MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A program designed to raise awareness for victims of child sexual abuse will hold a panel discussing the topic.
The SHIELD initiative will be holding a forum at the Trinity Assembly of God Fellowship Hall in Marion County this Friday. The idea of the forum is to discuss the exploitation of children through multiple aspects of abuse and how the community can play a role in stopping or preventing it.
“Really what this is about is educating the public on what we are going to be discussing with the students, their children and educating the public on their role,” said SHIELD Child Advocate Amber Higgins on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town” with Dave Wilson and Sarah Giosi.
SHIELD — standing for See, Hear, Intervene, Empower, Learn and Defend — has been active in the community and is partnered with many agencies within Marion County. Among the agencies involved in the initiative include the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, the Fairmont Police Department, the Fairmont Child Advocacy Center, and other local nonprofits.
SHIELD advocate attorney and former Marion County Assistant Prosecuter Robert Peters said the group was developed in observance that more was needed to be done in regards to child abuse.
“It’s a partnership of just these different entities coming together that see that a broader effort is needed in order to address child sexual abuse in order to encourage reporting of it,” said Peters.
Though the issue of child sexual abuse has been discussed for decades, the amount of victims coming forward to report cases has always been a difficult task. According to Peters, approximately one out of every ten children nationwide suffer from sexual abuse.
Despite those numbers, fewer than 10 percent of those cases are reported to law enforcement. Peters emphasized how close to home the issue by discussing cases he has worked with in the past few months.
“Doug and I had a jury trial in December,” he said. “Dave and I had a jury trial scheduled in November. This is something that happens.”
While there are no statewide statistics as of 2018, Marion County was the subject of multiple cases of child sexual abuse including one of a man who was charged with 44 counts of sexual abuse involving an eight-year-old victim.
Higgins, who was a victim of child sexual abuse herself and from the North Central West Virginia region, feels that taking a proactive approach is the best way to combat child sexual abuse.
“Just because maybe you’re not dealing with the situation right now doesn’t mean you may not deal with it in the future,” she said regarding the prospects of dealing with a case of child sexual abuse. “It’s better to be prepared and proactive rather than be reactive,” she said.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative will be holding their forum Friday, Jan. 18.