Roy Wenzl: Their brothers began molesting them before the girls reached Kindergarten.
When their mother found out, she did little to nothing. When their father found out, he raped them too.
The police who rescued them say somebody should have called 911 immediately, once relatives and friends knew. But it didn't happen like that. When the cops finally showed up, the twins lied to protect the rapists.
Until now this story was shrouded in all the secrecy that society can devise. Revulsion keeps people from discussing it; child abuse victims in court papers are sometimes listed with initials rather than names; newspapers almost never publish victims’ names, or defendants’ names; defendants escape notoriety for their crimes because naming them would identify victims.
Police and prosecutors say the secrecy that protects victims has kept the rest of us in the dark about how bad sexual abuse is.
They say hundreds of perverts abuse children here every year; there were 455 cases investigated in Sedgwick County last year alone. Most such criminals are men trusted in the home.
The twins say our secrecy and our revulsion let deviants keep other kids stuck in spiderwebs of lies, threats and forced sex.
The authorities say the twins have a point. Marc Bennett, who prosecuted the twins’ rapists, said that nearly every time the newspaper writes about a sexual-abuse case, more victims come forward.
So the twins are telling their story here with their names and faces revealed, rejecting secrecy, revulsion, shame.
They hope other victims come forward.
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