A rape victim in Arizona is now being forced to pay child support. What makes this so wrong is that the one raped had been a 14 year old boy at the time.
Nick Olivas had been below the age of consent, which is 15, when a 20-year-old woman took advantage of his rough home life and emotional state. He was young and lonely, but being willing is irrelevant when you’re that young.
Olivas was never told that he had gotten the woman pregnant before they went their separate ways. He discovered the hard way that he had a six-year-old daughter after graduating high school and getting a job as a medical assistant. He never pressed charges because he didn’t know he was supposed to, and now, he’s literally paying for ignoring the forms he didn’t know were important.
#Arizona statutory rape victim forced to pay child support http://t.co/Pb6VYwvug2 pic.twitter.com/B7UsidrehG
— azcentral (@azcentral) September 2, 2014
Rape victim Nick Olivas has stated that he wants to be a part of his daughter’s life, but it wasn’t fair to him that he hadn’t known about her for all of those years. Now he owes over $15,000 for medical and other expenses incurred over the child, plus ten percent interest.
Olivas stated about his discovery:
“It was a shock. I was living my life and enjoying being young. To find out you have a 6-year-old? It’s unexplainable. It freaked me out.”
When Olivas discovered his debt and his daughter’s existence, he was served the papers as the bank seized his account. He now has nearly $400 taken out of his wages every month.
Usually when you hear about rape, it’s usually a man taking advantage of a woman, and justice is often lacking. As previously reported by The Inquisitr , a former judge determined that justice would be better served if women didn’t drink so much.
Nick Olivas has apparently been a victim since he was 14 years old, and it never dawned on him how much until now. It isn’t very often that the rape victim ends up paying for the crime. Thankfully, the money owed was determined to be due to the child, not the rapist.
Olivas wants to fight due to the circumstances of his ignorance of the situation, but with his employer following DES child support regulations, he can’t afford a lawyer . He is willing to support his daughter, but the way the process was handled irks the Arizona rape victim:
“I lost my mom at a young age. I know what it’s like to only have one parent. I can’t leave her out there. She deserves a dad.”
Nick Olivas is just a horrible example of how the law can work against the victim.
[image via orijinculture.com]