America Can Learn From Poland's Humanity in "House of Horrors" Case

In this horrifying case, a young woman and her disabled brother were rescued from living with their abusive, incestuous, murderous father in a small village in Poland.

The 20-year-old woman, Paulina GIerasik, is unfortunately also being charged with incest and murder, along with her 54-year-old father Piotr. 

However, unlike in America, public sentiment seems to be that Paulina is also a victim.  Somehow many Polish people are able to understand what Americans somehow can't:  that people don't necessarily have full agency with their parents just because they've turned 18.  And maybe not with others who have been grooming or abusing them from an early age, either.

EXCLUSIVE: Polish villagers insist 'incest house of horror' daughter is an innocent victim of her depraved father and should not face trial as new images emerge of cellar where three babies were killed
I would suggest that the more intense the abuse is, the more inappropriate or extreme the boundary violations are, and the earlier they happen, the less-likely that person is to be able to have any self-determination even when they reach adulthood. 

In other words, if he started raping her as a 6 or 7-year-old, or even at 12 or 13, there was really nothing for her to do or say about any of it, I don't think, but to go along.  Especially since he's said to have beaten up the disabled brother and thrown him out of the house when he wanted to be alone with Paulina.  It sounds like Piotr was completely out of control.

So I'm glad that public sympathy is with the poor girl who was made to act as her mother -- who also died under mysterious circumstances.  Thank God Piotr's reign of terror is over with now.  Because the prosecution, for whatever reason, imagines that Paulina somehow had agency to consent. 

There's a bizarre picture of her with something that hopefully isn't baby shit smeared all over her face and stuck in her nostrils, for reasons I can't imagine.  There's another picture when he offered her on the internet for sex when she was 15.  He shaved her head at one point so other men wouldn't want her.  He's been raising her since she was 5.  He clearly just does whatever he wants to her at any given time.  It wobbles my mind to try and understand what the police are looking at when they want to blame her for any of this.    What was she meant to do, physically fight him?  And run where?

From The Daily Mail:

"Another local told Fakt newspaper: 'They lived like a couple. She called him Piotr, by his first name. They walked around hand in hand.

'A few months ago, he shaved her head so that other boys wouldn't look at her.
'She looked up to him as if he were God.'
Addressing the arrests earlier, Mariusz Duszyński from the District Prosecutor's Office in Gdańsk said: 'The woman has been charged with two counts of murder and a charge of having an incestuous relationship with her father.
'The man was charged with three counts of murder, a charge of incest with his 20-year-old daughter, and a charge of having incestuous relations with another daughter.'
According to prosecutors, two of the murdered children came from his relationship with the 20-year-old who they say was in a consensual relationship with her father.
The third baby was from a relationship he had with another daughter after forcing her into sex.
The prosecutors added that they suspected him of killing the third baby.

The grim discoveries came after police received a tip-off from social services. One of Paulina's work colleagues is reported to have alerted social services after seeing a 'disturbing' text message the 20-year-old had sent to her father.
Police found the three infant bodies in the basement of the house, each in various states of decomposition. The ground was covered in dirt and there was no solid floor where they were burred.
Moving to the village around 15 years ago, Piotr was left to bring up his children after his wife died."

I'm glad that many citizens seem to understand what the prosecutors somehow can't:  that Paulina never stood a chance against her insane father.  Listen to the things they're saying:  "She looked up to him like he was God."  That's not normal.  He has way too much control over her thinking.  She has no boundaries with him at all.   She made her hellish life as easy as possible by going along with it, and for that, they want to punish her.

I'm confident that justice will prevail now that she and her brother are finally safe from him.  She won't be found guilty, and she shouldn't be.