The Committee on Children is continuing its journey through the Connecticut General Assembly in pursuance of a task force to crack down on the approach taken to child sex abuse cases. On Feb. 22, HB5159 (An Act Establishing A Task Force To Study The Responsiveness Of State Agencies To Issues Concerning Child Sexual Abuse) went to public hearing.
At Thursday’s hearing, Connecticut Children’s — a non-profit health system exclusively focused on children’s healthcare improvement through family centered care, research, education and advocacy — delivered testimony in support of the task force’s establishment. In their formal statement, the organization pledged support to “any efforts seeking to improve responsiveness to issues concerning child sexual abuse,” and that “our subject matter experts would be happy to collaborate with policymakers and play a role on this task force.”
The public hearing also included testimony from State Victim Advocate and attorney Natasha M. Pierre, in which she gave support for the task force with one amendment to its membership. She discussed the background of the Office of the Victim Advocate (OVA) and its role in protecting victim rights in the state of Connecticut. Pierre advocated for an amendment to the current required members of the taskforce to include a designee from the OVA (either the State Victim Advocate herself or someone selected by her).
The director of the Connecticut Children’s Alliance (CCA) also gave supporting testimony at the public hearing. Krystal Rich, who oversees the CCA’s ten child advocacy centers and seventeen multidisciplinary teams, said that “we see the need to reflect on the current response and review what can be done to continue to improve.”
She shared that the CCA sees approximately 1,700 child sex abuse victims annually, and through such has seen a need for a change in the language used to address the issue. Rich took time in her testimony to abandon usage of the term “child pornography,” as it “inadvertently implies a level of consent or voluntary participation that is not possible for children, who are legally and ethically unable of consenting to sexual activities.” Instead, she says that the term “child sex materials” should be mainstreamed in the discussion, as it “can contribute to a societal understanding of the severity of the crime and the significant impact it has on victims.”
She closed her statement by voicing appreciation for the proposed task force’s focus on prevention and said that “We need to look at our response through the lens of prevention if we truly want to end abuse.”
