Last month, a young man in my community was arrested on charges of child molestation.  Countless concerns were voiced following his arrest from parents, youth, and even his friends.  Time and time again I heard confusion about the charges.  “But we know him and trust him.” “He is so nice looking.” “He is such a good Christian.”  And then after the shock wore off, what normally happens with allegations of sexual abuse happened here.  Silence.  And silence makes me angry.

Why?  Because silence about child sexual abuse sends the wrong message.  It tells victims, past, present, and future, that we are willing to look away.  That we are too uncomfortable or too disturbed by what has happened to tackle the problem head on.

Not one to let anger get the best of me, I started thinking.  What if we could all just talk about the confusion?  The shock?  What if we could use this situation to talk MORE about the topic of child sexual abuse instead of less.  What if instead of sweeping it under the rug, we shined a light on it to let the whole world see?  Whose future sexual abuse could we be responsible for preventing?  Whose daughter?  Whose son?

Let’s start by looking at the facts.  Studies have shown that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused by the time they turn 18.  Take a minute and think about all of the girls and boys that that you know.  Your daughters and your sons.  Your nieces and nephews.  Children who are friends with your kids, that live in your neighborhood, that go to your child’s school.  Then imagine that 1 in 4 of those girls and 1 in 6 of those boys were being or were going to be sexually abused.  That’s an epidemic.  That’s a bigger prevalence rate than any disease out there.  And we have the power to eradicate it.  But so far we haven’t.  Because the majority of us prefer silence to talking.  The topic is just too uncomfortable.

How then can I be so confident that we can make a difference?  Just look at what we’ve been able to accomplish on behalf of children’s safety in my lifetime through talking, teaching, and training.  Car accident injuries?  We used to sit unbuckled in the front seat.  Now we start our kids off in car seats and when they are old enough we teach them how to buckle up on their own in the back seat.   Skin cancer?  We used to sunbathe in baby oil.  Now we put sunscreen on our babies and teach them to use it whenever they go out in the sun.  Flu season?  We’ve schooled our kids to wash their hands to prevent the spread of germs.  Bike accidents?  Helmets.   The list goes on and on.  And you know what? We can make just as big of a difference in stopping sexual abuse if we put our collective minds to it. [Read more...]