At the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center, there was a discussion held about the Project Safe Childhood Act. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was joined by law enforcement, educators and sexual abuse survivors.
“I was sexually abused around age 10 all the way up to 13, 14 years old,” sexual abuse survivor D. J. Palmer said.
He told the panel how important Project Safe Childhood was for his case and the conviction of the offender.
Project Safe Childhood is a U.S. Department of Just (DOJ) program started in 2006. It’s a nationwide initiative to fight online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
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“My case specifically was a direct impact from this bill,” Palmer said. “I was lucky enough to have state, local and federal prosecutors working together from day one.”
Now Cornyn wants to pass a bill to modernize Project Safe Childhood Program.
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“It helps fund collaboration between all these agencies,” U.S. Senator John Cornyn said. “It allows best practices then to be shared with agencies that maybe don’t have the sort of sophisticated capabilities that are available here in Dallas or Tarrant County or the like.”
It would be funded through about $60 million in federal grants to agencies. It has passed the Senate and Cornyn is hopeful it will be passed by the House.
The Dallas Children's Advocacy Center President Irish Burch is just happy awareness is being raised.
“When you have a senator that puts his voice, lends his platform to a cause such as this it really helps to elevate the cause and make people more aware,” Burch said. “So, parents can be more protective of their children.”
Protecting children is what this survivor wants moving forward.
“We can’t leave a child behind,” Palmer said. “We can’t leave any stone unturned. So, this joint effort or collaborate effort across the nation for all counties, all agencies, all states to work together is a huge step in the right direction.”
