25 Investigates: Bills to strengthen laws around child sex abuse languish on Beacon Hill for years скачать в хорошем качестве

25 Investigates: Bills to strengthen laws around child sex abuse languish on Beacon Hill for years

One survivor of years of sexual abuse in a southeastern Massachusetts public school said her harrowing experience has proved particularly distressing to process – in large part, because of how preventable it all was. She recounted how a school administrator would take her out of classes to abuse her – with the unknowing acquiescence of teachers who allowed her removal without questioning it. She said the abuse only ended three years later, when a new physical education teacher asked her: “‘Are you okay?’” “I’d come back and I’d be all upset and just spaced out,” the survivor said. “My abuser was smart enough to know which teachers were going to notice less and pull me from those classes more often. I think the teachers – they didn’t have the training. They were in a culture that allowed this administrator to do whatever he wanted. There was no culture that supported them in speaking up against this person.” Then, the physical education teacher took a step that no others did. The next time the administrator tried to pull her from class, the teacher refused. The survivor says she only told that teacher of that abuse well into adulthood. She said as an adult, she began to receive treatment for years of anxiety, depression and trauma. “If you create policies that make it easier for people to report suspicious behavior, kids don’t have to get abused,” she said. “It’s that simple.” But 25 Investigates finds that Massachusetts has fallen behind dozens of other states that have passed stricter laws that child sex abuse experts say are key to strengthening policies and protecting kids. “Massachusetts has a black eye,” Jetta Bernier, executive director of child sexual abuse prevention organization MassKids, said. “And we need to catch up.” 25 Investigates has uncovered scores of cases of sexual abuse by Massachusetts public school staff over the past decades – and spoken with survivors who say that abuse has left them with lasting emotional scars and years of trauma. “As we have seen, far too many children suffer sexual abuse at the hands of those who are there to protect them,” Sen. Joan Lovely told 25 Investigates.