける活動を行うタスクフォース（特別委員会／専門調査団）がある。（アーミッシュのほとんどは携帯電話を持っていないものの、公衆電話や近所の「イングリッシュ（アーミッシュから見た、自分たち以外のアメリカ人）」の家から電話をしているとみられる）

被害者のなかには、セイディのようにすでに長期間にわたって教会に行かず、アーミッシュの生活から離れている人もいる。いっぽう、エスターのようにまだその内部におり、拒否するよう教えられてきた外部の世界に向けて、内側から警報を発している人もいる。クロケットは、被害者たちは「話したいのだ」と指摘する。「だから、外の世界に注意を向けるのだ」という。
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アーミッシュの間で性的虐待という危機的問題が発生する理由は、ひとつだけではない。いくつもの要因が、最悪の状況を引き起こしている。男性が支配する孤立した生活様式のなかで、被害者たちは助け出してくれるかもしれない警察とも、ほかの誰とも接触することができない。

そのほかに理由として挙げられるのは――8年生（日本の中学2年生に相当）までしかなく、性や自分たちの体について学ぶことができない教育システム、被害者非難の文化、コミュニケーションや、より幅広い社会意識を持つことを可能にするテクノロジーへのアクセスがほとんどないこと、実際に罰することや更生よりも、贖罪と寛容を優先させる宗教であることなどだ。また、アーミッシュの指導者の多くは警察に対する警戒感が強く、争いごとは自分たちのなかで解決しようとする。

セイディは幼い頃、毎朝夜が明ける前に起き、飼っていた牛の乳を搾っていた。服装は教会の規則「オルドヌング（Ordnung、ドイツ語で『規律』を意味する）」に従い、頭にヘアカバー（ボンネット）をつけ、丈の長いドレスと、光沢のない黒い色の靴と靴下を身に着けていた。「本当に一生懸命、できる限り働かなければ、怠け者だと言われました」と彼女は語る。

セイディは電気のスイッチを入れたり、店で洋服を買ったりしたことがなかった。自宅ではいつも英語ではなく、小学1年生の年になるまでそれしか知らなかったという「ペンシルベニアドイツ語」で話していた。

そして、彼女は性的虐待を受けていることについて、いとこのひとりと自身の父親のほか、誰にも打ち明けていなかった。父親には、兄弟に体を触られたことがあるかとストレートに聞かれたのだという（次にもう一度同じことを聞かれた時には、いつものようにまた父が兄弟たちを殴るのではないかと恐れ、嘘をついた）。

だが、セイディの親戚たちによれば、彼女の家で起きていたことは、ほとんど周知の事実だった。アブナー（すでに故人）のことを地元の教会指導者に知らせたのは、親戚のひとりだ。セイディは、父が1カ月半にわたり“村八分”にされていたことを覚えている。アーミッシュの社会で一般的なこの「シャニング（Shunning）」という罰は、コミュニティの全メンバーから絶交され、同じ教会に通う人たちと一緒のテーブルで食事をすることも禁じられるというもの。

シャニングの期間が終了すると、罰を受けた人は教会で神に懺悔し、コミュニティはその人を許して“罪が犯されたこと”を忘れるよう求められる。セイディによると、彼女の家ではこの期間の後、すべてのことが平常通りに――つまり、それ以前と同じ状態に戻ったという。
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警察やソーシャルワーカーたちはその後も、彼女の家を訪れた。おそらく地元のアーミッシュではない人たちが、通報していたのだろう。ある巡査のメモによれば、アブナーは警察などに対し、「この話はすでに教会で取りあげられ、対処されている」と言っていた。また、娘たちには「何も言うな」と命じ、黙らせていた。セイディと親戚のひとりは、命じられたことを記憶している。

記録によると、警察はその後に再びアブナーのもとを訪れ、「娘たちとの性的な関係について具体的に質問した」。そこでアブナーはようやく、「娘のうち2人と性交渉を持った」と告白。「2人とそれぞれ少なくとも3回セックスをしたが、2人を傷つけたわけではない」と主張したという。父親が自分以外の姉妹も性的に虐待していたことをいとこから聞かされたセイディは、姉妹を守るために、口をつぐんだ。

