WARNING: This article may concern those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone who has.

Cat Bodden, who was sexually assaulted by a family member when she was a child, never imagined she would work with convicted sex offenders.

But that’s what she did for nearly a decade, in an effort to understand the mind of a pedophile.

“I had questions I wanted to ask the offenders. I had questions I needed to understand why this happened. This was where I was in my healing journey 10 years ago years,” she told the CBC radio show. Ideas.

In 2017, Bodden met a convicted sex offender whom CBC agreed to call Stan.

Stan participated in a program at Community Justice Initiatives (CJI), a restorative justice organization in Kitchener, Ontario, aimed at supporting convicted sex offenders so that once they are released from prison, they do not reoffend.

(CBC agreed to use a pseudonym for Stan for three reasons: the pain that naming him might have on his victims; the possibility that his family might be targeted; and the potential that Stan himself might be harmed if his name was made public.)

Bodden, 63, says she started volunteering at CJI in 2013 because she thought talking to offenders might provide answers — and healing — that she couldn’t find elsewhere. His own attacker is dead.

The reason Stan was at CJI was simply to keep himself from doing it again. In 2016, he pleaded guilty to seven sex-related charges involving five minors and was sentenced to 29 months in prison. After the initial charges were filed, another victim filed a complaint from the same time period, for which Stan was also convicted and received a suspended sentence.

“I wish I had sought help sooner. When things came to light…meaning the harm I caused stopped, those were the best days of my life,” he said. he declared. “And I hope that for years to come, I won’t hurt anyone again.”

Child sexual abuse is preventable. It’s not inevitable.– Dr. Allyn Walker

Since their first meeting, Bodden and Stan have become volunteers for a new CJI program launching in 2022. As part of this, they serve as surrogates and share their lived experiences as survivors and offenders to answer questions and help clients of the CJI to heal from their own traumas. .

“So if the participant is a survivor, they can talk to someone who caused harm. If it’s a person who caused harm, they can talk to a survivor,” Jenn said Beaudin, program coordinator when Ideas visited CJI in early 2024.

It is one of a growing number of programs focused on preventing child sexual abuse. Along the way, this helps foster meaningful conversations about a type of offense that much of society considers unforgivable.

Distinguishing pedophilia from sexual offenses

In 2021, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto launched Talking for Change, a federally funded initiative that provides assessment, psychotherapy, and a helpline for people who want to address or control their attraction to minors.

The 16-20 week Toronto-based program offers therapy with social workers or group therapy. The helpline is anonymous and available in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut for people 18 years of age or older.

“Usually we’re the first people they tell about it. They feel like monsters. They feel like no one would understand,” said Dr. Ainslie Heasman, a psychologist at CAMH who developed the program.

The idea of ​​stopping potential sex offenders before they cause harm goes against conventional thinking that the only way to combat child sexual abuse is to punish an offender after the fact, says the Dr. Allyn Walker, assistant professor in the St. Petersburg Department of Criminology. Mary’s University in Halifax.

“Child sexual abuse is preventable. It’s not inevitable,” Walker said.

Get help before committing the offense. People may find it difficult to accept that I say this.– Bodden Cat

A key part of prevention is understanding that although “pedophile” and “sex offender” are related terms, they don’t mean the same thing, Heasman says.

“Pedophilia is specifically a sexual attraction or sexual preference for prepubescent children,” Heasman said.

Some pedophiles don’t want to hurt minors and never react to their attractions, she said. Additionally, not everyone who sexually harms children is a pedophile.

In his 2008 book Pedophilia and sexual offenses against childrenCanadian psychologist Michael Seto wrote that approximately 40 to 50 percent of people who commit sexual offenses against minors are not sexually attracted to them. Heasman said factors such as impulsivity, substance use, antisocial tendencies or loneliness may explain some of the offenses.

Additionally, says Walker, between 50 and 70 percent of sexual crimes against prepubescent children are committed by other minors — the maximum age of offenders being 14 years. This often comes from a lack of education about adolescent sexual behavior and consent.

In 2021, Walker, a transgender and former sexual assault counselor, published A long, dark shadow: people attracted to minors and their quest for dignity. For this book, Walker interviewed 42 adult pedophiles who had never abused a minor and who did their best to contain their urges.

“I found that they wanted to be able to protect children. They wanted to make responsible choices,” Walker said. “They wanted to be good people.”

The book attracted widespread attention in the United States. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson mocked Walker on Fox News, while comedian Colin Jost joked about the book on Saturday evening live.

This led to personal attacks on social media, accusing Walker of advocating sexual abuse and often focusing on their trans identity.

“There were a lot of transphobic messages…They, you know, wrote that I had a gay or trans agenda,” Walker said. “They also made threats against the children in my family, which was pretty terrifying.”

Mandatory reporting laws

Canada, like most countries, has laws that require anyone who suspects that someone is committing or may be sexually harming a child to report these concerns to child protective services. This includes if the person has sexually harmed a child in the past.

Heasman says these mandatory reporting laws — particularly their requirement to report past offenses against children — have had an unintended consequence: They may prevent pedophiles from seeking help.

“Paradoxically and unfortunately, this could drive individuals further underground, promoting secrecy and (a) feeling alone and having no one to talk to, and therefore not reaching out for the help they need ” she said. said.

Mandatory reporting laws are one of the reasons Stan never sought help before his arrest.

“I couldn’t go to my doctor because he would have to report it,” Stan said. “I don’t want to go to jail.”

Germany is a country that has taken a different approach.

“According to German law, it is considered a violation of confidentiality for the treating therapist to report past child sexual abuse to the police,” said Dr. Klaus Beier, a sexologist in Berlin.

Beier is behind a prevention program called Dunkelfeld, which translates to “black field,” meaning “not all of these cases are known to legal authorities,” he said .

The company had to overcome significant public skepticism when it was introduced in 2005, but Dunkelfeld has since expanded to 12 branches across Germany.

Beier calls mandatory reporting laws like Canada’s “a mistake” when it comes to stopping future sexual abuse.

“Of course, a lot of it depends on emotional thinking and it’s difficult to deal with these issues,” he said. “I know that very, very well, but from a preventive point of view, it’s really wrong.”

Why help ex-offenders?

Stan knows that many people would never agree to help a pedophile, especially if he has admitted to past offenses.

“I understand that. I don’t agree with that,” he said. “One day this person will get out of prison. I deserved to be punished. (After that) you work with people who can help you control your mind.”

“I hope the day I die, someone at my funeral says, ‘There’s a recovered sex offender,’” Stan said, holding back tears. “That’s what I hope.”

Bodden says she’s not against sending sex offenders to prison, but she doesn’t believe incarceration alone will solve the problem.

“Get help before you commit the offense. People might find it difficult for me to say that,” she said.

“I don’t want anyone to have that experience that I had, and if (the way to) solve the problem is to get help before the offense happens, then let’s do it that way.”