One in 10 U.S. children will experience sexual abuse by the age of 18. But the number for Utah is even higher — one in seven, according to Laurieann Thorpe, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Utah. Children are most likely to experience sexual abuse at the hands of someone they know and trust.
At a webinar hosted by Utah State University's Utah Women and Leadership Project, Thorpe spoke about how many people falsely think there is no way to prevent this from happening.
“It is a solvable, preventable problem. There is no reason we should be experiencing this act in our state and there is no reason to see it continue," Thorpe said. "We need to believe in that, and we need to gather forward toward it.”
Thorpe said one way parents can prevent abuse from happening is by talking to their children about it in an age-appropriate way.
“I think it’s important for them to really understand that the minute they feel uncomfortable is the time to come to you, because you can’t predict who might be trying to groom one of your children,” said Thorpe.
To find resources about this issue, Jake Neely, executive director of the Malouf Foundation, suggested the project's website.
“There’s a lot of links that land to all of our websites, plus a lot of others," Neely said. "Becoming informed, to me, is the first step to creating a level of comfort."
Chris Yadon, managing director of Saprea, a Utah organization that offers sexual abuse support groups, said there are two kinds of preventions anyone can do.
“Primary prevention is that upstream prevention, stopping it from happening in the first place," Yadon said. "Secondary prevention is early intervention. We have our CJCs [Children's Justice Centers], that are highly trained on how to help children who experienced sexual abuse, not only report it and deal with it from a law enforcement standpoint, but get the resources they need to then deal with them."
