Sins of the Amish uncovers the decades-long sexual and physical abuse of young girls living in the religious community.
Four women – Meg, Mary, Misty and Audrey, whose last names have not been revealed to protect their privacy – shared their alleged stories of abuse and how they escaped in the two-part docuseries which is streaming on Peacock.
Their accounts suggest a systematic brainwashing of youngsters by Amish leaders to believe that nightmares like rape and incest are not just normal, but are always the girl’s fault, according to the Daily Beast.
In a disturbing move, elders reportedly handed girls as young as 11 with a sex education pamphlet titled “To the Girl of Eleven” detailing how incest, according to some in the sect, is natural.
“This sex urge, once it is awakened and active in a young boy at the age of puberty and beyond, can become a powerful driving force within,” Mary, who received the pamphlet, reads.
“Every decent girl will do her best to help him, and not make it harder for him.
“Even in your own home, if you have brothers in your teens, you should be mindful of this.
“Your brother innocently coming upon you and seeing your partly uncovered body may suddenly have strong sexual desires aroused within him.
“His intentions were not bad, but he suddenly finds himself a victim of your carelessness in the lust of his own body.”
The pamphlet also encourages young girls not to dress in scanty nightclothes or climb up ladders around male family members and to keep their dress closed at all times.
They’re also told to close their door at night so their family members don’t feel incline to sexually abuse them in bed.
But a closed door didn’t stop Mary’s brother from molesting her in the middle of the night.
The traumatised woman said she used to sprint to her room before he could catch her and locked her door, which wasn’t enough to stop him.
“He would take off the hinges. I remember him grabbing me and then I remember instantly splitting into two people. Like I wasn’t even there,” she painfully recalled.
“When I came back, the door was closing, and he was gone.”
Mary eventually left the community and took her two brothers to court.
Her eldest brother, Johnny, confessed to raping her more than 200 times but was only given a one-year jail term with the ability to leave and work, and 10 years of probation.
Mary remembers busloads of Amish people arriving at the hearing to defend her brother.
“I have a feeling she is doing this out of spite more than anything,” Mary’s own mother wrote to the judge.
“Ever since I learned to know Mary personally, she had a habit of making things sound worse than they really are.”
Mary was given vile abuse because of a belief in the community that speaking out against rape is worse than the sin of rape itself.
To publicly accuse an Amish brother of rape is tantamount to betrayal and so victims are urged to forgive their aggressors instead of going to police or speaking to others.
On top of this, Amish dad’s are encouraged to start disciplining their child from three months old, according to the documentary.
They claim elders scrupulously used a “Lord’s command” to allow fathers to beat their children from infancy.
One woman claimed her father would ask her baby sister to clap and smile and beat her when she didn’t.
One of the most disturbing revelations came from mum-of-five Audrey, who recently left the community.
She remembers the day her young one dropped a bombshell revelations during a sex education talk.
“She opened up and asked me if it’s normal for dads to touch their daughter’s butts,” she recounted.
“I remember sitting there, frozen, all of a sudden understanding that this picture was a whole lot bigger than I even imagined.
“I was brainwashed into thinking it wasn’t abuse, it was discipline, and that’s what God wanted to do, because that was his place in the home.”
Audrey took her ex to court despite facing the prospect of losing custody of her five kids and won.
