Bonus Episode: Chris Newlin

Advocacy Center. The n c a C was the very first children's advocacy center starting and has gone on to help with the issue of child abuse in groundbreaking ways. Chris answered some of our questions about child abuse, a very sensitive subject that we are still learning about to this day. I hope you enjoy and learn something from this interview. It is one that we all should hear. My name is Chris Newland, and I am the executive

director at the National Children's Advocacy Center. Some of you may have heard of a Children's Advocacy center before, but the National Children's Advocacy Center is located in Huntsville, Alabama, and we were actually the first child advocacy center in the world. Um at Children's advocacy centers. What we do is coordinate the multidisciplinary response to child abuse in our communities.

And this model includes partnerships and collaborations with law enforcement, child protective services, medical providers, mental health professionals, prosecutors, victim advocates, so all of us working in a coordinated manner. At a child advocacy center. We conduct forensic interviews, we do medical exams, We provide victim advocacy for children and families when there's allegations of abuse. We do provide therapy and

all these services in a child friendly environment. And this whole model, which started nine eight five, has revolutionized our nation's response to child abuse and how we are making the process much more child friendly and trauma informed and not causing children to be re traumatized by a system that should actually help them. And this model has really taken over the U S. We have a more than a thousand child because centers across the United States that

serve over three d seventy thousand kids per year. And this model also has been replicated in more than thirty three countries around the world who see the benefit of having a coordinated, multidisciplinary response responding to child abuse is not something that can be done by one agency or one organization. It requires all of us working together and prioritizing the needs of the child and making sure we're providing services to them and doing our best job to

hold those who harmed children accountable. We opened in May of just kind of actually at a time when our country was beginning to recognize that child sexual abuse is an issue. You know, a few years before that, we had had the McMartin preschool case, which was a daycare

case in California that garnered a fair amount of media attention. Uh, and we were beginning to understand what actually is this issue of child sexualities because it's really only been in this since the sixties that we were even talking more publicly about physical abuse and child physical abuse. Um. So

there's there's I guess a lot of history there. But we opened our doors in nineteen five, and we have seen this incredible growth over the last thirty six years of children's advocacy centers spreading out all across the United States where actually more than seventy of American counties are served by a child advocacy centers. Had you heard of this case at all before? I called you and spoken

to yesterday. I had not actually, despite having lived in Georgia during the nineteen nine a little bit in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands, Um, I hadn't heard of this case before you contacted me. How was child sex abuse addressed and discussed in the nineteen sixties and seventies? What kind of language was used? None? There, there, there, There was not really no, there was almost no dialogue

about child sexual abuse in the sixties and seventies. You know, think about the social issues going on in the sixties and seventies, civil rights, you know, Vietnam. We had some massive issues that were you know, facing you know, our nation. Child sexual abuse was surely not rising to that level

at that time. We had these incredible powerful social movements of a call to justice for racial you know, you know, starting to recognize that minority should be able to have access to voting, and desegregating schools, and lots of other big phenomenal shifts. If you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we were at a much lower level that we were addressing, and child sexual abuse was not you know, at that point,

reaching at tension. So it just wasn't garnering much attention, and even if there were something that was said, it was thought to be this very very rare thing that happens. You know, it would be very highly unusual because it didn't meet the picture of the perfect American family with a chicken in every pot, you know, and two point

three kids. I think for people of my age born in the sixties, there were some real salient messages that we received, both in direct and subtle ways, and that is, if you don't have something nice to say, you don't say anything at all. Uh. Number two is you don't talk about adults. You're a kid. Um, you're you know, almost a different class of individual than an adult. They have rights that you don't have. Um, And that's just

the way it is. And you know, so that really puts a damper on kids to be able to talk about things that are as challenging as child sexual abuse. Additionally, we did have these thoughts, and some of them have persisted that this notion of stranger danger, that you know, you need to be careful of strangers. There's some guy who might be doing something. Don't take candy from a stranger. You know, the image of the guy in the trench code.

