This video story produced and reported by Ginette Troya.
Trigger Warning: This story focuses on child sexual abuse and may cause intense emotions.
Close to 700,000 children in America are abused by their guardians each year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Our story’s focus is on Ingrid, an incest survivor whose name has been changed to protect her identity.
Ingrid was seven years young when she began to experience sexual abuse from her father. She recalls only one specific time that it happened, but knows that it occurred on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, most instances of sexual abuse are between people who know each other, in one of their homes. It is estimated by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network that a child is sexually assaulted every nine minutes.
“It’s kind of sad knowing that your dad actually abused you, knowing that if he’s not going to grow up with you, but it’s sad. Yeah. But hopefully one day I can forgive him,” Ingrid said.
Due to the complicated process of DNA needing to be collected during a certain time frame after an assault, many perpetrators of sexual assault end up running free, robbing the victims of justice. This includes Ingrid.
However, in 1977, a nonprofit organization titled Champions for Children was jumpstarted to help prevent child abuse and neglect. They offer services such as helping pregnant women prepare for childbirth and the caretaking of a newborn, providing parents with the necessary knowledge to cultivate a healthy home life, ensuring children hit important milestones in their learning and development and more.
“I feel like the most important thing in our job, or any person in the community, is actually to look at the red flags. What’s going on? What changed in this child?” said children’s therapist Maisam Hamdan.
Though Ingrid never received justice, she and her siblings were adopted into a new family, changing their lives completely.
If you suspect that a child is a victim of abuse of neglect, please report it to the Florida Abuse Hotline or call these numbers: TTY: 711 or 1-800-955-8771. FAX: 1-800-914-0004.