親戚のひとりによれば、セイディの母親はソーシャルワーカーたちに対し、「アブナーが刑務所に行かなくて済むよう、できる限りのことをしてほしい」と頼んでいた。

そして、それは功を奏した。2001年に撮影された画質の悪いVHSビデオの映像には、両手で帽子を持って判事の前に立つ、灰色のひげを生やしたアブナーが映っている。弁護士は、「被告が収監されることを家族が望んでいない」ことから、被告は近親相姦ではなく、より罪の軽い第1級性的虐待で有罪を認めると説明している。5年またはそれ以上と考えられていた禁錮刑が科される代わりに、アブナーは保護観察処分となった。

セイディによると、父親による性的虐待はその後さらに5年間続いた。筆者が彼女の兄弟たちに話を聞いたところ、そのうち2人が、アブナーがセイディを虐待していたことを認めた。また、彼らのうちのひとりは、自らもセイディを「もてあそんだ」ことがあると白状した。だが、レイプしたわけではないと主張した。別の兄弟も、彼女をレイプしたことを否定。3人目の兄弟からは、コメントを得ることができなかった。
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被害者のなかには、黙っていることを強要されただけでなく、さらにひどい状況に苦しむ人たちもいる。リジー・ハーシュバーガーは、14歳の時、27歳だったクリス・スタッツマンとその妻に“お手伝いさん”として雇われ、彼らの4人の子供たちの面倒をみたり、家畜の世話を手伝ったりしていた。

ある晩、牛の乳搾りを終えた後、スタッツマンは彼女を壁に押し付けてキスし、それから飼い葉袋の上に押し倒した。ミネソタ州の冬は寒さが厳しく、彼女はドレスの下にズボンをはいていた。何とか逃れようとするリジーのズボンを脱がせたスタッツマンは、彼女をレイプし、耳元でこう囁いた――「落ち着いて」。この言葉は今でも、リジーにとっての“引き金”だ。

リジーはこの時、両脚の間に痛みを感じた理由も、出血した理由もわからなかった。両親はセックスについても、生理についてさえも、彼女に教えたことがなかった。

（セイディは10歳の時、外で遊んでいる時に初潮を迎えた。下着にトイレットペーパーを詰め、姉妹のひとりを納屋に引っ張っていき、自分に何が起きているのか尋ねたという）

「アーミッシュの被害者たちは、体の各部位の名前さえ知らない」とステッドマンは語る。「基本的な性教育をまったく受けていないことが、性暴力の被害について説明することをさらに難しくしています」

初めてレイプされた時、リジーは体の震えが止まらなかったという。「利用され、壊され、汚されたように感じました」「すでに自分を責め始めていました――なぜ、あとほんの数分でも早く、家畜小屋を出ていなかったのだろうかと」

裁判所の記録とリジーの日記によれば、スタッツマンはその後、およそ5カ月の間に25回も、干し草置き場や自宅、そして馬車の荷台でリジーを襲った。一度は教会から家に帰る途中、道から外れて森の中へ向かい、そこで彼女をレイプした（スタッツマンは弁護士を通じて、これらについてのコメントを拒否した）。

虐待の現場を目撃した男性が2人いたが、どちらもリジーを助けようとはしなかった。ただ、それでおそらく逮捕されるだろうと思ったスタッツマンは、自ら罪を告白した。

アブナーと同じように、スタッツマンも1カ月半にわたって「シャニング」の罰を受けた。その後は、「教会が罰し、そして許したのだ」として、周囲の誰かがスタッツマンを外部の機関に向けて告発することはなかった。

それどころか、コミュニティは合意のうえでの“不倫関係”だとして、リジーを非難した。彼女はいじめられ、からかわれ、つばを吐きかけられ、「尻軽女（Schlud）」「売春婦（Hoodah）」などと呼ばれた（カッコ内はペンシルベニアドイツ語）。

「私の気持ちも、私の言い分も、聞いてはもらえませんでした」とリジーは話す。それどころか彼らは、リジーが“精神的な問題”を抱えていると噂さえした。
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アーミッシュのコミュニティでは、たとえ被害者が子供であっても、同意の上で不倫をしたなどとして、加害者と同様に罪があると考えられることが珍しくない。被害者にも一定の責任があるとみなされるのだ。そして、加害者が教会から罰を受けた後には、すぐに許すことを求められる。許せないなら、問題があるのは被害者の方だとされる。