Who's going to maybe flash you all these kind of older images that we had um that were unfortunately widely mistaken with you know, what was happening in reality. I guess another one. And you know, some people may not even remember this, but in some of those early days, there was also some talk of these satanic cults that were, you know, holding these rituals where children were being sexually abused and they were being tortured by these Satanic cults

that were doing things and people you wouldn't know. I mean, in some ways it hearkens a little bit to kind of the Q and on the dialogue of today, where you have this whole cabal of people that are engaged in these nefarious acts. I mean, the reality is that those were extraordinarily rare. This didn't happen, you know, although it was talked about. So with any kind of issue like this, it doesn't help if you're talking about extreme

cases that aren't grounded in reality. Uh. And while strangers do commit some sexual assaults, now we know as we fast forward to more than of sexual abuses committed by someone the child knows, that's who has access to kids. Incidents of strangers sexually assaulting children are actually quite rare because parents just don't allow their kids to go off with strangers. Uh So the threat the for children is

much more closer to home than necessarily. Um. The other issue is this idea that you know, anybody who was involved in doing things with youth used to be looked at with great esteem and was seen as someone who was graciously volunteering their time or committing their work to

work with children in services. And we've really taken a different slam on that over the last twenty five years, where now if I want to volunteer to be a boy scout, you know, leader, let's say, or any other kind of sometimes people are like, well, why would you want to do that? I even get that question in doing this work, like why do you want to do this work? You know, like there do you have some

secondary goal you're trying to achieve? Uh And unfortunately the reality is we know that individuals who work sometimes in you serving organizations may have less than genuine interests involved. They may have a secondary interest. Can you tell me a little bit about grooming and how the initial contact is often made with abusers. This is a place where the head leader would select his abusers from the children he thought me have been more susceptible. Is that often

a part of this process? You you mentioned the notion of grooming, and I'd like to talk about the the notion of grooming to to start off the dialogue. First, grooming is in every other context intended and used as a description of a pro social behavior. I take my dog to get groomed so the dog smells good, looks good, feels good. We groom a horse so they look good before they run in a race. We groom, let's say, a political candidate, so that they are prepared to engage

and present themselves most appropriately. We all get groomed before we may go out to on an important event or a date, or our wedding, and those are all pro social activities. So I think before even responding about the issue of grooming, I want to challenge the audience to think about why do we use a word grooming to describe what an individual may do to sexually abuse a child. Why do we use a word that is just in

every other context pro social. Why do we use that to describe what I would consider to be an antisocial behavior. I would like to challenge everybody to really think about the use of the word grooming versus using a much more appropriate word if you look at you know actual definitions and Miriam Webster, a much more appropriate word to describe what an individual who may sexually abuse a child is doing. Is not grooming, This is not pro social,

this is antisocial. What they're doing is manipulating, manipulation, or manipulating. Those are much better words to describe what an individual who may sexually abuse a child is doing. They're taking advantage of someone whom they can deceive for their own personal advantage and gain without any concern for that individual. I think all of us recognize that manipulation or being manipulated is not something any of us want to have done to us, right, Nobody wants to be manipulated, and

that's actually what individuals are doing. So words are important in the work. We've used grooming for a long long time and all of the people who work in my field know what it means, but maybe the average Joe doesn't necessarily know. It's that process that someone uses to engage a child, and not even just a child. I

would say there's multiple levels of manipulation that occur. First, an individual will manipulate the broader environment, right like by having a good reputation and you know, being well respected in their community, like, oh, Chris could never do something like that. I've known Chris for twenty six years and I've only known him to be x. You know, those are about creating this environment where I'm manipulating everybody to think I'm a really good guy to hide the things

that maybe I'm doing secretly. Another level of manipulation that happens is the manipulation of caregivers or trusted others. Um So, let's say you know someone an individual wants to have sexual contact with the child. Their first step really is to win over the parents or caregivers of that child so that they can have access to that child. Because until they can have that individual access with the child, they're not gonna have the opportunity to sexually abuse them.

