The Duggar family put locks on their children’s doors and put a stop to games like hide-and-seek after they found out that oldest child Josh Duggar had sexually molested four of his sisters, two of the sisters revealed Friday.
Jessa Seewald and Jill Dillard revealed to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Friday that they were two of Josh’s victims. The sisters spoke about the steps their parents took to try to minimize the risk of another molestation after they learned of Josh’s actions.
Jessa Seewald and Jill Dillard revealed to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Friday that they were two of Josh’s victims. The sisters spoke about the steps their parents took to try to minimize the risk of another molestation after they learned of Josh’s actions.
“My parents said, OK, we’re not going to do this hide and seek thing where two people go off together,” Jill said. “As a mother now, I look back and think my parents did such an amazing job…Not only taking care of Josh, but us girls.”The sisters said that revealing themselves as Josh’s victims “wouldn’t have been our first choice,” but they chose to tell their story to Fox News after the story of Josh’s actions broke “to come out and set the record straight.”
Last month, news broke that Josh, the oldest of the family’s 19 children, had admitted to his parents that he’d inappropriately touched five girls. Josh committed the acts back in 2002 and 2003, when he was 14 and 15 years old, but the family’s patriarch, Jim Bob Duggar, waited for more than a year to report the incident to authorities. Josh resigned as head of the conservative Family Research Council’s lobbying arm late last month.
In the interview, Jill and Jessa said they didn’t know about the molestation's — which they said happened while they were about 12 and 10 years old — until their parents told them what had happened. Jessa said that the molestation amounted to “mild inappropriate touching on fully clothed victims, most of it while girls were sleeping.” She said that Josh’s actions were “very wrong” and “not permissible,” but she also defended her brother against some of the media’s claims.
“I do want to speak up in his defense against people who are calling him a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist…I’m like, that is so overboard and a lie really,” she said. “In Josh’s case, he was a boy — a young boy in puberty, and a little too curious about girls. And that got him into trouble.”Jill said that Josh also asked each girl to forgive him, and that she made the choice to do so.
The sisters’ interview came a few days after parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar also spoke to Megyn Kelly. In that interview, Jim Bob minimized the actions of his son, saying that what Josh did “was not rape or anything like that.”
“He had gone in and just basically touched them over their clothes while they were sleeping. They didn’t even know he had done it,” Jim Bob said. He added later that there “were a couple incidents where he touched them under their clothes, but it was like a few seconds.”The Duggars have been strongly criticized for not reporting Josh immediately to the police and for downplaying Josh’s actions. Questions have also been raised about the Duggars’ homeschooling curriculum, the Advanced Training Institute (ATI). ATI has a lesson on Counseling Sexual Abuse, which includes a section titled “Why did God Let It Happen?” and lists “Immodest dress, Indecent exposure, Being out from protection of our parents, Being with evil friends” as potential reasons why the “defrauding” occurred. It’s not known whether or not the Duggars used ATI’s handout on sexual abuse to counsel their daughters.
[h/t thinkprogress]
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