Posting #208 – Article, Patty Wetterling Speaks on Sexual Violence Costs

Date:  04/14/2010

Wetterling Speaks on Sexual Violence Costs
http://millelacscountytimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3173&Itemid=87

The Dahlager Theatre at Milaca High School opened its doors to current high school students, Milaca alumni, parents, teachers, community members and even young children last Friday night. They gathered not to see a play or hear a concert, but for a presentation put on by Pearl Crisis Center in observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Patty Wetterling was the guest speaker at the event.

Pearl Crisis Center is a non-profit organization that provides support and resources for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. They provide information to increase accountability for perpetrators and increase community awareness in hopes to one day end violence.

Helping to sponsor the event was one of the programs supported by Pearl, TADA (Teens Against Dating Abuse).

TADA is a group made of primarily Mille Lacs County teenagers who are dedicated to educating the community and schools about the problems and issues teens face and preventing dating abuse among teens.

According to member Erin Rasmussen TADA is a support group where members and visitors are given the message “you are great just the way you are.”

One of the founding members of TADA, Anne Van De Veer, explained that “TADA means confidence. It means the ability to move past it. It means freedom.”

Also working with Pearl and TADA to raise awareness for sexual abuse were the Mille Lacs County Child Abuse Prevention Council and the Milaca Public School.

Together, these organizations brought Wetterling to speak about “The Cost of Sexual Violence.”

Wetterling is most well-known in Minnesota for being the mother of Jacob Wetterling who was abducted Oct. 22, 1989, in St. Joseph. After Jacob’s abduction the Wetterlings (Patty and her husband Jerry) formed the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, a non-profit organization advocating child safety.

Then in 1994, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was passed by Congress, the first federal law to institute a state sex offender registry. The registry information became available to the public after an amendment, Megan’s Law, was added.

Wetterling is also known for her campaigns as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate in the 2004 race and the 2006 race for the Minnesota Sixth District seat in the United States House of Representatives. She lost both races, first to Mark Kennedy and then to Michele Bachmann.

But what many Minnesotans don’t know is that Wetterling is the Sexual Violence Prevention Program Director for the Minnesota Department of Health.

According to Wetterling, creating a better world starts with the kids. Every person, even the man who took Jacob, was once just a child.

“What went wrong? What changed him into this perpetrator?”

By raising the public’s awareness, fewer children will be abducted, exploited and murdered. Fewer children will grow up to be a part of the problem.

But sexual abuse and violence is not talked about freely in public. And child sexual abuse is talked about even less, even though it is 167 times more common than autism in children, 75 times more common than pediatric cancer, 28 times more common than mental retardation in children and even 1.7 times more common than childhood obesity, all topics that are talked about freely and commonly in the public.

Children are assailed daily with messages about sex in the media.

According to a study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation in January 2010, children between the ages of 8 and 18 are spending an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes using some form of entertainment media. And they are seeing women in provocative posses, scantily dressed selling products that barely register in the brains of the adolescents. They see the sex, not the socks being advertised.

“I remember when Victoria had a secret!” said Wetterling. “What used to be considered pornography is now mainstream in advertising.”

Wetterling also showed video games where players are encouraged to pick up prostitutes, have sex with them and then kill them, all for higher points. At Halloween it is no longer the witch, princess or cowboy costume that is a top seller, but the pimp and the prostitute.

All these mediums are teaching young girls how to act and teaching young boys that this is how girls should be.

Sexting has become a large problem in many schools and 22 percent of all teenage girls have admitted to electronically sending or posting online nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves.

And as adults, one in six women and one in 33 men will have experienced rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives. One in three teenagers will experience dating abuse.

“We need Minnesota champions,” Wetterling said. “Champions to keep the public aware, to fight back against media images that are destroying our youth, to provide positive mentoring and support, to hold people accountable for their actions.”