UNITED STATES
Cape Cod Times
By Stacy Gallagher
Posted Sep. 8, 2015 at 2:01 AM
The national spotlight shined recently on Jared Fogle for possessing child pornography. A few weeks ago, a Mashpee physician was sentenced in federal court in Boston after he was convicted of child pornography. A priest in Louisville, Kentucky, was arrested for taking and having sexually inappropriate photos of his littlest parishioners. The list could go on and on.
These are just a few stories from the police blotter and, while none of these cases is all that unique, all constitute what those of us in child advocacy are charged to combat every day: the sobering statistics that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday and 1 in 5 will be solicited for sex online. It’s our charge to educate our community that child sexual abuse happens on the public stage, at churches and in our own backyards.
What we don’t talk about often are the children and their stories. We don’t because we are bound to protect the children and their families from further trauma and respect their right to privacy. You see, it’s at the core of a child advocate to protect children from further trauma at all costs.
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