During the National Sexual Assault Awareness and Child Abuse Prevention months, State Senator Lauren Book (D-32), a fierce champion of women and families, helped raise awareness of the staggering sexual abuse statistics she has fought hard to curb.
Through Lauren's Kids, a non-profit organization established by Senator Book herself, Book will be tackling this issue at a state-wide level.
Lauren's Kids announced multiple outreach and awareness campaigns that help prevent sexual assault and child abuse, is focused on tackling all outlets these crimes are allowed to occur through, resulting in the organization issuing a Digital Dangers PSA.
Lauren's Kids got their PSA out by partnering with local TV stations such as CBS to address the new frontier for pedophiles, apps.
The amount of kids online today is at a rate never seen before, which has resulted in "1 in 5 children being sexually solicited online."
While this topic may still be seen as taboo, Book understands that this is the nature of the beast, as she characterized the topics as, "scary", and "uncomfortable."
However, Book thinks we need to, "shatter the stigma" around sexual assault and child abuse, as this has resulted in many children and adults, "suffer in silence."
Unfortunately, cases of child abuse and sexual assault have only increased during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
On top of Lauren's Kids, and the Senator's legislation, the organization has also successfully raised awareness through events such as 42 Miles for the 42 Million Virtual Walk, an annual walk of 42 miles in the month of April to honor the 42 million victims of child sexual abuse.