And that actually is a double edged sword because when you do, when that someone does gain the trust of a parent or a caregiver, it makes it even harder for that parent or caregiver to maybe see what's happening. Because I blindly look at you and say I trust you. I've kind of given you my blessing. So if something does come up, I mean it's I might find an explanation for why maybe there's not something to be concerned about. So it really is UM creates greater challenges in our work.

And the last level of manipulation is actually manipulating the child and that requires different activities. We could have a whole sixteen you know series podcasts that to talk about, you know, kind of what. But I've seen over the years, and this is actually an area of intense interest for me because I started my career working actually with individuals

who had sexually abused children. Was a clinical member of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and really have you worked on the victim side, but understanding the approach that offenders may take and how to engage kids in this behavior in particular to the case that we're

talking about here, the manipulation. The environment was, Hey, we're you know, taking on working with these challenging youth and we're going to be providing services for some kids that are really struggling, and we're doing important work here and you can trust us. And here's some of my past work and relationships that make me be a trustworthy person.

And then who was referring these kids to them? Right, that's in this situation, that may be the caregiver, whether it's actually caregiver or other state agencies that were involved in supervision of youth who were saying, yes, we believe in you, and I've won them over, I've won their support. At that point, I'm alone, you know, with the kids in a system matter of identifying kids that I think

I may be able to engage. So once you've cleared the first barrier of manipulating the environment, you've cleared the second barrier of manipulating caregivers or whoever that is, a parent or a social agency, whatever it may be. The last is the child. And it's not just a random approach where I'm just gonna try this. I'm gonna try to hit on every child. Necessarily, that's not the case. Individuals may have particular interests and who they're interested in or who they may have a desire to be in

contact with. Um. They may also will almost always look at is this a child who I think I can manipulate or not? You know, if you have a child who always tells on everything everybody, for every little thing, they've ever done for every transgression. That's not who you're going after, right because that that individual is gonna, you know, tell What you want is someone who you can manipulate, who you don't want. I'm saying that in this scenario, I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm definitely

saying it's a bad thing. But what an offender is looking at is who can they manipulate, who is more vulnerable. It's just like what we learned on the Serengetti in Africa. You know, when the when the tigers or the lions are approaching, you know, a herd of animals, they look for the weak ones that are at the edge of the herd and they try to pick them off and

building relationship. What's really insidious in this is the fact that in child sexual abuse, in many situations, the child ends up being sexually abused by someone who they consider their friend, someone who they like, and the offender in this scenario is making the kids like them where they are an important part of their life, because it makes it harder for you to tell on someone you really like.

It's easy for any of us to tell on someone we hate when they've done something wrong right, like, oh hey, this person, I hate them they did this. But when it's someone we like, we're less likely to And offenders are very manipulative. In this so long story, short grooming I think is passe. Let's use the best word it is.

This is manipulation that's happening at multiple levels. And people are very intentional about who they seek as a victim because they want to avoid detection so they can continue the behavior. Has there been a history of abuse associated with troubled and emotionally disturbed you? I think when we look across the plane of all youth that are out there, um, you know, there are certain individuals who may be more

vulnerable by virtue of some of their past. Like if, for example, what do we all think about the credibility of a valedictorian in high school who also was a two sport letter person and was president of the senior

class UH and has multiple scholarships off offers. You know, what do we think about that person's credibility versus an individual who has been an alternative school for four years um and has not done anything anything of any significance at an academic or a sports level, hasn't been involved in any youth groups or activities, doesn't participate in church.

