Leola, Pa. is located in Pennsylvania. Clotheslines with billowing linens and long dresses are a common sight on the off-grid farms of Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, home to the nation's largest Amish settlement. They are an icon for many tourists, as similar to the rural lanes and wooden bridges as they are to Amish Country.
A clothesline with a different purpose was strung in an indoor exhibit for two days in late April. There were 13 outfits representing the trauma of sexual assault suffered by members of the Amish, Mennonite and similar groups, a reminder that the modest attire they require, particularly of women and girls, is no protection.
Each garment on display was either the actual one a survivor wore at the time they were assault or a replica assembled by volunteers to match the strict dress codes of the survivor's childhood church.
The other was a long-sleeve, blue Amish dress with a stand collar. The sign said "survivor age: 4 years old."
I was never safe and I was a child. The sign quoted the survivor as saying that he was an adult.
There was an infant in a onesie.
Ruth Ann Brubaker of Wayne County, Ohio, who helped put the exhibit together, said that she felt rage when she got a tiny little outfit in the mail. You start to cry.
The clothes on display were from different branches of the conservative Anabaptist tradition. The Plain churches emphasize separation from mainstream society, church discipline, forgiveness and modest dress for women.
It was part of a larger conference on awareness of sexual abuse in the Plain churches held in Leola and was sponsored by two advocacy organizations.
Hope Anne Dueck, the executive director of A Better Way and one of the exhibit's organizers, said that many survivors report being told things such as "If you had been wearing your head covering, then you probably wouldn't have been."
Dueck said that he knew that that was not the truth.
She said that you can be harmed no matter what you are wearing. The people who contributed to the exhibit were wearing what their parents and the church told them to wear.
The exhibit was based on similar ones that have been staged at college campuses and elsewhere in recent years, and they show a wide range of attire with the aim of shattering the myth that sexual assault can be blamed on what.
Last year, current and former members of plain-dressing religious communities agreed that it was time to hold their own version.
Mary Byler, a survivor of child sexual abuse in the Amish communities where she grew up, said it was never about the clothes. Byler founded the Colorado-based group The Misfit Amish to bridge cultural gaps between the Amish and the wider society.
I hope it helps survivors know that they are not alone.
The survivors were invited to submit their outfits. Most of the others provided children's attire, mostly girls and one boy, reflecting their age when they were attacked. A woman who was raped by her husband shortly after giving birth was the owner of the lone adult outfit.
High-quality photos of the clothes will be used to display online and in future exhibits.
Church leaders have held seminars to raise awareness of the problem of sexual abuse in their communities.
Some leaders still treat abuse cases as church discipline rather than crimes to be reported to civil authorities.
Dozens of offenders from Plain church affiliations have been convicted of sexually abusing children in the past two decades according to a review of court files in several states. The Amish bishop in Lancaster County was convicted of failing to report abuse.
Researchers and organizers at the conference said they are surveying current and former Plain community members to gather concrete data on what they believe is a pervasive problem.
The display made a powerful statement on its own.
When you have something physical here, and the dress is from the Plain community, it shouts, "Look, this is happening in our community!"
People are often pressured to reconcile with their abusers in the male-led Plain churches, where forgiveness is taught as a paramount virtue.
Since she reported her sexual assaults to civil authorities, Byler has heard more stories of abuse in the Plain churches than she can count. She said that survivors are often isolated from their communities.
Child sexual assault and sexual assault happens inside of communities from every walk and way of life, according to Byler.
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