Justice often no guarantee in abuse of young people, advocate says

It only takes one act – sometimes in just a few minutes – to harm a child, but the ability to seek justice against the abuser could take much longer.

Tonya Haas, director of the Baton Rouge Children’s Advocacy Center, said it’s one of the most difficult steps in getting young people out of incidents of abuse. Prosecutions sometimes take years.

“Imagine an 8-year-old talking about rape and 10 years later the perpetrator is on trial,” she said.

It’s a different dynamic, for obvious reasons.

An 8 year old child will not be placed on the witness stand or in the courtroom.

“But you see an 18-year-old on the witness stand, and that does something to him mentally,” Haas said. “You can see them flinch.”

CAC takes a multifaceted approach. He works with the prosecution and law enforcement to determine what the family and child may need.

“What do we need to do to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks?” she said. “And that’s the problem with a lot of things today. The kids, the things you see…the horrible stories.”

The workload doesn’t help matters.

“It’s a very sad situation, which is why we are working very hard to prevent this from happening,” Haas said.

Services were provided to some children as young as 3 years old.

“We continue to work with them until they reach adolescence, unless they have some sort of physical or mental infirmity that makes them younger,” she said. “We stay for the duration of the prosecution, and once they go to trial, we come back with them.”

Justice is not always served in the courtroom, Haas said.

Sometimes it never reaches the courtroom.

“They may never find the attacker,” she said. “The justice that we’re talking about is that child learning the tools to go on and live a happy life because they all deserve it.

“We try to teach them the skills to deal with the trauma now, because otherwise they will deal with it as adults. We try to address it as early as possible and as close to the traumatic event as possible.”

Other victims may not reveal what happened for years. In some cases, they can’t find someone they trust to listen to them.

In many cases, it’s law enforcement and mental health experts who help the most in these situations, she said.

The Greater Baton Rouge Area CAC is one of only 14 in the state with its own mental health program.

“Everyone has to reach out, and they’re hoping to find a counselor who specializes in trauma and one who takes Medicaid,” Haas said.

Medicaid is crucial because 80 percent of children have below-average income or live in poverty, she said.

The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services is traveling to help find child victims and provide them with immediate assistance.

CAC has been accredited since 2014 by the National Children’s Alliance.

“It’s a standard that we’re held to, and we just did our reaccreditation in May of last year,” Haas said. “You can have all the laws you want, but if you don’t have the right way to do it, you won’t help children and we won’t be effective. »

This article originally appeared on Plaquemine Post South: Justice not guaranteed in child abuse, says Children’s Advocacy Center director