Hard to understand.

[Saitek]

At 18, locked away for all her productive and most happy time of her life and her captors did nothing for her. 43? She looks like she is 85. I wonder how can those captors think that way? I guess back in Britain a couple of hundred years ago we wern't much better.
The red Cross do a good work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4230614.stm

[BFMF]

I've heard that quite a few people here in the US don't like the Red Cross

[Hagar]

This doesn't only happen in Asia or 'third world' countries. I never understood how or why parents could be so cruel to one particular child while apparently being normal loving parents to others.

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

Hmmm....something from my country.......weird because supposedly the Indian news channels I get didn't report it...

[Saitek]

I suggest that if they think she is mental they think again. If she isn't then that's an almost miracle. She must have one of the strongest brains around as most people would go real crazy under such living conditions.

[jordonj]

This doesn't only happen in Asia or 'third world' countries. I never understood how or why parents could be so cruel to one particular child while apparently being normal loving parents to others.

That, sadly, is the norm in child abuse cases.
One child becomes the scapegoat...

consider this...

http://www.davepelzer.com/aboutb.htm

Dave Pelzer one child in this household in this story.  He was the one that was abused.   Out of 38,000 cases of child abuse in California, Dave Pelzer's was judged the third worst.

David J. Pelzer's mother, Catherine Roerva, was, he writes in this ghastly, fascinating memoir, a devoted den mother to the Cub Scouts in her care, and somewhat nurturant to her children--but not to David, whom she referred to as "an It." This book is a brief, horrifying account of the bizarre tortures she inflicted on him, told from the point of view of the author as a young boy being starved, stabbed, smashed face-first into mirrors, forced to eat the contents of his sibling's diapers and a spoonful of ammonia, and burned over a gas stove by a maniacal, alcoholic mom.  Sometimes his mother will lock him in the bathroom with ammonia in buckets.  Sometimes he would breathe into a cloth that was dry. Soon after that mother realized he was breathing into a cloth so before she put him in there she would make sure the cloth had already been soaked into the ammonia so it could not help him.  Sometimes she claimed he had violated some rule--no walking on the grass at school!--but mostly it was pure sadism. Inexplicably, his father didn't protect him; only an alert schoolteacher saved David.

[Hagar]

Thanks for that Jordon. Good to have you back.

It's a very sobering thought. This is what I find hardest to take.

Inexplicably, his father didn't protect him;

[jordonj]

Well, consider...

How often, in the case of an abusive father, does the mother fail to protect her child (or children)...

It just boggles my mind...

As a father, I cannot understand how anyone can be that way to their child...

[Hagar]

Well, consider...

How often, in the case of an abusive father, does the mother fail to protect her child (or children)...

It just boggles my mind...

As a father, I cannot understand how anyone can be that way to their child...

I can understand it more in the case of the mother as she might be in danger herself. It's surprising what some women will put up with for the "love" of what I can only describe as callous monsters. Even if they do escape from an abusive husband they very often end up with someone much the same or worse. Don't ask me to explain it as I can't.

[jordonj]

Usually they come from abusive homes themselves...(both the men and women as the case may be)

Hence the term "cycle of abuse"

I knew a woman who had a foster kid (here in America)...

He was kept in a small closet in the basement till he was in his teens.

He didn't speak (that part of his brain never developed), but could communicate in a limited way via sign language.

That sort of thing happens in the developed world too...sickos are everywhere...