June 23, 2015

Attn: President Barrack Obama              Patricia A McKnight

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue                      135 North Oak Street

Washington, DC                                         Breese, IL 62230

                                                                     XXXXXXXXXXXX

RE: Family Crimes and Terroristic Abuse Act

Active Petition Change.org – https://www.change.org/p/let-s-make-all-sexually-related-acts-against-a-minor-a-federal-offense-and-allow-a-three-step-review-of-all-child-maltreatment-reports

Dear Mr. President,

Please permit me first to thank you for your time of service to our country. You have lead the way to many changes which I hope will continue to inspire freedom and respect for others in our nation, as well as around the world, for many centuries to come. Through your joint work with Vice President Joe Biden, you have successfully updated our nation’s Child Protection Act, Violence Against Women Act, and implemented the Human Trafficking Protections Act. You’ve enforced better services to men & women who soldier to protect our country’s freedoms and enhanced victims services and prevention strategies to end the cycle of violent crimes not only against children, but against all persons.

This is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve actually sent a letter to you these past few years. It is in those I write speaking as an adult survivor, one of the estimated 45+ million adult survivors in our country. These are persons from at least three or four generations and we have watched the level of personal violence grow to bleed into every small American town across the country. We are those who have endured the day after day, year after year, continued decades of battle to survive the harm as children, then grow in self destruction as we try to develop in the aftermath of extreme physical, sexual, emotional pain; most of which has occurred right within the safety of our family home.

Today sir, I have become a strong recovering advocate voice in the mission to empower new ideas in prevention and recovery. Also, in the many professional trainings and research, I’ve put together and present locally an inside look at these types of taught human behaviors, and the judgment rather than assistance, silence rather than reporting these painful and horrific actions against the smallest of persons which has been taught  throughout our human existence.

How tragic is our world when acts of Child Sex Trafficking, Exploitation, and brutal harm, which is nothing less than terroristic types of cruelty, is the most protected topic around the world? In researching topics, I’ve broken down the Child Maltreatment Report FFY 2011; would you be shocked to know that 3.7 million reports of maltreatment were entered across the nation, but 2.3 million of those reports didn’t even receive an investigation? The horrific numbers of children being harmed in our country, yet so many soldiers go out to sacrifice their lives so that we can live in America protected by the Inalienable Right to Be SAFE; to live free, free from harm and free from fear. Is this not something that should be a priority for our entire country? Sadly sir, there are very few who are actually speaking and when they do they never address the issue of truth;  the greatest numbers of harm to our children and the greatest numbers of Domestic Child Sex Trafficking is committed by the close family within our home.

In our human society, not just in America, it is those who have complete access to control, manipulate, degrade, and threaten, imposing grievous harm or a believed sense of certain death, fear of being sent away; it is these persons who maintain constant fear to ensure child’s silence, tolerance, and protecting their abuser “Family Terrorist” from ever being prosecuted for their actions? The 2011 report reveals statistics; 1 in 9 Sexual Abuse, 1 in 3 Physical Abuse, and over 1500 child deaths were confirmed as a direct result of neglect or physical harm. The emotional turmoil inside of a child living within a circle of family, neighbors, friends; yet abandoned believing no one cares about the terror and harm which haunts their home. How can someone not report when they see the outward signals and determine a sense of need? What happens to the example we give our children and youth if the most dangerous place in the world they know is their very own home, and so many people and family around them do absolutely nothing to help? We have used these abusive actions to control and silence our children in tolerating the many crimes against them, which traps these young persons in self absorbing horror while protecting their abuser, the only terrorist they know.

Yes sir, I do realize how strong of word ‘terrorist’ is; however, when children endure these truly torturous types of harm throughout their entire lives; it is a trauma of dark pain and ugly secrets that our human society knows exists but we cannot face. As one article I’ve read states so honestly; ‘Not even discussed in private rooms’. Is it our own adult neglect to protect from these actions or in the times we’ve simply turned away from a hurting child?

