Based on many news reports of recent days, one might conclude that being kidnapped, raped, and forced to bear children at age 14 with no medical care is not such a big deal. Jaycee is “doing great”, practically the same mellow, sunny girl she was before her 18 years of captivity with a convicted sex offender (BBC News, “US kidnap survivor ‘doing great’”, August 28, 2009).

Major news organizations have chosen these words of initial relief that Jaycee was found alive, spoken by her stepfather, to characterize the event.
What worse nightmare can you imagine than your child or grandchild – anyone’s child or grandchild -- being abducted, raped and held prisoner for any amount of time, let alone years?

Jaycee Lee Dugard has surely lived lifetimes of terror since being taken at the age of 11. Her children know nothing of normal life. These young women aren’t fine.

I deeply hope that Jaycee and her children can somehow recover enough to move forward with the rest of their lives, to feel safe and to build new knowledge and experience, to believe, like fellow kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart, that it’s a “beautiful world” (“Kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart Gives Jaycee Dugard Advice”, NPR, August 28, 2009).

The resilience of the human spirit is remarkable, and everything should be done to help them. But glossing over their pain and making light of their ordeal is a disservice not only to them, but to anyone ever held as a captive, and to the millions of women around the world who are routinely abducted and forced to live in sexual slavery without education or medical care.

“Kidnap”, writes James R. Alvarez, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert on the subject, “derives its malignant power from the way in which it disrupts at least two basic human drives” – society and control over one’s body and physical environment.

Alvarez notes that “...pre-kidnap health is the best indicator of post-kidnap recovery”, referring to both mental and physical health. (“The Psychological Impact of Kidnap”, by James R. Alvarez, Ph.D., Chapter 3 in Trauma Psychology: Issues in Violence, Disaster, Health and Illness, edited by Elizabeth K. Carll, Ph.D., Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT, 2007, p 87-88).

If Jaycee had a stable, positive personality before her ordeal, that will surely help her – but it doesn’t mean she’ll recover quickly or completely. As forensic psychologist Dr. Helen Morrison notes, Jaycee and her children will be entering new territory that will be like a “sci-fi world” to them (“Kidnap victim, children go to hotel to begin new life,” CNN, August 28, 2009).

Rather than focus on fully investigating what went wrong with sex offender law, the parole process and police follow-up on neighbors’ reports of suspicious activity, the press is pursuing its “happy ending” - fostering the idea that the young women aren’t really so badly hurt -- that they can, indeed should, just bounce back smiling.

We’re also starting to hear “blame the victim” suggestions that Jaycee could have identified herself or walked away any time (“Kidnapping Victim Was Not Always Locked Away”, by Jesse McKinley and Carol Pogash, The New York Times, August 28, 2009). At least Ed Smart, father of Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted and held captive for nine months, had the nerve to point out that survival tactics are not necessarily the Stockholm Syndrome “bonding” that some are so quick to invoke (“Kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart gives Jaycee Dugard Advice”, NPR, August 28, 2009).

Jaycee Lee Dugard’s story will unfold over time. According to Dr. Alvarez, a key factor in recovery is to validate the victim’s experiences and responses. Distorting her experience or blaming her for it in search of a Hollywood ending or tabloid success will not help, but hurt. As noted by experts, traumatic experiences harm not only the victims but their communities. Let journalists not add pain for career or monetary gain.

To learn more and take action against kidnapping, visit Amnesty International and its Stop Violence Against Women campaign.