裁判に持ち込まれるのは、まれなケースだ。アーミッシュは圧倒的に、加害者を擁護する。被害者たちと法執行機関の関係者によれば、コミュニティのほぼ全体が、加害者の側につくことが大半だ。これは、訴え出ることで被害者が受ける心の傷を、さらに大きくする。ステッドマンによれば、「裁判で50人のアーミッシュが加害者を擁護し、被害者をかばう人がひとりもいないということもあった」という。

ランカスター郡で30件以上のアーミッシュの性的暴行事件の裁判を担当してきたデニス・ライナカー判事によれば、2010年に行われたある判決では、被害者の若い女性たちに、加害者の父と兄弟を許すよう圧力がかけられていた。被害者のひとりは裁判所に、次のような嘆願書を提出している。

「こんにちは、私はメルヴィン（被告）のきょうだいです。どうかお許しください。メルヴィンはこの1年間に、自分が犯した罪を手放すために大きく変わりました。家族は揃って一緒にいるのがいいと思います」

この裁判では、被害者たちは「加害者が禁錮刑を受けないこと」を唯一の条件として、裁判に協力することに同意していた。被告たちが禁錮25～30年と考えられていた刑期を免れたのは、この取り決めの影響だろうとライナカー判事は指摘する。
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一方でリジーを取り巻く状況はその後、おかしな展開をみせた。母親から、隣接するサウスダコタ州のカイロプラクティック・クリニックに連れて行くと言われた彼女は、ほかのアーミッシュの大人たちでいっぱいのバスに乗り、およそ480kmも離れたクリニックに向かった。

そこに滞在していた1週間、「常に監視されていた」というリジーが受けたのは、“精神的なものに対処する”ためのディープティシュー（深部組織）マッサージだった。

アーミッシュの性暴力の被害者が、“メンタルヘルス”の問題のために診療を受けさせられる例は多い。そのためのクリニックには、聖書に基づいてカウンセリングを行うアーミッシュまたは「メノナイト（アーミッシュに近い理念だが、それほど戒律が厳しくないキリスト教の宗派）」の専門家がいる。そして、それらのクリニックは多くの場合、所在する州の認可を得ていない。

エスターは数年前、同じように性的暴行の被害を受けた別のアーミッシュの女性に助けを求めようとしたところ、“カウンセリング”のためとしてクリニックに送られた。嫌がると、教会の指導者たちは永久にコミュニティから追放すると彼女を脅したという。

エスターがなぜそのクリニックに入院することになったのか、誰も彼女には教えてくれなかった。彼女は、教会の指導者たちとクリニックの職員が直接連絡を取り合うことに同意する書類に署名するよう強要されたという（最終的には、あきらめて署名するしかなかった）。エスターは「入院した日の夜から、薬を処方された」。だが、服用は拒否したという。それについてエスターは、こう説明している。

「こうしたクリニックに入院させられた人の多くは、薬漬けにされます。自宅に戻るころには、もはや普通の生活ができなくなっています。ゾンビになるのです（エスターはこうした施設に送られたアーミッシュの性的暴行の被害者を、自身の姉妹2人を含めて30人近くも知っている）」
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エスターはクリニックで、“睡眠薬”の服用を拒否すれば滞在期間が延びるだけだと言われた。副作用について聞くと、世話係は「関係ない。飲まなきゃだめ」と答えた。

結局、彼女は薬を飲んだ。だが、それは睡眠薬ではなかった。医療記録によれば、処方されていたのは統合失調症などの精神疾患の治療に使われる抗精神病薬「オランザピン」だった。

毎日朝と夜の2回、エスターはほかのアーミッシュの“患者”たちと列に並び、薬を受け取った。「小さな容器に水を入れて持っていき、薬をもらうため台に上るの。全員が順番にね。胸をえぐられる思いだったわ」

そのうち、目の前がぼやけ、幻覚を見るようになった。エスターは逃げ出したいと思ったが、教会の指導者たちに逆らうことは、教区から追い出されることだった。

5週間の滞在期間のうち、エスターは2週間にわたってこの薬物治療を受けた。退院記録によると、彼女に勧められたのは「従順であること」。そして、「前向きな、または適切な考えをもって、教会指導者やその他の人たちへの不健全な考えに抗うこと」だった。

