We hear about it far too often: children who have suffered physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of their supposed caretakers only to not be believed.
This video from BuzzFeed News tells the gripping story of children in American orphanages and the horrors and abuse they had to endure, with some not making it out alive.
In the mid-1990s, more than 100 former residents of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont, came forward and said they had been abused during their time at the institution, but neither the state nor federal government pressed criminal charges.
Of the survivors, 28 came together to sue the dioceses, the order of nuns that ran the orphanage, and the local government agency that oversaw the institution.
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Sally Dale lived at St. Joseph’s from age 2 to 23, and she divulges that she was beaten by the nuns there on a regular basis. She was also repeatedly held captive in a small container in the attic, where she was unable to even sit upright. Sally also experienced repeated sexual abuse.
Even though all of those things signify absolutely horrendous abusive behavior toward children, it wasn’t even the worst thing that Sally endured.
“I saw somebody push a boy out the window and I was looking up at the building and … I know it was a nun because she had the habit [on],” Sally describes in a video recording. Sally also notes how she witnessed a boy drown at the hands of a nun after being thrown from a rowboat.
To learn more about what survivors of St. Joseph’s Orphanage endured and what happened with the lawsuits, watch the video.