As of now, myself and two other strong advocates, have developed an ongoing petition as referenced above. This petition has written out 10 specific guidelines we would like to see implemented to end these types of crimes across the country, but more importantly influence the life of children around the world. Already more than 550 have signed and we will keep this going for as long as it takes, until a resolution is found and we can begin teaching new behaviors of good rather than pain and uphold the laws of protection to include those who are too little to defend themselves, too young to understand, or not even able to speak at all. Sir we must do something and I am praying you will choose to take just one more courageous step, please sir initiate a Federal Level complete review to update, revise, and implement whatever strategies necessary to protect our children; especially when the family, schools, community around them will not.

The basis for the mentioned guidelines is taken from two parts; first our American Constitution and the amendments there in which give the right to freedom for all persons, the right to be protected under the eyes of law as equal, without regard to race, religion, economic standing; without regard to age, gender, or place of residence within our country. We all, as Americans, have an inalienable right to be safe, be protected, and be free. Part two of the research to put this together is the rights written into law, December 1948 by United Nations General Assembly Committee; The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One member of this committee was our country’s Ms. Eleanor Roosevelt and in these are stated what shall be upheld as the highest laws of all mankind; our world laws. Articles 1 – 8 of these writes very clearly the rights of all beings to live free; free from harm & free from the fear of harm. In this is also the rights to be protected under the laws of our world; not even prisoners can be treated in such a torment and tortured existence what often happens to our children.

The term ‘terroristic abuse’ or ‘family terrorist’ is one which describes extreme situations of harm; taken from the definition –‘To inflict or cause/create a threat of grievous bodily injury or a believed sense of certain death in order to maintain control over another person, party, or entity’. These are definitely the actions of some of the harms our children are forced to handle in silence, because if their family abuser finds out they are trying to reach outside help or that they could be prosecuted for the pain they inflict; there is a risk of certain death or grievous injury which just might become permanent for them.

You might be asking, ‘why would a person relate to such actions as grievous injury or death inside their home’? I am one of these survivors who barely made it out alive, and definitely not without permanent injury, which has taken away my independence and my hard earned career in business management/customer service. The actions of extreme physical and sexual harm have resulted in my going on early disability from the permanent spinal cord injury and multiples of head concussions from more than 30+ years of these evils, beginning at age five.

My mother married a man she had been warned about by his adult son. He told her how horrific the temper and disgustingly sadistic the actions of Malcolm White, but my mother chose to marry him then gave him complete control over me. He would have done anything she asked of him; he felt very lucky to have such a beautiful small woman marry him. Immediately he attacked me that first night in front of my older brother and two of our neighbor boys he was babysitting the night of my mother’s bridal shower. He used force and terror when he probed and molested me in front of them, then he shoved me on the floor and sent me away, threats of much worse if anyone said a word.

Age five was just his beginning, for the next twelve years he controlled every moment of my life, set down rules I had to follow ‘or else’, then he would attack night after night all with my mother, brother, or sister or others who witnessed. At around 11 he began exploiting me for beers at the small town local bar, then he took me to private tug boat parties, he had multiples of parties at our house, he sold me/traded me/used me in sex trafficking acts or exploitations which lasted up to the moment of my leaving home at 17 years old. I begged for my mother to help me many times, but instead of helping she enforced his control over me and rarely allowed me to leave the house. I always had something I had to do in servitude; cleaning for my family, cooking, caring for my sister, or answering the ring of my stepfather’s little brass bell. My mother allowed me to rot away at his hands; it wasn’t safe to bathe in my home and from age 12 to 17, I didn’t bathe at all. The filth filled the crevices of my young body and layered over my skin, face, and hair. About six months after I stopped bathing sores started breaking out as infection and rot covered the little girl I used to be. My teeth rotted and broke off from never being given a toothbrush or any form of medical or dental care over all those years. Not once in all the persons who knew me, knew my family, or in my school system; not a single person ever questioned my care or taught me that I deserved anything kind or decent. They came to the sex parties, the weed, alcohol, and the child they could pay money to play with or be entertained by; maybe even take me in my room or into the camper on the back of his truck.

Sadly Mr. President this was the only existence I knew and I believed I deserved it all. It became what I expected and what I learned to tolerate in my adult relationships and then it bled to invade my children’s lives and still impacts the emotional distress and safety of my grandchildren. I am sickened by all of it and I’ve made a promise that I will do whatever is in my power; to somehow make a difference in how our children are protected today.

