Proposed Bill

Please help us to make child sexual abuse grooming a felony. All you have to do is read the petition, sign it and share it with the world through your social networks. Every signature means that a child could be protected from ever having to experience child sexual abuse.

Here is an updated blog which highlights my purpose and passion to MAKE CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE GROOMING A FELONY please Click Here

Pictured: Ressurrection Graves

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Why This Is Important

Child Grooming should be a Felony charge, accompanied with any charge of child sexual abuse including rape, sodomy, molestation, incest or other sexual misconduct.

Currently there are some laws in place against child grooming as it is related to sex trafficking however, there are no laws against child sexual abuse grooming that connects a molester to the relationship that he has developed with a child for the purpose of sexual violence.

It is established that child molesters, rapists and other perpetrators build a “good-touch relationship” with their prey including the parents and others that are around the child, and then they begin to engage in sexually inappropriate behavior which completely confuses the child.

“Is this person doing something to harm me? No, they would never do that? Why is he/she asking me to do this? This “feels” wrong, but they would never “hurt” me, right?”

There are many things that go through a child’s mind at the moment where they are being violated for the first or the fiftieth time. Should they tell? Who would they tell? He or she (the perpetrator) is loved by the family. Do they know? How could they not? How do I make this stop? I don’t want to do this anymore. Help!

Eddie Long is the pastor of New Birth in Atlanta and he groomed parents and children with trips, money and influence for many years until reaching a “legal age” to have sex with young men.

This is NOT about homosexuality, although in the tenets of Eddie Long’s faith, he is sexually immoral for the action of homosexuality. Eddie Long’s actions are about Child Sexual Abuse, and perfect example of Child Grooming.

“Secrets make you sick.” -Sundi Jo

Eddie Long is my sacrificial lamb for this petition but please understand that the Catholic Church has been dealing with this for a very long time. 93% of Child Predators are religious. Darrell Gilyard has a place under my skin that makes me crawl with fury because forty-four women have come forward with allegations of rape and sexual misconduct in the churches that he has pastored in various states.

He finally admitted to rape and served three years. He was released recently and the church said that he had done his time and is forgiven by God – so he was appointed to be pastor of a church right down the road from the one that he was last arrested in. He is sick and he is a predator but church members feel that his preaching should be more recognized than he being a rapist.

If 93% of sexual predators are religious this means that predators believe something. This is not an attack on anyone’s religious beliefs. This is a $124 Billion Dollar Health Care Crisis that is being ignored. The government, you and I are all paying for the physical and psychological abuse that comes from sexual violence within all kinds of family backgrounds not limited to spiritual beliefs or race.

Child Grooming is the one thing that “Good Touch Bad Touch” doesn’t really clarify. Programs like “Stranger Danger” have to be reprogrammed to identify grooming in a way that helps children to not be manipulated.

For more information about What Child Grooming is, you may go to :https://ressurrection.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/what-is-grooming/

And to learn a little more in depth about the relationship within the mind of a child being groomed please go to: https://ressurrection.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/why-many-professionals-believe-that-child-sexual-abuse-programs-are-obselete/

Ressurrection Graves, the author of this petition is a child sexual abuse advocate focused on awareness, prevention and healing. Please visit her blog about overcoming abuse at:www.ressurrection.wordpress.com.

Sign the petition and please support her decision to make Child Grooming Illegal. She has some Congressional Interest but nothing can speak louder than your voice now.

“There is no spiritual excuse for child sexual abuse.” – Ressurrection Graves

There have been many bills that have come before me. Currently in legislation is the Violence Against Women’s Act and Congresswoman Moore of Wisconsin, District Four can be seen on the House floor sharing openly that she was molested by a family member at a young age, and raped as a teenager.

Erin Merryn created Erin’s Law so that children would be required to have child sexual abuse education in elementary school as a form of prevention. While I am so excited for Erin Merryn and I support her efforts to end child sexual abuse, I do not see a difference between this new law, and the ones that have come before it. You see, Erin Merryn will admit that she did have “Stranger Danger” in her Illinois school system, and I had “Good Touch, Bad Touch.” These are examples of child sexual abuse education.

What I see and have chosen as a path to righteousness, for the community of people intending to end child sexual abuse is to create a law that makes child grooming a felony. Many children, including those of us who are doing our part as adults to fight child sexual abuse for our children and the generations to follow were abused prior to entering elementary school.

My father said to me when I was a baby in his arms that, “I can’t wait until you get older. I am going to get your boot-a-bucket.” My sister heard this and confessed to my mother. What I believe will change the course of child sexual abuse is to make grooming a felony charge that carries serious time.

