With national spotlight on perhaps what is a crime so heinous, so shocking, so incomprehensible, I am taking this blog to spend just a few minutes of time on an uncomfortable topic: child sexual abuse.
It is, unfortunately, a very real thing in "the stuff of life".
I have very strong thoughts and opinions about what happened in the middle of my beloved state of Pennsylvania at what is a fine university that became the snare where a depraved human being committed acts so horrific against children...acts I don't want to think about.
But I'm asking us to think about it just for a few minutes.
I'm not asking that we re-hash the past. Hopefully, it can be put behind the victims and innocent parties so that healing can begin for all.
I'm asking today that we really think about what each of us would do in the event that we personally witnessed, suspected, or were informed of incidents of child abuse ~ be it sexual or otherwise.
Because as much as some of us want to believe it is about other things, at the heart of this matter is that moment of personal choice ~ no matter what the circumstances, the climate, or the culture ~ in which each of those children was desperately waiting for someone to put their well-being above everything else.
I recently wrote a blog about what to do in the case of a riptide. Surviving it, like any other natural force, requires being able to identify it, and then preparing for it in the rare unlikely instance that it actually happens.
Today, I ask all of us to do the same for something even more tragic, the abuse of a child.
We all want to believe that "I would do this" or "I would do that" if we came face to face with what is such a sick act of evil against a young child counting on adults to protect him. And maybe we would.
But what would each of us really do should we ever encounter this horror against a child? Would we place the dignity of that single child ahead of status, a job, an image, security, a relationship?
In my state, due to my occupation, I am a "mandated reporter". If I suspect, witness, or am told a child is being abused, I am bound by law to contact PA Childline.
The other kind of reporting is known as "permissive reporter". These people are not obligated by law to report abuse, but they can.
Whatever the laws are in your state or mine, I believe that we ALL have to begin to accept the individual moral responsibility that we are all mandated reporters.
I am not suggesting a change in the laws of any state. I am encouraging, perhaps even pleading for, a complete change in personal mindset.
Prepare for that moment of decision, that single chance to choose between right or wrong, by getting familiar with the process by visiting your state's agency designed to protect child and investigate cases of abuse. If in PA, I encourage you to visit http://www.preventchildabusepa.org/faq.php If in another state, check out the link below. Just like a rip tide, tornado, or fire, get educated about who to contact and what to do, and then let's pray that we never see this crime's ugly face.
But if we do, let us be so sure, so prepared, so swift in our response that we don't hesitate to make the single call that puts a defenseless child's life indisuputably and unquestionably ahead of anything else.
Have a wonderful Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment