Protecting Our Children From Sexual Abuse

In the United States today we believe and act on the "innocent until proven guilty" clause. This is fair in most cases, but there is one case in which it is actually hurting more than helping. This is in the case of the children. In our constitution, children are not really given any rights. When it was written, it was believed that children would be under the protection of their parents and therefore would not need rights.

Today, however, our world has digressed and parents are not protecting their children as they should. In many cases they are the ones who are actually hurting their children. Because children don't have rights, when they speak up and witness that their parents are abusing them, the law protects the parent--"innocent until proven guilty." Do you know what it takes to "prove" them guilty? Picture or video footage. If the children are underage, their witness is not credible. Because of this, thousands of children are being abused. In split homes, mothers and fathers are having to send their children with their other parent every weekend, knowing they are going to be sexually abused while there. If they withheld their children, they would get in serious trouble by the law. If they don't have money to fight the law, they are helpless. This is causing life-long damage to the future leaders of our nation.

Perhaps in the case of child abusers the clause should read, "guilty until proven innocent" in order that these children might be protected from danger. In this case, it is more important to protect the children until you can prove that they are not being hurt, than it is to protect the perpetrator until he is proven guilty. If you wait to prove him guilty to protect the children, they will continue to be hurt and the damage may not be able to be undone. In the end, we should protect the children at all costs. We need to keep them safe. They are the future of our nation and if we destroy their trust in us, we destroy their faith. We will destroy their strength and raise a generation of children who do not know where strength is found. They will not know where it is found because when they looked to us for strength, we let them down; we sent them back to be hurt again and did not grant them the protection they were begging for.