Skip to content

Victim who suffered abuse as a child shares ‘traumatic’ and ‘devastating’ story

THUNDER BAY -- When Zach Tilson-Ozarko was about three years old, his stepfather began sexually abusing him. The attacks lasted for more than two years, but the emotional scars have lasted a lifetime.
370355_90813236
Heidi Rankin speaks Thursday to more than 100 people at Ka-Na-Chi-Hi Treatment Centre on the effects of domestic violence on children. (Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com)

THUNDER BAY -- When Zach Tilson-Ozarko was about three years old, his stepfather began sexually abusing him.

The attacks lasted for more than two years, but the emotional scars have lasted a lifetime. It took him until he was 16 before he found the courage to come forward and tell someone.

Five years later his stepfather, who had since moved to Edmonton, was convicted.

On Thursday he went public with his story.

“For men there is a reluctance to come forward because right away if something like that had happened to you, you’re not a man,” he said.

“I guess I’m trying to explain that that’s not true.”

Tilson-Ozarko was speaking at a conference for children impacted by violence, a growing concern in Thunder Bay, which has been identified as a city that is home to Canada’s highest levels of domestic violence.

In Tilson-Ozarko’s case, the police didn’t want to open up a Canada-wide investigation, saying it was too costly.

According to conference organizers, community collaboration is a must to end the cycle and keep children from either being victims of domestic violence or witnessing it.

The past year has been particularly rough.

In a pair of high-profile cases last year, an eight-year-old was killed and in the other, a young girls was viciously attacked with a knife and went to hospital with life-threatening injuries. 

Abi Sprakes, manager of clinical services at Thunder Bay Counselling Centre, said incidences of violence at home can have long-lasting after-effects. 

“It is traumatic and it has a devastating impact on children in their home life, at school, with really making sense of the world and day-to-day functioning. But there are lots of things we can do as a community,” Sprakes said.

There are a number of services available for children who have witnessed violence, to facilitate the healing process.

“We can really get the message out to children that abuse is not OK and it’s not their fault,” Sprakes said.

Carol Cline, the executive director of the Catholic Family Development Centre, said breaking the cycle first requires acknowledgement of the problem.

For many perpetrators, mostly men in domestic violence cases, it’s a way of life.

They grew up in abusive homes and see violence as normal.

But there are others who understand they’ve done something wrong, either before or after they’ve been charged with a crime and mandated to seek treatment.

One of the keys is to look at them as people who need help. It’s not all black and white, Cline said, in spite of how horrific their acts may seem.

“We have to look at them and how we can get help them to engage in a more responsible way of being parents and compelling them to look at it from that angle,” Cline said.
She added parents who come to her for help truly want to be good parents, but many just don’t know how.

“It’s really enlightening to be able to take some of this information back and think about how we can engage men and perpetrators of violence in a different way around their children.”
Can the cycle be broken?

“I believe it can be. I think we have several success stories in our organization,” Cline said.


 



Leith Dunick

About the Author: Leith Dunick

A proud Nova Scotian who has called Thunder Bay home since 2002, Leith is Dougall Media's director of news, but still likes to tell your stories too. Wants his Expos back and to see Neil Young at least one more time. Twitter: @LeithDunick
Read more



push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks