Razoo Giving Guide: Child Abuse

As Nixzmary’s story illustrates, America’s state-run child welfare systems are in deep trouble. Children’s Rights is dedicated to providing advocacy and reform for these failing systems, fighting legal campaigns to defend the rights of abused children, and working to improve child welfare laws in a dozen states. The organization also creates detailed policy reports outlining potential solutions that can help child welfare organizations make a positive impact in the lives of abused children. Though children may be powerless to speak on their own behalf, Children’s Rights provides a strong voice for abused children, giving them the chance for a positive future. Your donation will help the organization to reform the child welfare system, ensuring that children like Nixzmary can find help before it’s too late.

Sprung from the mission and values of the Civil Rights Movement and the inspiring work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Children’s Defense Fund was founded in 1973 to provide a voice of advocacy for children and to help them rise above poverty, receive proper health care and education, and overcome abuse. The CDF offers a wealth of free programs for children, including the “Freedom School” after-school and summer enrichment programs for at-risk youth; the “Beat the Odds” scholarship program; and a Religious Action Division that helps faith-based communities learn how to provide support to at-risk children. A donation to the CDF will help the organization to provide hope and lasting support to a child who otherwise might never have a chance to succeed.

No one sees more incidents of child abuse than police officers and criminal prosecutors. So, in 1996, a group of law enforcement officials joined together to create a new organization dedicated to preventing child abuse and other crimes to children, called Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. More than 4,000 officers, prosecutors, and crime survivors now serve as members of the group, working to prevent crime by promoting safety measures including early education, home visit programs to prevent child abuse, after-school programs, and intervention measures for troubled children. The organization has so far provided more than one million children with access to early childhood education programs, after-school programs, and high-quality childcare. A donation will help the group’s officials fight crime by helping kids engage in positive experiences and remain free of abuse.

In 1981, Revé Walsh left her six-year-old son, Adam, unsupervised at a Sears department store in Florida for just a minute, while she was shopping for lamps. That was all it took: when she returned to the aisle where he’d been standing with some other boys, he was gone. Several weeks later, his severed head was found in a canal.

This gruesome tragedy inspired Adam’s parents, John and Revé, to take action to ensure that other parents wouldn’t suffer as they had. In 1984, they helped found the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an organization partially funded by the U.S. Justice Department that works to prevent child kidnappings and sexual exploitation, find missing children, and provide education and training that will help parents and community leaders keep their children safe.

The NCMEC hosts a 24-hour hotline to help parents, community members, and law enforcement officials communicate information about missing children, and nationally distributes information about missing children in a variety of ways. Since its founding, the NCMEC has helped recover almost 130,000 missing children, bringing the recovery rate from 62% in 1990 to over 96%. Your donation will help the organization to locate even more missing children, and ensure that all children are safe and protected from harm.

Of all the forms of child abuse, sexual abuse is probably the most emotionally damaging—and the most stigmatized. Children are often taught that they are to blame, and are afraid to tell anyone their shameful secret. A child who’s been sexually victimized often becomes distrustful, depressed, and even suicidal. And because sexual abuse often leaves no external marks, it can be difficult to spot: while 80,000 cases of childhood sexual abuse are reported every year, millions more remain hidden.

The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) is America's largest organization dedicated to preventing sexual abuse and helping survivors heal. RAINN's phone hotline for victims of sexual abuse has helped more that one million people since its launch in 1994, and the organization also offers a secure and confidential online hotline to provide sexual abuse victims with resources to help them. RAINN's partnerships and outreach programs have provided educational information on sexual abuse to more than 120 million children and adults in schools, colleges, and communities throughout the United States. A donation to RAINN can help raise awareness of this important issue, and encourage young people to speak out so that justice may be brought against their abusers.