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Survivors of childhood sexual abuse push for bills to protect and prevent more victims

By: Karen Kasler | Statehouse News Bureau
Posted on: Tuesday, October 25, 2022

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) – Advocates for Ohioans who’ve survived childhood sexual abuse are pushing for bills that they say would help survivors, protect kids and prevent more victims. They’re hoping lawmakers will take action on several bills during the lame-duck legislative session after next month’s election.

The advocates include survivors and parents such as Rebecca Surendorff, who found out the priest who led her children’s Cincinnati area elementary school and last year pleaded guilty to raping an altar boy in the 1990s had also been investigated for child sex crimes multiple times. The abuse tracking group Child USA estimates 13% of Americans experience childhood sex abuse.

Surendorff says with so much recent talk about grooming, she’s shocked bills to protect kids haven’t moved forward.

“There’s probably an average maybe 19,000 or so new victims every year, if you assume that this is evenly distributed and whatnot – why are we accepting that all these children are being assaulted in our state?”

She and others want lawmakers to eliminate the time limits on reporting child sex crimes and to require age-appropriate school curriculum on child sexual abuse and violence.