COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Senate is considering a bill to teach elementary, middle and high school students how to protect themselves from sexual predators. Meanwhile, the survivor who came up with the idea after suffering her own personal horrors shared her story with senators Tuesday.
What You Need To Know
- The Ohio Senate is considering a bill to teach elementary, middle and high school students how to protect themselves from sexual predators
- “Erin’s Law” is named after Erin Merryn who was sexually abused as a child
- Thirty-seven states have passed “Erin’s Law” and Merryn has tried three times in seven years to get the bill passed in Ohio
- House Bill 105 overwhelmingly passed the Ohio House a year ago
“It is my hope hearing my message today you’ll see the importance of what I’m here to talk to you about,” said Erin Merryn.
Merryn spoke to members of the Ohio Senate Primary and Secondary Education Committee of how she was sexually abused as a child.
“Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I met my best friend in kindergarten. And it was at her house the very first overnight that I woke up to her uncle who lived in the home sexually abusing me,” said Merryn.
Merryn said she was never taught to speak up about it, so she kept it a secret. However, she said the abuse and rape continued until she was almost nine.
“I was keeping this secret with my best friend because he was also abusing her,” Merryn said.
Merryn said the abuse only stopped because her family moved away. Two years later, though, when Erin was 11, she said her older teenage cousin started abusing her too.
“And for the next year and a half, repeatedly told me, ‘This is our little secret. No one will believe you, Erin. If you tell anybody, you will destroy our family,’” she said.
Erin said the abuse stopped after her sister spoke up about her own abuse. Then, Erin said she told her family too. But what followed was depression, an eating disorder and a suicide attempt.
“Because so often, people that are being abused do not report it until they’re in their 30s, 40s and 50s cause nobody ever gave them the message on how to speak up and tell,” Merryn said.
Erin said all she ever learned in school was about “stranger danger.” But knowing it was not strangers who abused her, she has made it her mission as an adult to make sure kids in K-12 schools across the country once a year learn from a school psychologist or social worker about personal body safety education. She also wants teachers and staff trained on the topic.
“Teaching kids the differences between safe and unsafe touch, safe and unsafe secrets, how to report this to a safe adult and to keep reporting it if your abuse does not end,” said Merryn.
Thirty-seven states have passed “Erin’s Law” and Merryn has tried three times in seven years to get the bill passed in Ohio. House Bill 105 overwhelmingly passed the Ohio House a year ago.
However, during the hearing Tuesday, Ohio State Sen. Sandra O’Brien, R-Ashtabula, told Merryn that while she was sorry about what happened to her, “there will always be evil in the world.”
“I’m very concerned about the possibility of grooming or the losing the innocence of our young children. I’m terribly concerned about that,” said O’Brien.
Merryn said if parents are not comfortable, the bill allows parents to opt their kids out of the education. She also pointed out the real loss of innocence for a child is when they are sexually abused and nothing is done about it.
“The diary I kept my secrets locked away in, where I lost my innocence, I turned into a book my senior year of high school called ‘Stolen Innocence,’ because that’s what happened to me,” Merryn said.
The next steps for the bill remain unknown.
