The Jenna Quinn Law was passed Sept. 17 to allow grant funds for training and educating teachers, caregivers and students who work with children to be able to recognize, prevent and report sexual abuse.
“Child sexual abuse is a terrible crime that preys on the innocence of our most vulnerable, but it takes specialized training to identify and prevent the abuse,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said in a March 28, 2019 press release from his website after introducing his bill. “Jenna’s Law has had a profound impact on the reporting of child sexual abuse in Texas and I’m proud to introduce this successful law on a national level.”
The bill is named after Jenna Quinn, a victim and survivor of child sexual abuse, and is structured after successful models Texas previously passed, according to a Sept. 18 Cornyn press release.
“The success of Jenna’s Law in Texas has shown that training teachers, caregivers and students on how to recognize and report child sexual abuse saves lives, but many states do not have programs like this in place,” Cornyn said. “I’m proud to bring the Jenna Quinn Law to the national level and urge my colleagues in the House to quickly pass it to protect the lives of vulnerable children.”
Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) authored the bill, which will give Department of Justice grants to educational agencies to pay for the training.
“Every child has the fundamental right to be safe, to be treated with dignity, to be cared for, and to have the opportunity to seize their vast potential. Sexual abuse robs children of those rights,” Hassan said in the Sept. 18 press release. “During my time as governor of New Hampshire, I worked across the aisle to sign into law a bill that mandated that child abuse prevention be taught as part of the health education curriculum. I am proud to have worked with Sen. Cornyn to strengthen these efforts on a national level by passing the Jenna Quinn Law through the Senate, and I urge my colleagues in the House to pass this important bipartisan bill without delay.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Quinn said spotting child sexual abuse can be more difficult and programs can help educators and other adults identify it. Forty-three states have seen a decrease in child abuse reporting during the pandemic, which represents a "significant increase," Quinn said.
“It’s because children are not around those mandatory reporters, those teachers, those, you know, after school staff, the daycare workers, you know, those that are around the children that can look for those, those warning signs, those indicators,” she told KXAN.
Quinn said that child sexual abuse is a "silent epidemic," because it often goes unrecognized or overlooked, according to a Sept. 21 press release from Cornyn's website.
“There is no question this has been a difficult year for our country, with division and disagreement taking center stage. That changed for a moment last week when the Senate unanimously passed a bill that I had introduced called the Jenna Quinn Law to protect some of the most vulnerable members of our country," Cornyn said. “It is a critical step to interrupting this cycle that is impacting children across the country and preventing more children from enduring this trauma.”