What do we just immediately assign As far as the credibility between those two, I think all of you know, it's very natural for people to maybe be less likely to believe what the kid who's been an alternative school and not had these other accomplishments. We all have implicit bias and what we believe, and it impacts child abuse because children oftentimes who have more troubled backgrounds or less likely to be believed. You know, Chris has been in

trouble his whole life. He has been nothing but trouble. You can't trust a word, he says. All of that makes me even more vulnerable as a victim, because no one's gonna believe when I disclose, or less likely or they are less likely to believe if I've expressed a concern. So, if you are wanting to sexually abuse children, who do you go after? You go after the valedictorian or do

you go after the alternative school kid? I think you know, most of the time what we see is kids who are vulnerable and less likely to be believed or less likely for you know, for there to be supervision. Those are the individuals who are more likely to be targeted, and I use that word intentionally. Children would often stay Louis Petter would have this inner circle of kids who would often stay at his house well where this abuse would go on, even living with him and his family.

And then he's abusing these kids in the same house as his wife and children and daughter are in just the next room. Um, how do families in a situation like this often deal with having an abuser in their family? And the situation that you describe with him involving kind of having a special class of individuals that get to come spend the time in his house. For many of them, that probably most likely made them in a way feel

very special. They again, the manipulation of you get to do something that other people don't get to do, you get to have access to something that other people don't get to have access to, makes it where they you know, this confusing notion of Okay, but I'm special. Now that some of this stuff feels weird, but I get all these extra privileges or opportunities that other people don't get.

You know, I'm special, And especially for someone who may be at a wilderness camp who hasn't maybe oftentimes felt special in their life or been important to someone else. That can be very powerful for them, not in a sexual way, but just to feel respected, to feel wanted, to feel a part of something, the other thing that and when you were, you know, thinking about this, being in the home with the spouse, with a partner, and with other kids. Come on, most people are gonna like, Okay,

that's not where abuse would happen. No way, he's doing it in the house. It makes it almost even harder to believe, right because how can you get away with it? Your wife's there, you're the kids are there. You know, that doesn't make sense that it can happen. The reality is, I can't tell you how many cases I've seen where individuals were sexually abused while people were right there. It could even be in the same room under a blanket

where people touching is occurring. You know, the situations of maybe a child sitting on grandfather's lap and the grandmother's in the room right next door cooking, and they're watching a movie and have a blanket, and sexual abuse is happening right there. Now when you ask the grandmother, but there's no way I was there. The whole time, there's no way he could have done it. It makes it

less believable. And there actually is some research that says that a significant amount of research is done when people are either in the room or in neighboring rooms, in an environment where you almost couldn't believe that it would happen. The fact that the kids probably felt special for being in that setting, like I'm in this special class, I get to be there. Plus he gets you know, for the individual says, you know, but my family was here,

there's no way maybe that something happened. All those are very are extraordinary measures of manipulating an environment to make it less likely for someone to disclose and less likely for anyone to believe if the child does disclose because it sounds unbelievable. Um, the reality is, um, it happens. It happens all the time. It happens in front of

people without them even being aware. We've seen examples of abuse in an institution such as Antawaki in other places such as the case of Jerry Sandusky, or instances of abuse in the Catholic Church. Is it harder to get something done when it is attached to an institution such as that you know, there's a I think the saying is you know, Jesse, it's attributed I believe to Jesse James, like,

you know, why do you rob banks? You know? And Jesse James said, because that's where the money is, right, you know, where kids they're in, you know, you serving organizations. If they're not in your family, they're not in your home, they're not your neighbor that you had. You the one way you gain access as kids is by being involved with youth serving organizations or where the kids are. You know, So if you want to sexually abuse kids, you know, it's kind of like Jesse James going to the bank,

you go to where the kids are. Uh So, I think historically we kind of knew that, but we didn't internalize it as much because we had this notion of these were really good and say things, and many most of the time they are. But you know, think about the last decade or longer, you know, with what we've seen in the Catholic Church, what we you know, and what we've seen in youth serving organizations of all kinds,

we you know, uh, sporting activities. We we have had the wool pull back on that and there has really been a clarion call to hold youth serving organizations accountable that they need to have certain procedures in place. You know, we work, we partner with a number of youth serving organizations to provide assistance in this area because they have to recognize that there are risks involved and they need to make sure that they're mitigating those risks to the