Here are the details of my bill:
• Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Classes for Parents (accredited or non-accredited)
• Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Classes for Teachers (in a degree or certificate program)
• Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Classes for Students (should be an elective course with parents)
• Make Child Sexual Abuse Grooming its own felony law

There has been years of ongoing dispute as to whether the teachers and school system are primarily responsible for the care of a child or whether that sole responsibility lies in the hands of the child’s parents. I have always believed that it takes a village to raise a child so in this bill; you will see that the responsibility will lie at the breastplate of all parties involved.

Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Classes for Parents

In this bill, parents will be required to attend an accredited or non-accredited class in child development at an institution of learning that is located on a college or university campus, or a continuing education course where a certificate can be obtained. The course will be solely dedicated to child sexual abuse prevention. Parents will be taught the Ten Ways to Safeguard Your Child from Sexual Abuse, and it will be updated with current statistical data using information that is relevant in classrooms.

To ensure that every child’s parent has taken this course, they will be required to provide this information in any head start, daycare, or educational setting including pre-kindergarten. Just as there are requirements for children to have their vision checked, proper dental and medical records, they will also be required to have documentation that their parents are familiar with child sexual abuse prevention on their behalf. The Ten Ways will cover everything that you need to know about protecting a child from being harmed.

Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Classes for Teachers

Many teachers spend more hours with their students than the parents do. They in some cases spend more than one meal with them, and for younger students monitor their naps. Teachers are, and should be responsible for the welfare of the children they care for. Part of the noble position of a teacher is the opportunity to observe any crisis that may be at home which could be poorly affecting a child’s life – such as child sexual abuse. Teachers are not currently equipped with that knowledge, and all information is diverted to social workers and counselors.

Teachers would have a greater chance at observing and identifying abuse if they had the same awareness and prevention information. In fact the entire school should be required to have the same information. Therefore, I believe that all degree and certificate programs should require a teacher to be certified in a course albeit continuing education or part of obtaining their degree to include child sexual abuse education.

Everyone in the school building should be identified as mandated reporters and have information that can support them in preventing predators from lurking in and around schools and classrooms.

By making this a requirement, we will reduce the 20-30% statistic which holds teachers as pedophiles, because teachers will be able to speak up if the notice inappropriate behavior of a colleague.

Child Sexual Abuse Classes for Students

This part of my bill mirrors Erin Merryn a bit. In Erin’s Law all children are required to have child sexual abuse education. What I believe has been absent was a specification on grooming with confusion and manipulation that takes place when perpetrators change the course of the relationship.

As I mention in the blogs What is Grooming? And Grooming: Confusion and Manipulation, grooming is when someone presents themselves as one way, to have an appropriate relationship with you, and then after gaining trust changes that relationship to sexual violence.

Learning how to identify when the shift in the relationship at an age appropriate level takes place, is crucial for preventing child sexual abuse.

Make Child Sexual Abuse Grooming its own felony law

In order to make sure that people who groom children for years until they are either too traumatized to talk, or beyond the statute of limitations to press charges of child sexual abuse, child sexual abuse grooming should hold a felony charge with any charge of child sexual abuse.

This law will mean that someone like Eddie Long who groomed the boys until they were old enough to sleep with will require a felony count of grooming that he would have had to fight in court. There is a case in California where a teacher and his eighteen year old girlfriend appeared on the news saying that they are in love.

This man quit his job, left his wife and children including his daughter who is the same age as the girlfriend and attended the same school. He and she claim that they did not have sex until after she turned eighteen however; he groomed this young woman into a relationship that turned sexual. In other cases, the child may be much younger where an Uncle or someone has spent time buying the child gifts and over months or years grooms the child into trusting them, only to then molest, sodomize, or sexually abuse them in some way. There are many variations of this kind of story.

SIGNING THIS PETITION

When you sign this petition you give a voice to the voiceless. You offer your support to men and women who suffer from their childhoods. You provide an opportunity for healing, awareness and for your child and the child next door, prevention.

I consider my work the CPR Training for Child Sexual Abuse. This is my subtext or mantra for the Ten Ways To Safeguard Your Child From Sexual Abuse brand. On behalf of every person who has been sexually abused I give thanks for your willingness to stand, sign and use your voice.

Please do not keep this to yourself.

This is a state of emergency.

Ressurrection Graves is an author, speaker and relationship mentor. She is available for speaking engagements on topics surrounding healing, prevention and awareness of child sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse. Contact Ressurrection at: 202.717.7377 or ressurrection dot wordpress at yahoo dot com.

Related articles

• What is Grooming? (ressurrection.wordpress.com)
• Author and Speaker Biography (ressurrection.wordpress.com)
• Victim Blaming pushes away whom we Love (ressurrection.wordpress.com)
• Why Child Sexual Abuse Grooming Must Become A Felony: The Story of Jason Kidd and His Daughter (auroramorealist.wordpress.com)