Since having to go on full disability about five years ago, I’ve devoted my time and energy into studying, publishing, and sharing what I’ve found out in the research to produce and host more than 200 hundred talk radio web-based programs. I found that our Centers for Disease, National Institute of Mental Health, National Coalition to End Domestic Violence, National Child Traumatic Stress Network and even our Department of Health Human Services all have many published articles about the influence/life altering impacts from the actions of maltreatment and brutal harm. We have studies revealing the levels of Frontal Lobe Brain Impairments from the constant threat of harm; the longer these types of harms are inflicted the more serious levels of distorted perceptions, learned harmful behaviors, coping strategies which become addictions, and the inner turmoil when the victim cannot speak to others. We also know there is an estimate of more than $140 Billion annually that our nation spends in the lifetime recovery costs and prevention measures within communities. However, what I’ve found through the many trainings I’ve attended these last few years in my efforts to heal & help prevent these crimes; Parent or close family makes for 95.4% of these tragedies. Stranger & types of harm by a coach, church official, or neighborhood friend only accounts for 6.6% of the harm to children.

It infuriates me, not just because I was one of those tortured, trafficked, and community abandoned children; but more because it’s what the service providers in my South Central Illinois area are still confirming in cases today. This is why these two local providers have decided to support the recommendations and petition request for a complete Federal Level Review & Update in our nation’s Child Protective Services, Family Judiciary System, and Criminal Prosecution of these most heinous offenders; those who terrorize their children into silence; those who protect the ‘Family Terrorist’ who trafficks their children for money, drugs, or simply because they can, then uses acts of brut force to trap the child forever in self loathing destruction, addictions, and for many resulting in suicide. It is the truth of these ongoing personal attacks and harms within our homes, which is the example of violence which causes more harm to mankind as a human race than any other harm or battle in the world.

Mr. President your family has been such a positive role model for our American Society and I believe, also around the globe. I know your values have inspired many changes and now I hope that sometime before your service in our country’s highest office of power is down, I pray sir you will help us ensure that our systems, our prosecutions & family services, are doing all that is within knowledge and within our constitutions rights to uphold these protections, hold the offenders accountable and forfeit their assets to help provide victims services and life skills development to help those harmed to fulfill their dreams and become self sufficient productive members of society. 

In this letter I’ve attached a copy of the recommended guidelines we have listed on the active petition, but in short the main changes I feel necessary are as follows;

1> Prosecute sexually related actions/interactions with a minor child age 0 to 15 years, committed by a person 18 years or older, as a Federal Offense with sentencing from a minimum of 5 years to Life in Prison.

2> Prosecute ‘terroristic’ actions, those which cause or create direct grievous bodily injury, threats or direct harm from weapons, child trafficking, exploitations, and other such harms which are used to manipulate or silence a victim, protected from revealing identity or prosecuted for their crimes; these types of actions committed against a person 0-15years as a Federal Criminal Offense, leading to sentencing from 5 years to Life in prison.

3> Forfeiture of any/all assets of offenders, using funds to provide ongoing victims recovery services and life skills education/development and/or victims restitution.

4> Implement a full investigation into Family Judiciary System and Child Protective Services across the nation to determine faulty systems or lack of appropriate decisions based on what is the safest possible solution for the child rather than money making profit for the states or country.

5> Implement a mandatory THREE STAGE REVIEW for every report of child maltreatment entered into our National Child Abuse & Neglect Data System across the country; above all else protecting the child too small too defend themselves from persons within their home, family, or community who otherwise have harmed or trafficked them.

In closing Mr. President, I do hope to hear from your office, or from you personally. Perhaps you will consider the information I’ve shared here and help us provide a positive change for our children’s future, the greatest possible change we can give them, ensuring they are SAFE.

May you be well and with great respect, thank you.

Sincerely,

Patricia A. McKnight

trish.mcknight@live.com

www.butterflydreamsabuserecovery.com

Author/Advocate/Speaker/Presenter/Survivor