The Victims of Crime Service (VOCS) in South Australia uses the fundamental principle of human cooperation in designing programs to assist people who have been victims of crime. One of their programs is a group for women whose children have been sexually abused. The group met six to eight times, on a weekly basis, for two hours at a time. The six persons invited to join the group were all women. This chance gender selection turned out to be critical. For many of the families, the offender had been the father or father-figure, raising the possibility that any fathers in the group could have become the target for the women's rage against the offenders. A further complication that made a mixed gender group inadvisable was that some of the mothers who had themselves been victims of child sexual abuse might have found it difficult and restrictive to participate in such a group. The level of mutual support among group participants was extraordinarily high; the dynamics of mutual aid had the energy to transcend the boundaries of formal structures; and the process resulted in not only the healing of the individuals but their empowerment. Reference