エスターは、アーミッシュの指導者たちは性的虐待の被害を公にしようとする女性たちを黙らせるため、こうしたクリニックに閉じ込めているのだと語る。「声を上げると、被害者たちは施設に送られ、何も言い出せないように薬漬けにされるのです」
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それでも、被害者であると名乗り出る女性はますます増えている。それにつれて、被害者を支援するためのエコシステムも確立されてきた。

もうずいぶん前にアーミッシュのコミュニティから離れたリジーは、似たような境遇にあったディーナ・シュロックとともに2年前、性的虐待を受けた女性を支援するための組織「ヴォイシズ・オブ・ホープ（Voices of Hope）」を設立。今では友人同士のリジーとセイディは、このグループを通じて知り合った。

2018年から配信が開始されたアーミッシュとメノナイトの社会における性的虐待の問題を取り上げる番組、『ザ・プレーン・ピープルズ・ポッドキャスト（The Plain People's Podcast）』を通じて連帯を強めている人たちもいる。

以前はメノナイトとして暮らしていた番組の共同司会者、ジャスパー・ホフマンは、「自らの経験について語りたい」「加害者を告発するための支援を得たい」という人たちから、何百ものメッセージを受け取っている。

また、アーミッシュの文化そのものを変えようとする取り組みも、ペンシルベニア州を中心に進められている。ランカスター郡では警察官や弁護士、社会福祉機関などで構成され、ステッドマンもメンバーに名を連ねるタスクフォースが年に数回、信頼関係の構築やコミュニケーションを深めるため、アーミッシュの指導者たちと会合を開いている（ただし、アーミッシュ側の代表に女性はひとりも含まれていない）。
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一部のアーミッシュも独自の取り組みを始めている。複数の州のコミュニティが『コンサバティブ・クライシス・インターベンション（Conservative Crisis Intervention＝保守的危機介入）』という委員会を創設。性暴力に関する通報や加害者の訴追について、当局と連携している。

この委員会に参加するメンバーのひとり、ランカスター郡のエイモス・シュトルツフスは、次のように語る。

「多くのことが変わりました。私たちは（規則に）従わなければなりません。かつてのように、隠しておくことは許されなくなりました」

（強豪として知られるペンシルベニア州立大学のフットボールチームのコーチを長年務めていたジェリー・サンダスキーが、少年たちを性的に虐待していたことが明らかになり、大きな注目を集めたことから、同州では2014年、より厳格な報告義務が課されるようになった）

シュトルツフスによれば、ランカスター郡のアーミッシュたちは現在、少なくとも“隠そう”とはしていないという。「親たち、子供たちへの教育を通じて、変わる必要があるということを認めている」というのだ。

また、被害者が簡単に加害者を許すことができないのは、消えない心の傷のためであることについても、理解しようとしているという。「私たちのコミュニティは、この問題を本当に重要なことだと考えています……。ただし、時間がかかることなのです」
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リジーは2018年夏、加害者に対する公正な裁きを求め、レイプ被害を警察に届け出た。以前は絶対にできないと思っていたことだ。その結果、驚いたことに、すでに教会の助祭になっていたスタッツマンが起訴されることになった。被告は第3級性犯罪について有罪を認め、量刑言い渡しの日には、法廷はアーミッシュの支持者たちであふれた。

リジーもまた、数多くの支持者たちに囲まれていた。そのなかには、車で2時間をかけて傍聴にきたセイディもいた。被告には最終的に、1988年に施行されたガイドラインに基づき、禁錮45日と10年間の保護観察処分が言い渡された。

現在32歳になったセイディは、5人の子供の母親となり、アメリカ中西部に住んでいる。2013年にやっと、夫とともにアーミッシュの教会から離れることを決心した。今は加害者を告発することよりも、自分自身を癒すことに力を注いでいる。

そして彼女は現在でも、兄弟たちと連絡を取っている。ひとりはこれまでに“何度も”彼女に謝罪しているという。“奇妙なこと”と思われるのはわかっているが、彼女はいまだに時々、彼らのもとを訪れている。

