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Are You Aware of the Danger Sexual Predators Pose to Your Child?
Every 9 minutes in this country, there is a non-family abduction of a child under 18. Almost all of these abductions are for sexual purposes. More than half of these victims are under 12 years old.
According to a Washington State study, most children targeted by predators who kill are not "at-risk" children. They are children from stable families, living in "safe" neighborhoods. Their very innocence sets them up as easy prey. The rage these predators express may even arise, to some extent, from envy of the child's loving family and nice home.
Of course, abductions of children under 18 for sexual purposes are really far more frequent. The over 56,000 non-family abductions reported each year do not include abductions by a brother-in-law or a step-father, as it is considered a family abduction if the abductor is related to the child by blood or marriage.
Also not included in the 56,000 non-family abductions reported each year are the kids under 18 who initially go away voluntarily with an adult but who later want to come home. A runaway forced to stay with a seducer and continue to have sex with him or her and whomever the seducer as pimp sells the child to should be counted as a child falsely imprisoned.
Jimmy Ryce’s mother Claudine believes seduction by an adult of a child under 18 should be considered what it is–an abduction by a sexual predator. After all, young children tricked into going with an adult to get an ice cream cone are treated as abducted. Why not treat as a statutory abduction, the not-so-smart-as-she-thinks 13-year-old who is persuaded to go off with an adult and have sex with him. The point is that an adult's taking of a child under a certain age for sexual purposes, whether by force or guile, should be considered a predatory abduction.
It's anyone's guess how many abductions of children are attempted each year. Go to the Home page of this jimmyryce.org website and select the Escape section to discover some of the most recent attempted abductions reported in the media. Attempted abductions where the kid gets away are probably many times the 56,000 non-family abductions where the abductor succeeds in taking the child.
As early as 1997, Jimmy Ryce's mother Claudine was writing articles and speeches in which she identified sadistic pedophiles as domestic terrorists. Everyone would agree with her if it were 150 CEOs from the Fortune 500 corporations who were kidnapped and killed each year, instead of just 150 kids being abducted by strangers and killed. To read her article " A Hug from Jimmy," in her alumni magazine Pro Veritate, The Magazine of Stetson University (Winter 1997), Vol. 16 No. 1, click here.
With predators nowadays validating one another on the internet and sharing luring techniques, the success rate in taking children may go up. Abduction by seduction rather than force is certainly increasing. It is up to caring adults to do whatever they can to make it harder for a kid to be abducted.
The first step in saving kids from losing their innocence or life to sexual predators is to stop denying that predatory abductions are a problem epic in proportion. The second step is for parents to start educating themselves and their children on how sexual predators operate. Remember the best defense is a good offense, and kids are, after all, their own last defense.
Since Jimmy Ryce was kidnapped on September 11, 1995, at every opportunity, Jimmy's parents have begged other parents to teach their children to be more predator smart. As a result of this empowerment, children become more predator resistant.
But Jimmy Ryce's parents are just two people. To reach parents and and children across the country and the ages, a multitude must answer the call to go to individual schools and teach kids Jimmy Ryce's GEMs, Great Escape Maneuvers. All it takes is a caring person--a law enforcement officer, PTA member, a teenager wanting to satisfy community service requirements, anyone the school trusts to teach kids how to respond to maximize their chances of getting away if confronted by a predator.
In the Abduction Section of the jimmyryce.org website, which is listed on the Home page, you will find pictures of children actually abducted whose stories the parents have permitted the Jimmy Ryce Center to tell to teach others to recognize sexual predators by their behavior. Learn which of Jimmy Ryce's GEMs, Great Escape Maneuvers, might have enabled the child to get away from the sexual predator.
If you go to the Home page and select the Escape section, you will find described there actual attempted abductions where kids got away using one or more of Jimmy Ryce's GEMs to escape from real sexual predators.
Parents and teachers should make sure that predator drills, like fire drills, are part of the safety education curriculum. After all, it is far more likely that a kid will be confronted by a sexual predator than it is that he or she will be involved in a school fire. Discussions about how to get away from sexual predators can be included in safety discussions about other dangers school children may face--drugs, alcohol, gangs, bullies, weapons, aids and other sexually communicated illnesses.
Please help spread the good news that, while there will always be sexual predators who hurt kids, kids can get away from them if they perform one or more of Jimmy Ryce's Great Escape Maneuvers.
