Today, I’m so grateful to be joined by Elena Morgan, formerly known as Ellen Morgan and prior to Ellen, known as Hilary Foretich. Elena’s mother, Elizabeth Morgan, was jailed for over 2 years in 1987 for protecting Elena from her sexually abusive father. Why was she jailed? Because after Elena revealed that she was being sexually abused by her father, and her mother sought custody through the courts, the judge ordered Elena’s mother to allow her abusive father to have unsupervised visits of Elena at her father’s house.


Knowing Elena would suffer continued abuse, Elena’s maternal grandparents took Elena to New Zealand, defying the court order. When Elena’s mother would not reveal Elena’s whereabouts, the judge sent her to jail. Her abusive father remained free. 

In 1989, after extensive efforts, Rep. Frank Wolf introduced a bill that became the District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act.  As a result, in that year, Elizabeth Morgan was freed after 759 days in prison, and joined her daughter and parents in New Zealand.

In 1992, the story of the case was made into a television film, A Mother's Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story.

Elena is now a physician and continues to look for ways to help overcome injustices that still confront victims of child sexual abuse.

For more resources, visit www.OvercomingChildSexualAbuse.com and www.End1in4.org