What are we waiting for? Protect Our Children Now!

May 20, 2015 - PRLog -- The Senate Education Committee Chairman has done the children of Alaska a great disservice by eviscerating the heart of the Alaska Safe Children’s Act and placing hundreds of children at risk.  This law would have required school districts to implement policies to bring awareness to our children about the signs of child sexual abuse and teen dating violence, and provide them the resources they need to seek help, access safety and bring child predators to justice.

What confounds and angers me and the dozens of survivors that I have talked to is that part of this very legislation, sexual abuse awareness and prevention in the schools, passed unanimously through the Senate last year with Senator Dunleavy voting in favor.  This year, the only change that was made in the House during the regular session was strengthening the bill to add teen dating violence awareness to save lives.

However, this session or whatever it is we’re calling it in Anchorage, the public process has been thwarted and twisted with carefully selected invited testimony to raise issues never before raised in a bullypulpit. School districts somehow see this as an unfunded mandate, despite the fact that both the Rasmuson Foundation and the Alaska Children’s Trust have stepped up and offered to pay for curriculum and training.  Rather than accepting this generosity, the Senate Education Chairman brought forth changes that would make the program optional for school districts to adopt, something that is the current status quo.   The fact that all school districts already allow parents to opt their children out of any class or activity, fell on deaf ears.

It would appear that parents rights (while important) are now superseding children’s rights to be free from abuse and torment.  The Office of Children’s Services received 738 allegations of sexual abuse of children, between January 1, 2015 and March 31, 2015.  Reports to OCS are reports of parental or caretaker sexual abuse, not stranger abuse.  That’s 738 children in 3 months that would likely never receive this information because that parent or caretaker would simply not allow the child to attend. Guess we know why we’re consistently in the top ranking for child sexual abuse!  It really is unspeakable to me that this bill is now so beleaguered and bogged down with other agenda items stating what CANNOT be done rather than what CAN be done to educate our children and build resilience in a state infested with child sexual abuse.

We have support from so many communities and so many people who interact with children daily, we have the support of the Rasmuson Foundation and the Alaska Children’s Trust, parents, nurses, educators, teachers, victim advocates, what we need now is the support of our Senators, like Senator McGuire and Senator Gardner who have been champions of this issue, or Senator Stevens who tried to fight the tide alone in the Senate Education Committee to step forward and get a clean bill passed so that we can save lives.

What more can we all do to make sure that more of Alaska’s children are not sacrificed in the name of politics?  Call your Senator today.  Tell them Alaska’s children have the inherent right to be safe and free from sexual predators, free from abusive and violent relationships.  Tell them that “optional” programs are not okay, remind them they work for us.