Viewpoints
Child Abuse Prevention &
Awareness Month
and Sexual Assault Awareness Month
by Patti Fay Hickox
and Gwendolyn Elliott
April 08, 2004
Thursday
April is National Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month
and Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
In 2003 in Southeast Alaska there were 1,009 Reports of Neglect,
421 reports of Physical Abuse, 129 Reports of Sexual Abuse, and
182 Reports of Mental Injury of Children. That is a total of
1,742 reports of Child Abuse in Southeast Alaska. The total
for the whole state in reported child abuse is 15,462. These
totals come from Family Service Child Reports of Harm that can
be found on the RID
Alaska of Child Abuse Web-page.
RID Alaska of Child Abuse is a grass root effort started in Kenai
Alaska in 1999. Two women concerned about child abuse in our
state made 1000 Mint Green Ribbons with little Forget-Me-Nots
in the center and distributed them throughout the Kenai Peninsula.
This caught on in Anchorage, and now we have the Mint Green
Ribbon Campaign to promote awareness of Child Abuse from Barrow
to Ketchikan. Please wear a mint green ribbon to show your support
and that you care about children here in the state of Alaska,
our nation, and world-wide. You can find them at local merchants
and agencies throughout the month.
April is additionally Sexual Assault Awareness month. The following
is an excerpt from the Executive Proclamation of April as Sexual
Assault Awareness Month by Frank H. Murkowski: Sexual Violence
is one of the United States fastest growing crimes It is an
even bigger issue in Alaska, where the rate of reported rape
is 2.5 times greater than the national average. For Native women,
the rate is 3.5 times higher than the national average. Alaska
s rate of child sexual abuse is six times the national average.
Alaska has not dropped below fifth in the nation for reported
rapes per 100,000 residents since 1976, and has ranked first
in the nation 19 of the past 26 years.
Please take a minute to visit our awareness tables at Carrs and
Walmart on Saturday and Sunday, April 24th and 25th, and come
down to the tunnel on April 20th for a rally in recognition of
these issues. For more information, call Women in Safe Homes
at 225.9474.
Patti Fay Hickox and
Gwendolyn Elliott
Ketchikan, AK - USA
Note: Comments published
on Viewpoints are the opinions of the writer
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sitnews.
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