very best of their ability while still providing their mission. Now, if we go back to the seventies, we did we weren't paying attention to that, and in many ways you had the veil of you know, you're doing good work for kids, you know, as as political cover in a sense for your manipulation, like you were seeing. We weren't even thinking along those terms. So it was you know, it's very different now than it was. We're all a

bit more suspicious. We're all a bit more skeptical about things, and we really are asking some of these hard questions that need to be asked. What steps have been made present day that would have stopped something like any we keep happening. Are there still many cases of abuse in learning or medical institutions today? You know, there's been a tremendous amount the you know, sinator disease control helped along

with the number of professionals wrote some guidelines. Uh. You serving organizations, you know the Boys and Girls Called of America, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, you know, boy Scouts, from all up and down the list. I'm not trying to be exclusive. Effectively, any meaningful youth serving organization has really amped up the dialogue UH, and churches related to how we make sure that children are protected our environment, talking about the issue,

making it aware. You know, those are really important things that have been done. Uh, they continue to evolve. And making sure that individuals are not allowed to be alone with youth. Um, that there are any time there's kinds of issues of special consideration being given, that should always be a warning sign. We see this in education too. I mean, think about the number of school personnel who

are engaged in sexual contact with students. So this cuts across all kinds of wherever our kids are, we need to make sure that we're talking about this issue. Um. You know a lot of times sometimes people have asked before and in training, especially earlier with churches and in the wake of the Catholic Church, you know, like how do we address this issue? And you know, I would say, if you want to do one thing to make someone who is using your environment uncomfortable, talk about the issue.

Talk about it in Sunday school. Talk about it from the pulpit, you know, talk about the issue. If you want to make them uncomfortable, talk about it. Because they thrive in darkness. They thrive and where this is not being talked about. And unfortunately, for all the kids who experienced abuse at anna Waki, they were living in a time where we were all in the dark, and we were all not paying attention to things that we needed

to be paying attention to. We've made a lot of progress over the last forty years, but unfortunately, we have a tremendous number of adults in our society who experienced abuse in their childhood and never had the opportunity to tell about it. Is even in a friend of my family, my mother in law's best friend, kind of a second

mother to my wife, was visiting us. At one point she wanted to take a tour of the center and I, you know, our the National Children's have a Cey Center, And I was like, Okay, we'll go down there on a Saturday and I'll show her around and maybe an hour, but you know, wol be the right thing to do. So we get there and we do a tour, and then we're sitting down and she has questions after question after question after question after question, and we end up

being there for two and a half hours. I'm like, okay, now you're cutting into my Saturday kind of thing. But she was really interested in volunteering at a child advocacy center. Come to find out they leave, you're going back to where they live. And she discloses to my mother in law and says, you know, I'm sixty eight years old. She said, I've never told a single person about this, but when I was three years old, I was sexually abused by by babysitter's son, who was a teenager, and

I still think about it today. It impacted how I raised my daughter, It impacted how I viewed sexuality and sex. It impacted my marriage, It impacted every aspect of my life. How I viewed the world was shaped by that. And I've never told a single person about it until now. This has been something I've carried around for sixty five years. And unfortunately, we have a tremendous number of Americans in our society that are carrying the same burdens of not

being recognized, not being her, of not being supported. It's a public health crisis. For individuals over the age of forty years old, one in four girls and one in seven boys have experienced sexual abuse. One in four girls and one in seven boys for individuals over the age of forty years old, that is another pandemic in the secondary impacts of this issue on individual's ability to earn a reasonable income, to own a house on a car are overwhelming in the literature, and it also has impacted

our nation's health. Our health care costs are significantly higher because of child mail treatment. Nine of all Medicaid costs are related to child abuse, and when we talk about states not being able to pay for medicaid, if we can address the issue of child sexual abuse and child abuse and children's exposure to adverse experiences, we can improve our nation's health and improve our nation's economy. We're making progress, but this is something that has to be on the radar.

