(NewsNation) — Utah passed a new law that ensures full funding for all students up to sixth grade to receive sexual abuse prevention curriculum in schools, marking a victory for advocates during child abuse prevention month.
Senate Bill 205, known as the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Amendments, was unanimously supported across party lines in the state legislature. Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed the bill in a ceremony this week.
“The model in Utah that we use is so cool, and we’re seeing other states develop a lot of interest in this, is providing funding so that kids in elementary schools K through six essentially have access to learn what is appropriate,” Emily Bell McCormick, founder of the Policy Project, which is leading the effort in Utah, said on NewsNation Now.
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The majority of abuse occurs at the hands of someone the child knows and trusts so this education will help kids understand what is appropriate, and then identify some people that they can talk to if something happens, she said.
Twenty-six states already have some kind of allowance for prevention of child abuse in elementary schools, Utah just needed that full funding commitment, she said.
But Bell McCormick says there is more work to do as a federal bill aimed at cracking down on predators who travel across state lines to sexually exploit children has been stalled in Congress for one year.
The bill would provide $63 million in funding to essentially update the whole process for law enforcement to work on these cases, she said.
“The big issue is that you have predators, we’re really using all the technological advances to really get into it to really exploit children. Whereas our law enforcement have not updated their technology to be able to catch up with that.”
“The issues that are surrounding children are dealt with last or last in line because they’re not there to represent themselves…but it’s time that we make these changes.”
