By David Owens, newseditor@laurelleadercall.com
A Florida-based non-profit geared toward protecting the lives of innocent children has plans to spread their message in Laurel.
Representatives for Voice for the Children, Inc., headquartered in West Palm Beach, Fla., said Friday that they have talked with at one least Laurel elementary school in bringing their program here.
Marianne Malky, founder and president of Voice for the Children, Inc., said the group selected Laurel after reading recent headlines of children being sexually exploited locally.
This week, Derrick Williams, 23, a former Moselle daycare worker, pled guilty to molesting four and five-year-old girls where he worked in late 2008. Another arrest occurred in Wayne County, where Johnny Brent Johnson, 41, was charged with rape/sexual battery of an 11-year-old.
“The solution to this problem mostly is education,” said Malky, who said her program called Robbie the Safety Robot educates children about how to respond to abuse.
“I taught school in North Carolina and you have to teach them really young,” she said. “People underestimate the intelligence of children, but they understand exactly what’s going on. They don’t have an outlet. They don’t know it’s O.K. to speak out. That’s where the problem lies.”
Although she hasn’t dealt with abuse personally, Malky has her own story of child exploitation. In the 1970s, her ex-husband, Stephen Shipenberg, took her son, David, from her in what is called parental abduction. It took her 31 years to locate them again.
“Although I located (David), he still hasn’t spoken to me,” she said. “This is 2010, and although I located my son in 2005, he has never spoken to me or met with me. He has a grandson that I’ll never see. Parental abduction is the kidnapping of a child.”
The Junior Auxiliary of Laurel is one of many agencies currently involved in spreading the safety message in schools.
Jeanine Boykin, president of the group, said the Junior Auxiliary has implemented a “Stranger Danger” program in Laurel private schools.
“We go and talk to elementary age children about how to avoid abductions and about personal safety issues such as child abuse,” she said. “We are also looking to expand that program to include Internet safety. That would also include an older age group because Internet safety has become such a big issue in our area.”
State Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ellisville) said protecting the lives of the area’s children is very dear to his heart. Already this session, he has introduced “Nathan’s Law,” which was promoted after a 5-year-old North Jones Elementary student was run over during a routine school bus stop.
McDaniel has also co-authored a “Child Protection Act” bill in the Senate.
SB 2238 is known as the: “Mississippi Child Protection Act of 2010.”
According to McDaniel, the bill makes certain classes mandatory reporters of who must report sexual abuse of a child (e.g., nurses, paramedics). A mandatory reporter shall report every instance of alleged or suspected sexual abuse of a child.
Also, any physician who performs an abortion on a minor who is less than 14 years of age at the time of the abortion procedure is made to preserve fetal tissue extracted during the abortion. Such evidence would be used in a statutory rape or sexual abuse setting.
It also mandates that no person shall intentionally cause, aid, or assist a minor under the age of 18 to obtain an abortion.