It cannot be a sideline issue. It needs to be a center of the field issue. There's been a significant amount of concern over time that if a child was sexually abused that that means they will become a sexual abuser, like you're exposed to this and now you have it, like it's a disease, like it's going to happen. And I want to make sure to communicate that a overwhelming majority of individuals who are sexually abused never sexually abused

a child in their life. It is not something where it's you know, a fate to complete that you know you are going to do this now. In the situation with Anna Waki and some of this described, these behaviors

were nurtured by people in positions of influence. So individuals who were abused, and we see this from time to time, Individuals who were abused become involved in that and they have developing some level of enjoyment, and they are they are encouraged to engage in this behavior with other individuals.

I don't want to share a lot of details because I don't think it's really helpful, but I have worked with kids under the age of ten who literally have talked about how they because of the way they were manipulated. They talk about missing having sex with one of their parents. That took work to create a child who viewsed the world that way. It's okay, it's acceptable, and actually I

enjoy it. That is that is a very disturbed approach, and I know that's probably very disturbing for people to hear, but you know, children can be manipulated and manipulating them it's also part of the offender's mentality, Like if other people are doing this, it's more socially acceptable. In our inner circle, it's acceptable for us to do that. I serve as a role model for them so they can engage other kids in this activity. It almost is gonna

make it harder to believe. But in the group that I'm hanging out with, the people who I'm associating with, this is more commonplace and it becomes a norm. It would be like, if you know, we lived in a community where you know, a certain group of people eight tennis shoes, they would carve up tennis shoes and put them in twice baked potatoes or whatever. It just becomes the norm. Right, That seems very odd, very strange, very disturbing.

But when it becomes something that everybody is doing, it becomes a little bit more acceptable, and it creates it makes it, it creates a very dangerous and insidious environ it where we normalize things, and that is a you know, that's a huge issue around this kind of manipulation of those The other thing it does is it empowers the offender. Like if let's say so I, you know, I'm sexually using this child, and now I'm encouraging this childhood gigs

and sexual contact. I can then go to that child and say, if you ever talked about what happened, they're going to find about about what you've done. You'll be in trouble too. Now I've made my victim even more vulnerable to me and more able to be manipulated. So it's a clever and disgusting strategy to do this because it's almost like a drug dealer in a way. You now create these other people that are selling drugs to others.

And at any point, if you want to have contact and you're the kingpin, you could have you know, I want to have sexual contact with this individual, you could make that happen in that scenario because you have these other people that are kind of this Ponzi scheme of

sexual abuse. Um, it's very disturbing and I know, probably for listeners to hear about some of the offender mentality and this is probably highly disturbing, and I'm you know, it's hard to talk about this stuff with just without just being real kind of shifting to the climate today. You mentioned this a little bit earlier about kind of

the Satanic panic era and Q and on. How has that affected your work and getting people aware of these very real issues When there is this trend right now of sex trafficking and child pedophilia being in large grand conspiracy terms, things such as Pizza Gate, as this elitist Hollywood cabal taking a drene of chrome and harvesting babies and things of that nature, how does that affect um your work and trying to get the word out in

the real work done in this issue. Uh. You know, I quite honestly would want to say to anybody who's involved, uh and and really believes in that if you're so committed, where have you been all the years we've been here, I hadn't met you, Um, I would have loved I won't have everybody on our side working to help protect kids.

You know, Hey, if you're interested now, great, Let's make sure anything we're doing is is grounded in reality, it's based on what we actually know from the research you know, the way we interview children, the way we can doctu medically exams, the way we provide therapy, it's all based on science. Let's let science, you know, drive how we respond to this issue. Let's make sure that we are innovative in our practice. That's what we need to do.