また、心の傷を乗り越えようと、これまでに夫と一緒に何度か、カップルセラピーを受けた。今でも彼女は、キリスト教に基づいた療法を好むという。ただし、自分の子供たちの身近にいる男性はすべて、100％信用することはできない。この先も、信用することはないと思っている。

セイディはこれまで、何度も大きな怒りを抑え込まなければならなかった。“自制心を失う”ことも多かったという。だが、すべてを明らかにすることができた今、ようやく心の落ち着きを得られるようになってきている。

※「*」が付いている氏名は仮名です（氏名はすべて敬称略）

※写真は本文とは関係ありません
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20 The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They’re Hiding a Horrifying Secret2

The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They’re Hiding a Horrifying Secret


A year of reporting by Cosmo and Type Investigations reveals a culture of incest, rape, and abuse.




by SARAH MCCLURE

JAN 14, 2020



The memories come to her in fragments. The bed creaking late at night after one of her brothers snuck into her room and pulled her to the edge of her mattress. Her underwear shoved to the side as his body hovered over hers, one of his feet still on the floor.


Her ripped dresses, the clothespins that bent apart on her apron as another brother grabbed her at dusk by the hogpen after they finished feeding the pigs. Sometimes she’d pry herself free and sprint toward the house, but “they were bigger and stronger,” she says. They usually got what they wanted.


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As a child, Sadie* was carefully shielded from outside influences, never allowed to watch TV or listen to pop music or get her learner’s permit. Instead, she attended a one-room Amish schoolhouse and rode a horse and buggy to church—a life designed to be humble and disciplined and godly.





AMY SANCETTA


By age 9, she says, she’d been raped by one of her older brothers. By 12, she’d been abused by her father, Abner*, a chiropractor who penetrated her with his fingers on the same table where he saw patients, telling her he was “flipping her uterus” to ensure her fertility. By 14, she says, three more brothers had raped her and she was being attacked in the hayloft or in her own bed multiple times a week. She would roll over afterward, ashamed and confused. The sisters who shared Sadie’s room (and even her bed) never woke up—or if they did, never said anything, although some later confided that they were being raped too.


Sadie’s small world was built around adherence to rules—and keeping quiet was one of them. “There was no love or support,” she says. “We didn’t feel that we had anywhere to go to say anything.”

So she didn’t.


Even on the day the police showed up on her doorstep to question then-12-year-old Sadie’s father about his alleged abuse of his daughters.


Even on the day when, almost two years later, Abner was sentenced by a circuit court judge to just five years’ probation.


And even on the day when, at 14, she says she was cornered in the pantry by one of her brothers and raped on the sink, and then felt a gush and saw blood running down her leg, and cleaned up alone while he walked away, and gingerly placed her underwear in a bucket of cold water before going back to her chores. A friend helped her realize years later: While being raped, she had probably suffered a miscarriage.

DAN CALLISTER/SHUTTERSTOCK


It wasn’t until now that Sadie decided to speak up, to reveal the darkness beneath the bucolic surface of her childhood. She’s tired of keeping quiet.


Over the past year, I’ve interviewed nearly three dozen Amish people, in addition to law enforcement, judges, attorneys, outreach workers, and scholars. I’ve learned that sexual abuse in their communities is an open secret spanning generations. Victims told me stories of inappropriate touching, groping, fondling, exposure to genitals, digital penetration, coerced oral sex, anal sex, and rape, all at the hands of their own family members, neighbors, and church leaders.





The Amish, who number roughly 342,000 in North America, are dispersed across rural areas of states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, a leading authority on Amish life. Because of their high birth rate—and because few members ever leave—they’re one of the fastest-growing religious groups in America. Lacking one centralized leader, they live in local congregations or “church districts,” each made up of 20 to 40 families. But the stories I heard were not confined to any one place.


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In my reporting, I identified 52 official cases of Amish child sexual assault in seven states over the past two decades. Chillingly, this number doesn’t begin to capture the full picture. Virtually every Amish victim I spoke to—mostly women but also several men—told me they were dissuaded by their family or church leaders from reporting their abuse to police or had been conditioned not to seek outside help (as Sadie put it, she knew she’d just be “mocked or blamed”). Some victims said they were intimidated and threatened with excommunication. Their stories describe a widespread, decentralized cover-up of child sexual abuse by Amish clergy.


