EDITORIAL:
Community needs to do all it can to stop sex assault
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in America, but anyone in Angelina County who reads this newspaper or watches the nightly news on a regular basis won’t think twice about it. We’re well aware already: It’s a big problem.
A number of cases of alleged sexual abuse in East Texas have made national news in the last few months, primarily because of their graphic nature. But sex assaults happen here on a daily basis, it seems, and our community needs to make a bigger effort to prevent them.
Ashley Johnson, primary prevention coordinator for the Family Crisis Center of East Texas, says the situation locally may not be any worse than in Houston, Dallas or other large cities, but that it’s “a definite problem here, and one that we’re seeing become more and more prevalent.” Because we know so many of our neighbors in this rural setting, we often know the victims of sexual assault, she said. That makes it personal.
Everyone is saddened when we hear of sex abuse in our community, and we wish there was an easy way to make it stop. There’s not. Our law enforcement agencies continue to put sex assault suspects in jail, and judges and juries continue to send violators to prison. Then it happens again, somewhere else in our county.
We must do what we can, however, and the No. 1 step is education, Johnson says. That means teaching people, particularly our kids, what’s inappropriate behavior by others, what they can do to resist such attacks, and what resources are available to victims.
The second step, Johnson says, is for our community to have a healthy dialogue about the subject. “Although it’s happening a lot here and everywhere else, it’s still somewhat taboo to openly talk about it,” she says. “Silencing the problem is not going to make it go away. Become educated about the issue and raise awareness. That’s what’s going to be our best way to keep this from happening — to our children, to our adults.”
Thankfully, Angelina County has such resources as the Family Crisis Center of East Texas and other agencies, most of which work together. The center has a toll-free, 24-hour hotline — (866) 290-4440 — where a victim of sexual assault can talk to someone with experience in crisis intervention. The person on the other end of the line will be able to point you (or someone you know) in the right direction for help. Both local law enforcement agencies and Lufkin’s hospital system are great places to call for assistance, as well, Johnson says.
And for local schools, businesses or other organizations that want to become more involved in the prevention of sexual abuse, the crisis center offers educational sessions and training on such topics as healthy relationships, teen dating violence, sexual harassment and violence in the workplace. You can request a presentation by calling the center’s community educator at 639-1681 or emailing the center at familycrisiscenter@suddenlinkmail.com.
All of us who are in a position to curb the awful number of sex assaults in this community, but have not already taken action, need to step forward. The problem is getting out of hand
(source http://lufkindailynews.com)
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