HJAR Nov/Dec 2024

DIALOGUE 24 NOV / DEC 2024 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS and I don't think we've made much progress in that area. When we were in school, we had some basic things about the anatomy of the body in home ed. or sex ed. That is prohibited. Editor It is? Sen. Barrow Yeah. Editor Now? Sen. Barrow Sex ed., yeah. Edito r I didn't realize that was prohibited. Sen. Barrow Yeah. we can't teach sex ed. They may try to call it something else. But in terms of just going through the whole details of your menstrual cycle and all that stuff that I remember. Editor I thought it was helpful. Sen. Barrow It was extremely helpful. There have been bills passed that do not allow us to get into specifics, so how that information is now shared or conveyed to young people is very questionable to me. Unless you have a teacher who recognizes that something is happening and says, “Hey, what's going on with you?” and begins to probe a little bit, I don't know if we really have an avenue that young people can feel comfortable in really knowing what's good and what's bad. Editor That seems like something we should teach children — that these parts are private. We need to give that child the understanding that some things are not OK and permission to tell someone what is happening to them if somebody tries to touch them. Sen. Barrow Someone gave a perfect example in a committee in 2022. I remember this very vividly because I had never thought about it like that. Amother told her daughter, “Don't let nobody touch your cookies.”The daughter did not understand that “cookies” [meant] her private part. Come to find out, somebody had been molesting or touching her in that inappropriate place and it wasn't until something else [happened that it] came out. They were talking about wording. The girl never understood that “cookies,” was her mom was referring to a private area. She was only 10. So, we were talking about how we properly convey messaging to our children so that they all understand, “This is your private area. It is called a vagina. No one is supposed to touch your private area in your vagina area.”We need to all be saying the same thing, but we are saying other words that oftentimes kids don't understand. She thought her mother literally meant her cookies — if she had cookies, tell them, “You don't touch my cookies.” But come to find out, somebody was. Editor Who is the child most likely to confide in first when disclosing sexual abuse? Sen. Barrow What do you mean? Editor If they're going to tell that they're being sexually abused, is there somebody that they're normally sharing that with? Sen. Barrow It's hard to say, depending on the child’s different relationships. The people that I think are the last to find out are parents. So, I would say either a friend or maybe a teacher or someone from the school system. Too often, I think parents are the last to find out. Sometimes, again, it's because of the relationships, because of the individual as a person that you just would not suspect. Parents feel trusting of those individuals and just think nothing would never happen. And then what they tell the child in terms of what's going to happen … children don't know any different. They believe them. And so, I think parents oftentimes are the last ones unless they're having these open conversations often to say, “Hey, we always talk about the anatomy of the body.” And I think that may be a good way to do it: “This is a good touch, bad touch.”And doing that often. If they don't have that rapport with their kids, the likelihood of them telling them is slim to none. Editor Are there other measures you plan to introduce to address the broader issue of sexual assault in Louisiana beyond this law? Sen. Barrow One of the things that I'm very concerned about, the other part of this, is human trafficking. It is literally all around us. Editor Define human trafficking. Sen. Barrow Human trafficking is taking an individual and using them to commit sexual acts for money. This bothers me so much because it's happening a lot, and sometimes it's happening in plain sight. The one thing that I've seen too much is parents or loved ones who are trafficking their children for drugs, for money, for being able to live where they are. It doesn't matter about the income. We can't be fooled by that either. It's happening with boys and girls, moms and dads, caregivers. It's something that I “I believe the education of this is extremely important in terms of what can happen. I pray to God that other states start doing it... the more of us who start doing it, you're going to see less and less of this behavior.”