“We’re told that it’s not Christlike to report,” explains Esther*, an Amish woman who says she was abused by her brother and a neighbor boy at age 9. “It’s so ingrained. There are so many people who go to church and just endure.”





And yet, as #MeToo has rocked mainstream culture, Amish women have instigated their own female-driven movement. “It’s much slower and less highly visible,” says Linda Crockett, founder and director of Safe Communities, an organization that works to prevent child sexual abuse. “But I have seen a real uptick over the past 10 years in Amish women coming forward. They hear about each other—not on Twitter or Facebook, but there’s a strong communication system within these communities. They draw courage and strength from each other.”


“I get phone calls now....There’s a bunch of Amish who have my cell phone number, and they use it. The men call on behalf of the women,” says Judge Craig Stedman, former district attorney of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—home to nearly 40,000 Amish—who has served on a task force that connects the Amish to law enforcement and social services. (Although most don’t have cell phones, the Amish might use pay phones or call from “English” neighbors’ homes.)


Some victims, like Sadie, have long since left the church and the Amish way of life, but others, including Esther, are still on the inside, sending out an alarm to the world they’ve been taught to reject. “They want to talk,” explains Crockett, “so they’re turning outside.”


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ALAMY


There’s no one reason for the sexual abuse crisis in Amish Country. Instead, there’s a perfect storm of factors: a patriarchal and isolated lifestyle in which victims have little exposure to police, coaches, or anyone else who might help them; an education system that ends at eighth grade and fails to teach children about sex or their bodies; a culture of victim shaming and blaming; little access to the technology that enables communication or broader social awareness; and a religion that prioritizes repentance and forgiveness over actual punishment or rehabilitation. Amish leaders also tend to be wary of law enforcement, preferring to handle disputes on their own.


As a child, Sadie was up before dawn every morning to milk her family’s cows, wearing a pleated head covering and long dress, her shoes and socks a dull black, as her local church rules, or Ordnung, required. “If you didn’t work as hard as you possibly could, you were considered lazy,” she says. She never turned on a light switch or shopped for clothes in a store. She didn’t speak English at home—just Pennsylvania Dutch, the only language she knew until first grade. And she never revealed her abuse to anyone, except a cousin and her father himself, when he asked her, point blank, if her brothers were touching her. (The next time he asked, she lied, fearful he would beat the boys, as he often did.)





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But what was happening in her house was a poorly kept secret, according to several of Sadie’s relatives. One of them reported Abner, who has since died, to local church leaders—Sadie remembers her father being “shunned” for six weeks, a common form of discipline in which the accused is socially ostracized and forbidden from eating at the same table as church members. After a shunning, the person confesses in church and the community is strongly compelled to forgive and forget that the “sin” ever happened. In Sadie’s house, she recalls, everything went back to normal—or at least, to how it had been before.


When the police and social workers later showed up on her doorstep, most likely after being tipped off by a local non-Amish person, Abner told authorities that “things which we were speaking about had been brought up and dealt with in the church,” according to a police detective’s notes. He also silenced his daughters. “You say nothing,” Sadie and another relative remember him demanding.





ASHLEY GILBERTSON / VII / REDUX


Authorities returned a second time, asking him “specific questions about having sexual intercourse with his daughters,” according to the case file. Now Abner confessed to having “sex with two of them,” insisting “he made love to them at least three times each but didn’t hurt them.” Sadie, who had heard from a cousin that her dad was also abusing her sisters, didn’t dare breathe a word in their defense.


A relative recalls that Sadie’s mother told social workers “to do whatever they could to keep him from going to jail.”







It worked. A grainy VHS recording from 2001 shows a gray-bearded Abner standing with his hat hanging between his hands before a judge, as an attorney explains that he is pleading guilty to a reduced charge of sexual abuse in the first degree, and not incest, because “the family is not desiring that he be incarcerated.” Instead of serving a sentence that might have been five years or more, Abner got probation.


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Sadie says her father abused her for five more years. When I reached out to her brothers, two confirmed that Abner had touched Sadie; one of them also said he himself “messed around” with her when they were young but that he did not rape her; the other denied raping her. A third brother did not respond to a request for comment.


