Remarkably Resilient Co-Founder Testifies on Erin’s Law

Opt-Out Provisions can Opt-In Family Sexual Abuse Predators

Last week, Remarkably Resilient co-founder Kathleen Harnish McKune submitted written testimony on Erin’s Law, HB 2576: “AN ACT concerning education; establishing Erin’s law; requiring school districts to provide teacher training and age-appropriate student instruction on the identification and reporting of signs of child sexual abuse.” See the full bill here. There is an opt-out provision in the bill allowing parents to prevent their children from receiving sexual abuse prevention education. As a survivor of childhood abuse and incest, Kathleen and her sister, Remarkably Resilient co-founder, Karen, are concerned that an opt-out will protect child sexual abuse perpetrators when they are family members. Especially when the data shows family members commit a majority of child sexual abuse. One argument for “opt-out” being supported by an advocacy group we heard from is that some children that experienced sexual abuse and are now safe would find the training triggering. Our response to this is three-fold:

• If the child sexual abuse prevention training is delivered by professionals, they always provide trigger warnings and will know how to watch for and help children that are triggered including allowing them to step out. As survivors ourselves, learning how to manage triggers, which will occur throughout a survivor’s life, is an important resilience skill. You cannot always avoid triggers so you must learn to manage them.
• An instance of being triggered can activate your human stress-response (fight, flight, freeze). Managing your triggers teaches you how to turn off that human stress-response, mitigating the negative long-term health impacts of an over activated human stress-response.
• Opting children out of sexual abuse training when they are trapped in a home with incest means they will are likely to live their entire childhoods (as we did) in a home where your human stress-response is constantly activated. It is this constant activation that researchers have tied to the kinds of poor mental and physical health outcomes survivors endure. For us it has meant, MS, auto-immune diseases, infertility, 23 female organ related surgeries, anxiety, diabetes – to name just a few. The negative impacts of being trapped are real and they are extensive.

View Kathleen’s testimony here, and read her message to members of the Kansas House Committee on Education below:

My identical twin sisters and I are survivors of a childhood home riddled with incest and abuse at the hands of our father and paternal grandfather in our small western Kansas community of Kinsley. I submitted the attached written testimony on HB 2576: Erin’s Law to the House Committee on Education but due to a previously scheduled client commitment, could not stay to provide it orally. What is missing from all this discussion, my sisters and I believe, is an awareness of the unintended consequences of the provision in the bill that allows parents to “opt their children out” of sexual abuse education. This provision protects the incest perpetrators rather than the children. Most of the child sexual abuse is committed by a family member as noted in the law enforcement data found on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention webpage.

Incest is unrelenting. In our home it was a regular practice with escalating violence and abuse which then led to my younger sister, Karen, being tortured and trafficked by our father and paternal grandfather. We were TRAPPED as children and did not understand for some time what was happening was wrong because it was all we had known since age five for me and younger for the twins.

When my sisters and I went public with our story of incest and abuse, we were in our mid-50’s. The outcry from family and extended family was real – they asked us, “Why do you want to share this family dirty secret?” We told them because it is silence and the darkness that allows incest to persist. Families and perpetrators will do many horrific things to try and keep the dirty secret of incest private. The physical, emotional, and mental impact of prolonged child sexual abuse committed by family members is real and it follows us survivors throughout our lives – the neuroscience and neurobiology of trauma are quite clear on why this happens. Our Kansas children deserve better than a provision that allows families to opt out of educating children about sexual abuse when the vast majority of the sexual abuse is committed by family members. As children we needed to know what was right and not right. No one taught us and had the education existed, we are certain our parents would have opted us out.

We survivors of incest would appreciate it if you would consider exposing the unintended consequences of the provision of “Parental Choice” which on the face of things seem “so logical” but when looked at through the data of who commits child sexual abuse, does not make sense at all. If the bill is to protect children from sexual abuse, then it should protect all children, not some of them. Incest is real. Children are TRAPPED. The “opt out” provision protects the perpetrators of incest. Let’s make Kansas the pioneering state we have always been and lead the nation by exposing this unintended consequence.

My sister, Karen, and I stand prepared to speak, advocate, shine a light on this in all the ways we can. If you could help amplify our voices, we would be deeply grateful. The rest of my testimony aligns with what child welfare agencies, and the child advocacy centers have conveyed, and we strongly support their positions as articulated by Gail Cozadd, CEO, KCSL, Kasey Dalke, Executive Director, State CAC and Judi Rodman, CEO, Sunflower House. We know all three of these wonderful advocates and will continue to work in partnership with them to help children trapped in sexual abuse in their homes where their voices will continue to be silenced when the perpetrators of incest opt them out of the awareness training.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathleen
Current Johnson County resident, former Edwards County resident