But I would say, you know, getting accurate information is out there is hard because you're pushing back against society and kind of norms that are out there, and people not wanting to hear about things that are difficult, uh, and things that are disturbing. There's a reason why most people say I could never do that work because they recognize we're exposed to toxic content on a daily basis, and most people don't want to hear that. Like, my

life is hard enough as it is. The last thing I need is more So, we're always challenged with how to try to get accurate, truthful information out there. It's an issue right now in our society. You brought up the issue of sex trafficking. Um, you know, I think when you say you know sex trafficking, you know, some people will automatically develop like in their mind, what is

it you see? What do you think about do you think about an individual who is you know, working as a trafficker and has kids that you know are being forced to engage in sex acts. You know, what is it that people think about. We still are at a point where we're collecting data. I can tell you this unequivocally, child sexual abuse happens at a far greater rate than children are traffic in our in our nation. Uh. It's significant, gettingly more an issue at least on a scale of

ten to one at a minimum. So I mean that's what we know. We're learning more in one case of child sex trafficking is terrible. Uh, and we are actively involved in the fight against it and training people around the issue. But it's you know, Americans like bright, shiny new toys, and any time we talk about kind of a new thing, people may respond to it. Um. I've

been doing this work for a long time. I personally get offended when people say there's this huge cabal that we're just completely oblivious to what It says that me, my colleagues, all of the people that I work with, that we're not smart enough to figure out something that's happening. And I would say, where's your evidence? You know, let's let's talk about the evidence. We can say anything, but what can you show me? Uh? And again, I've been

here for thirty years, you know, hadn't seen you. We've been doing this work for a long time, trying to improve our nation's response to protect children and to hold those who harm them accountable. I don't care who you are. If you're sexually abusing a child, you deserve to be held accountable, doesn't matter who you are. And I like to work in the area of truth. That's what kids who have experienced abuse need. They need truth to come

out so they can heal no one's benefits. When we have conspiracies that are unproven and inaccurate, this is an opportunity to move the needle, you know, on on how we understand this issue, how we're paying attention to this issue. How do we know what to look for if you don't know what's really happening? Right, how can we protect children? And I would say maybe one final thing I would say is that the protection of children is not the

responsibility of children. The protection of children is the responsibility of all adults living in a society to make sure they're protected. Even the Massai warriors who are known in Africa to be some of the most aggressive and successful warriors. When they would greet one another, they would the first thing they would ask in their their tongue is how

and how are the children? Because they knew how children were being taken care of by a society in their own would be an indication of how advanced the society is. It's high time that we prioritize the protection of our children. Uh. And we were doing all we can to prevent them

from being experiencing any abuse. And if they do experience abuse, that they have full access to the resources that we have now have to help them heal from that so they can live happy, full productive lives and they don't disclose at age sixty eight about something that happened sixty five years ago that's impact of their entire life. We need to help them now they can be helped. Um Child sexual abuse or exposure to other trauma is not a death sentence. It doesn't ruin a child forever. This

is something that we have tools to address. We can address it. UH. And individuals, lots and lots of individuals are various tessibul in life after having experienced abuse. So We shouldn't be fatalistic about it, but we should be aggressive in our work to protect kids and to help those who have been harmed and to hold those who are harming them accountable. That is what in just Society does next time on camp help in a waking. Once maybe twice a year, people from the state would come

out to do like an inspection or something. They picked like three of us girls to be the one to answer any questions, and so they took the rest of the group like way way out into the wood. They were leasing them, just like anybody else would be leasing real estate from another company, any other business. So so the non profit paying the profit corporation the nonprofit and awaky E was baying and Awakey Estates rent with the ownership of that was the three daughters. There was a chimney.

He climbed to the top of that and uh dove off. Earl was very touched anytime a kid died and he would get involved and he would become obsessive, compulsive trying to deal with it. And that was something he never could figure out if he was doing it. Since nineteen somebody notices in four and the disapproval sticks in their mind. It only took a year and a half from there for it to fall apart. Camp hell an Awaki was created and hosted by Josh Than with producer Miranda Hawkins

and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack was written and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival footage for aided by ws B and CBS News. Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c A M p h E L L p O D. Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things that you should look for at the Darkness to Light website. D too well dot org. That's d the number two l dot org. Camp hell Anawaki is a production of

I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.