David Daggett Speaks About Stopping Child Abuse

I want to talk to you a minute about an issue that’s become very serious and people have become aware of in our society, and that’s abuse, specifically sexual abuse, of our children.

Hi, I’m North Carolina attorney David Daggett. We’ve all heard the recent news starting with the Penn State child abuse situation. We’ve heard about sexual abuse by priests in Catholic churches. Protection of our children is among the most important things we can do in society. Ensuring their safety, ensuring that they develop, and that psychologically we produce young people who are full and active and can go on to be the best that they can be. To think that sexual abuse occurs to our most vulnerable of children is simply heartbreaking.

So, I want to ask you to please join me in helping to eliminate and cure our problem with sexual abuse of children. We can do this in several ways. First of all, we need to report any suspicion that we have of this sort of activity. It’s an uncomfortable thing to do. That’s why we hear about these cases that happened some time back and that there was a failure to report. It’s the person reporting is afraid to report a family member, a friend, or an acquaintance they know through a social organization or in their company. But, we’ve got to do it.

We can make that report anonymously. Get law enforcement, the local police or sheriff, involved. They know how to investigate these matters. They know how to look into them to make sure that we’re working at solving the problem.

The other thing we can do, and please, I’m asking you to do it also, is to talk with our young people. I’m the father of three fairly young children. We have to sit down and talk to them in very simple terms but yet very clearly of the dangers that are out there, and teach them how to handle any untoward conduct, untoward touching, or anything that makes them feel uncomfortable.

You know, opening up the lines of communication with our young people on difficult issues is a hard thing to do, but it’s also the most important thing to do. The bonus is if we can open these lines of communication for our young people on difficult issues that means we can talk to them about anything. If we can do that certainly we can have a better future for all of our young people and for all of us.

The problem of sexual abuse in our society is on the front burner right now. We’re hearing about it from lots of different directions. Please join me. Let’s help to try to prevent any abuse of our children. They’re special to all of us, and they’re our future. Thank you for joining me. I appreciate it.