Some victims aren’t just silenced—they suffer something worse. Lizzie Hershberger was 14 when she went to work as a “maude,” or hired girl, for a 27-year- old Amish man named Chriss Stutzman and his wife, taking care of their four children and helping Stutzman in the barn. One night after they had milked the cows, he pinned her against a wall and kissed her, then pushed her onto the feed bags. Because it was a frigid winter in Minnesota, Lizzie wore pants under her dress, which Stutzman removed while she tried in vain to fight him off. “Relax,” he whispered into her ear as he raped her. (To this day, that word remains a trigger for Lizzie.)


She didn’t know why she felt pain and blood between her legs. Her parents had never talked to her about sex or even her period. (When Sadie got her period at age 10, while playing outside, she remembers stuffing toilet paper in her underwear and pulling one of her sisters into the outhouse to ask what was going on.)





“Amish victims don’t even know the names of body parts,” confirms Stedman. “To describe a sexual assault without having any fundamental sex education, it presents even more challenges.”


When Lizzie’s abuser finally climbed off her, she was shaking. “I felt broken and used and dirty,” she says. “I was already blaming myself, thinking, Why didn’t I leave the barn just, you know, a couple of minutes earlier?” Stutzman would rape Lizzie 25 more times over roughly five months, according to court records and Lizzie’s diary. He raped her in the hayloft, in his house, and on the seat of his buggy. Once, on the way home from church, he pulled the buggy off the road and raped her in the woods. (Through his lawyer, Stutzman declined to comment.) Twice, male witnesses walked in on the abuse, but neither man came to Lizzie’s rescue.


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Instead, Stutzman himself, perhaps sensing he’d been caught, confessed.





Like Abner, he was shunned for six weeks. And again, no one reported him to outside authorities, especially since the church had already disciplined and forgiven him. Instead, the community turned on Lizzie for what they saw as a consensual “affair.” She was bullied and mocked, spit on and called a “schlud” and “hoodah” (Pennsylvania Dutch for “slut” and “whore”). “They didn’t ask me how I felt or my side of the story,” she says. Instead, the commu- nity gossiped that she had “mental issues.”


It’s common for Amish victims to be viewed by the community as just as guilty as the abuser—as consenting partners committing adultery, even if they’re children. Victims are expected to share responsibility and, after the church has punished their abuser, to quickly forgive. If they fail to do so, they’re the problem.


When the rare case does end up in court, the Amish overwhelmingly support the abusers, who tend to appear with nearly their entire congregations behind them, survivors and law enforcement sources say. This can compound the trauma of speaking out. “We’ve had cases where there’ll be 50 Amish people standing up for the offender and no one speaks for the victim,” says Stedman.





In one 2010 case, young female victims were pressured to forgive their father and brother for abusing them, with one writing a pleading letter to the court (“Hello Sir, I’m Melvin’s sister. Please have mercy. Melvin has made a big change to let go of his committed crime in the last year. I’d like to have our family together.”), recalls former President Judge Dennis Reinaker, who has presided over 30-plus Amish sexual assault cases in Lancaster County. In this case, the victims agreed to cooperate only in exchange for their abusers receiving no jail time. The deal likely helped save the defendants from what could have been 25- to 30-year prison sentences, says Reinaker.


Things got stranger for Lizzie. She remembers her mother telling her that she was being taken to a chiropractic clinic in neighboring South Dakota, and then boarding a bus full of Amish adults for the 300-mile drive to a facility where, for a week, “they watched me all the time,” she says. She received daily deep-tissue massages to “work through my emotional stuff,” she was told.

Lizzie’s is not the only account of an Amish victim being taken to an alleged “mental health” facility staffed by Amish or Mennonites (a similar, although typically less strict, group) that provides Bible-based counseling—and, in many cases, is not state licensed. Several years ago, Esther was sent to a facility for “counseling” after she tried to seek help for another Amish woman who was being sexually assaulted. When she protested, church leaders threatened to excommunicate her permanently.


No one would tell her why she was there. Instead, she was pressured to sign papers that would allow staff to communicate directly with her ministers, she says (she eventually gave in and signed). “From the first evening, they wanted to put me on medication,” she recalls. She said no, since “a lot of these people who get stuck in these facilities come home drugged and no longer have a life. They’re zombies.” (She’s aware of about 30 other Amish sexual assault victims, including two of her sisters, who have been sent away to such facilities.)





