April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office will partner with Children’s Advocacy Centers and other local entities to host events about the importance of the abuse awareness.
The first event will be a press conference at 10 a.m. Thursday that will kick off the events of the month. The event will take place at the Cameron County Courthouse Complex Administration Building.
“Child Abuse Awareness events is part of an ongoing yearly event that we put together and we’ve been sponsoring it for the last few years,” Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said.
“This year it’s going to have to be a little different but it’s very important because to begin with, child abuse cases are very unique.”
The Children’s Advocacy Centers of Cameron and Willacy County will partner with the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, law enforcement partners and various local child advocate agencies to continue their mission to protect child victims of abuse and continue prevention efforts by taking a proactive approach, the press release reads.
The second event will be a vigil procession and reading of the names of children who have suffered child abuse. The escorted procession will begin at 5:30 p.m. next Monday at the Cameron County Courthouse and will drive toward the New Maggie’s and Monica’s House Facility.
“Imagine yourself as an adult walking into a courtroom where you have somebody with black ropes sitting at the front, you have a guy with the gun next to you, you have 12 people looking at every move that you make and you get on the witness stand and they start asking you questions that are tough to answer,” Saenz said.
“You as an adult would have a very traumatic event dealing with that, now imagine an 8-year-old little girl having to walk into that courtroom and sit on the witness stand and answer questions. It’s very traumatic and very victimizing, because they are very unique cases, they are unique tender victims. We have to partner with everybody to create a parachute for them to be able to deal, to talk about details that may have happened.”
