Rochester, N.Y. – We’ve seen the video of students on the Penn State campus rioting and protesting, showing their support for former football coach Joe Paterno.But amidst the chaos all Mary Whittier sees is innocence lost.
"The cover up behind it, the people that actually witnessed crimes, doing really very minimal and where was their ethical and moral responsibility?"
Whittier is the Executive Director of the Bivona Child Advocacy Center.
She works with thousands of abused children.
She says in cases like this, a predator typically grooms his victims.
"This coach abused his power with those kids, offered them the ability to go to these great games, at what cost?" said Whittier.
Perhaps the cost is a lifetime of scars, who knows if they will ever heal.
"There is healing to this, these kids and families need professional help,” Whittier says.
Whittier says it's time for people to be held accountable and support those hurting from the pain of abuse.
"If nothing else comes from this situation, we need to wake up in our community, we need to wake up in our country that child sexual abuse is a major, major problem,” Whittier said.
Startling Numbers:
-1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of 6 boys will suffer from some sort of sexual abuse by the time they turn 18
-90% of children sexually abused is by someone they know and trust
- Less than 1 in 10 children will ever tell they were sexually abused
- Bivona evaluates more than 7,000 children for sexual abuse; they’ve seen 1500 kids alone in 2010
- 43% of those kids are under age 7
- 30% of those are boys and 45% of those children come from the suburbs