Eventually, Esther says she was told that refusing “sleep medication” would only prolong her stay. When she asked about side effects, a house parent told her, “It doesn’t matter— you have to take it.”


So she did. Except the drugs weren’t for sleep at all: According to her medical records, she was prescribed olanzapine, an antipsychotic medication that treats mental illnesses like schizophrenia. Every morning and night, she and other Amish patients lined up to receive their drugs. “We’d have to go and fill a small container with water and then go up to this pedestal; we’d all take turns,” she says. “It was gut-wrenching.”


Esther started having blurry vision and hallucinations. She wanted to escape—but she knew that defying her ministers would get her kicked out of the church. She was ultimately on the drug for two weeks of her five-week stay. Her discharge notes recommended she “be submissive” and that she “challenge unhealthy thoughts toward ministers and others using positive/good thought.”





GETTY


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Esther now says Amish leaders use lockup stays to silence women who are increasingly eager to go public with abuse allegations. “When a victim speaks out,” Esther explains, “they get sent to a facility and drugged so that they shut up.”


Still, as more and more women start to come forward, an ecosystem has also risen up to help them. Two years ago, Lizzie, who has long since left the Amish, and another former Amish woman named Dena Schrock launched Voices of Hope, a group for abused women. Lizzie met Sadie at one such gathering, and they’re now friends.


Others find solidarity in The Plain People’s Podcast, a show launched in 2018 that features stories of Amish and Mennonite sexual abuse. Jasper Hoffman, a former Mennonite and the podcast’s cohost, says she receives “hundreds of messages” from people wanting to share stories or get help reporting an abuser.





And especially in Pennsylvania, efforts are being made to reform Amish culture itself. In Lancaster County, the task force Stedman serves on, comprised of police, attorneys, and social service agencies, has been meeting with Amish leaders a few times a year, trying to build trust and communication. (It’s worth noting, however, that not a single woman has been included among the group’s Amish representatives.)


Some Amish have started their own initiatives too. In multiple states, their Conservative Crisis Intervention committees liaise with local authorities on reporting and prosecuting sexual assault cases. One Lancaster County member, Amos Stoltzfoos, told me that “a lot of things have changed and forced us to comply and not allow things to be swept under the rug, like they had at one point.” (Stricter mandatory reporting requirements were implemented in Pennsylvania in 2014 in the aftermath of the high-profile Jerry Sandusky child abuse case, for one.)


Now, Stoltzfoos says, the Lancaster County Amish, at least, “aren’t interested in hiding things” and have “adapted and recognized that we need to change with some of the education that we give to the parents and the children.” He says they’ve also tried to understand the lasting trauma that can make quick forgiveness difficult for victims: “Our community does really care....It just takes time.”


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ASHLEY GILBERTSON / VII / REDUX


In the summer of 2018, Lizzie sought her own justice by reporting her rapes to police, something she never felt she could do before. To her surprise, charges were brought against Stutzman, who was by then a deacon in the church. He pleaded guilty to third degree criminal sexual conduct, and at his sentencing hearing, the room was filled with his Amish supporters. But Lizzie was also surrounded by supporters, including Sadie, who had driven two hours to be there. Stutzman was ultimately sentenced to 45 days in jail and 10 years’ probation, based on guidelines in place in 1988, the year before the assaults.


As for Sadie, she’s now a 32-year-old mother of five living in the Midwest. In 2013, she and her husband finally left the Amish church. For now, she’s focused on healing, not pressing charges. She still speaks with her brothers, one of whom has apologized “many times,” she says. She knows it sounds “weird,” but she even visits them occasionally.


Sadie has tried to work through her trauma in couples therapy with her husband. And she’d still like to get her own Christian therapist. She’s pretty sure she’ll never completely trust any man around her kids.


There’s been plenty of anger to deal with. She used to “fly off the handle,” she says. But now, it feels good to finally be letting it all out.





*Name has been changed.


These photos are used for illustrative purposes only.


Additional research by Darya Marchenkova and Hannah Beckler. Additional support provided by Investigative Reporters and Editors.



Type Investigations is an award-winning nonprofit newsroom that works with independent reporters to investigate topics ranging from gender issues to criminal justice to human rights.


SARAH MCCLURESarah McClure is an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles.
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