BeginnersLuck
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Very informative article I just came across and wanted to share.
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/07/03/hunt-child-sex-abusers-happening-wrong-places-345926.html
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/07/03/hunt-child-sex-abusers-happening-wrong-places-345926.html
Just 10 Percent of the Problem
The myth of stranger danger—“dirty men” lurking in parks or malls, luring our children away from us with puppies and candy—is itself a danger. The reality is, the overwhelming majority of predators are in the victim’s family photo album or social circle. Ninety percent of children who are sexually abused know their abuser. A 2000 study found that family members account for 34 percent of people who abuse juveniles, and acquaintances account for another 59 percent. Only 7 percent were strangers.
Yet conversations about child sexual abuse often focus on horrific examples of stranger danger. We find comfort in searching registries to find out whether registered sex offenders live in our neighborhoods. We tell our children not to talk to strangers. And we label men and women who abuse children as monsters. This demonizing of strangers is extremely dangerous, considering that 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys are sexually abused by the time they turn 18, and around 90 percent of individuals with developmental disabilities will be sexually abused at some point.
“We have an idea that I would know [a sex offender] if I saw one, and I can avoid it and keep my child away,” says Karen Baker, director of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. “We need to get over the idea that we can tell who’s a good and bad person.”
The Catholic Church sex abuse cover-up and the Jerry Sandusky case, in which the former assistant football coach at Pennsylvania State University was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 boys, prove just how wrong that notion is. So do two more recent revelations: Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert allegedly paid a former student millions of dollars to cover up allegations of sexual abuse, and Josh Duggar, the eldest son on 19 Kids and Counting, TLC’s popular Christian family values reality show, molested five girls when he was a teenager, including four of his sisters.