NEWS JUNKIE POST
Nov 17, 2009 at 12:01 amHorrific Child Sexual Abuse Scandals Continue To Make National Headlines
Arrests of child molesters continue to make national headlines. The latest case that has “shocked” and “surprised” neighbors is the one in Missouri where six men were charged with sexually abusing children relatives. CNN had this headline up on their website all weekend:
‘Unbelievable’: Men’s arrests on sex charges stun neighbor, co-workers.
What’s unfortunate is that these sort of news always seem to create the same headlines — “Unexpected,” “incredible,” “unimaginable.” Once the story has died down, the media waits for another press release from the police department where another sicko gets caught with child pornography or something of that nature. Nothing else is ever said or done to prevent more abuse in the future.
This month alone there were over 9,500 articles written by journalists about arrests of adults that possess child pornography or have committed child sexual abuse. That’s a lot of articles, which do nothing but suggests that we have a real epidemic of child sexual abuse in this country.
According to Childhelp (Childhelp.org), a national organization that has been looking out for abused and neglected children for 50 years — every year there are an estimated 3 million reports of child abuse in the US. And that’s even a conservative estimate; in 2007 that figure grew to 5.8 million reports. Gosh, no wonder we get those horrific headlines in the news so often!
If 5.8 million people called the FDA to report illness from eating peanut butter, there would be a recall of every bottle of peanut butter ever sold. The National Guard would probably be sent to search each home for peanut butter jars. Americans would go to all peanut butter plants and burn them to the ground. Millions would be spend in advertising to tell people to not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But such response doesn’t seem to happen when children are being robbed their innocence.
The job to warn parents about child sexual abuse is left mostly to non-profits. These organizations, often with limited resources, can teach parents how to protect their children from sickos. Childhelp.org has many articles on its website about how to prevent such abuse as well as what signs to look for if a child is being victimized by a pedophile.
But non-profits and state child protective services alone cannot possibly help every child. Ultimately it’s the parents and relatives of these children who must be alert at all times. But ironically, 68 percent of molested children are victims of their own family members, which brings us back to square one. How can the American society, collectively, tackle such an awful problem?
Let’s remember that these children won’t stay children for long, they will grow up to be adults — they will be your neighbors, your co-workers, your friends, your life partners… All of us will be affected at some point or another by what happens to this generation. And every minute we deny that such abuse is going on is fatal.
The best way to help is to become educated on the topic of child abuse. It’s important that we stop simply reading or watching the news about an abused child, thinking or saying to ourselves “How shocking!” “How awful” “How can such a thing happen?!” It’s time that you learn to spot potential child sexual abuse in your own family and reporting to the authorities. You can make the difference.
To learn more about child abuse, visit www.Childhelp.org
Can a child you know be a victim of sexual molestation? Learn the signs by clicking here.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by NewsJunkiePost: New blog post: Horrific Child Sexual Abuse Scandals Continue To Make National Headlines http://bit.ly/1E1LJU/...
The Let Go…Let Peace Come In Foundation is a newly formed nonprofit with a mission to help heal and support adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse worldwide. We are actively seeking adult survivors who would be willing to post a childhood photo and caption, their story, or their creative expressions to our website http://www.letgoletpeacecomein.org. By uniting survivors from across the globe we can help provide a stronger and more powerful voice to those survivors who have not yet found the courage to speak out. Together we can; together we should; together we NEED to stand up and be counted. The effects of childhood sexual abuse are cyclical, but together we can stop the cycle. Please visit our site for more details on how you can send us your submissions.
Thank you for everything you do!
Gretchen Paules
Administrative Director
Let Go…Let Peace Come In Foundation
111 Presidential Blvd., Suite 212
Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004
Child sexual abuse has reached epidemic proportions: 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before their 18th birthday. If our kids were dying from a disease at these rates, then something would be done to stop it. There would be a public outcry; there would be action.
Child predators are so good at manipulating everyone around them that they don’t have to hide. This is called grooming. It’s manipulation, it’s deception, trickery, and deceit. It is planned out very carefully, and it is all a lie to get you to trust them.
Parents need to educate themselves about child predators and how they work to manipulate everyone in order to protect their children. Stopping child molesters is not easy. Protecting our children is not easy. If this were easy, we wouldn’t have an epidemic on our hands.
Sues
WFI Team Member
http://www.warriorsforinnocence.org/
You’re right on, Dolores. It’s sad, shocking,etc,.I think people–especially those who watch shows like Nancy Grace every night– must become innered to all the cruelty and misery. But there are some very good advocates out there. And certainly ways we can all become more aware and involved. Great link, too. Good job.
One of the problems when we talk about pedophiles or child predators is that it’s a label that essentially groups the offenders as separate from the rest of society. The reality is that offenders are typically the people we trust most in our child’s lives. They are fathers, brothers, teachers, ministers, youth leaders. Less than 5% of sexual abuse is committed by an outsider. Sadly these tend to make the most headlines because they also tend to have the most violent outcomes. The key to reducing child sexual abuse is education, because it’s a crime that exists largely because of a lack of knowledge. The more parents and children know about the truth of sexual abuse, the less likely it is to happen in their family.
Rob
http://www.victimcoaching.com