Interviewed by Daytime host, Cyndi Edwards, Angela discusses her organization and its mission of breaking the silence of child sexual abuse through awareness, prevention, healing programs and resources.

Video Transcript:

Reporter: It's not a subject people are comfortable talking about, but it is happening right now. 80,000 cases of child sexual abuse are reported each year, but many more suffer in silence.

Take a listen to these alarming statistics; one in four girls, one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18, only one in 10 will ever tell.

Angela Williams is founder of The Voice Movement to end child sexual abuse, and she is the author of From Sorrows to Sapphires. Angela, welcome to Daytime.

Angela: I am just so thrilled to be here to share just such a critical message that really it’s time has come, we have got to get it out of the closet and into the public arena.

Reporter: Why is this something you are so passionate about?

Angela: I represent a silent nation. I was sexually abused from age 3 to 17. At age 17 I found myself on the top of a bridge contemplating jumping and didn't have the courage.

Earlier I had taken a mix of sleeping pills and vodka to try to kill myself, my body rejected the poison and I could not go home and face being beaten and raped from my stepfather again. I am one in four women in America. It's happened to Oprah, Ellen, Monique. 42 million survivors.

Reporter: How did you escape this?

Angela: How did I escape? I ran away, and I was on my own at 17. And I had to face the world at 17 with the trauma, that really there are no resources in our society right now to help recover. There's no aftercare.

Reporter: What are you doing now to ensure this doesn't happen to more children?

Angela: As the founder of the voice movement, I feel very passionate that we have to begin to have these tough conversations with our children very young.

So, I have a formula called SAFE. S stands for Speak. We have got to begin to speak, as adults, and why and how we are failing our children and the numbers are pandemic, and we have got to begin to speak to our children and educate them that maybe not everyone in your life is safe. There might be some people that you even love and trust that might make some bad decisions.

A. We have got to be Asking our children. We've got to ask over and over. Is there someone that makes you feel uncomfortable? Is someone ever threatened you, ask you to keep a secret, touch your private parts?

And then, F. We’ve got to follow up. We've got to have the courage, even if it's a friend or a family. 93% of the time, it is someone the child knows, loves, and trusts. So, we as that caregiver, as that adult, is that person that is responsible for caring for that child, has to call law enforcement if it's a friend or a family, and report it for anyone.

And then, E. Education is the greatest gift we can give our children. So, we have to educate ourselves on how to predict and prevent child sexual abuse and then we've got to educate our children with a plan of protection.

And I've just got some really cool educational tips I'd like to go through with our viewers today.

Reporter: Explain for us what you've brought, you’ve got a hula hoop here, it’s a little one, but tell us how do you use that?

Angela: Goodness, it still fits around my waste.

This hula hoop is great for parents to use as a tool to really share personal boundaries with children. Any place within this hula hoop is your personal boundary and you have the right to reject any type of affection and that is a great teachable moment.

Reporter: Right

Angela: We have a little a dollar megaphone to help children begin to practice their no voice. NO! That big guttural, NO! Make it a game so that they're not paralyzed in fear. They know “oh, I have a powerful voice, and I can use it now in this moment that I feel threatened.

We can use surprise, just when we're going to a birthday party and we're wrapping gifts. A great teachable moment to be able to share with children the difference between a surprise and a secret, Surprises make people happy. Surprises reveal. Secrets conceal, and children need to know that you never can keep a secret from me, and perpetrators silence children.

They tell them, this is our secret you can't tell anyone. They threaten children. They intimidate children, so that's just a wonderful valuable lesson.

And, if a child can't tell you, you need to give them some crayons and a piece of paper and help them process, help them make you understand, “who was it, that made you feel uncomfortable and what did they do?” and that might be the beginning steps.

Reporter: I see a lot of parents pushing their children to hug people, “go give them a hug”, and you know you can see it in the kids face sometimes, they don't want to, they're not comfortable. We should stop doing that, right?

Angela: We have to stop doing that. We have to have our children choose how they want to share affection.

In our, we have a little story, a children's story, where our character, Grant, he does a fist pump. Okay. That's how he's comfortable and relating to people.

And I think when a child has that angst and that insecurity, we need to trust that, and we need to honor that, and we need to give the child their right to their own personal boundaries and their own personal power.

Reporter: Well, I know the voice movement, you have a lot of different materials that are out there for parents and for kids since it's just so valuable. So, keep up the great work.

Angela: Thank you, and we just invite everyone to join the movement, and on April 30th wear white to honor the innocence of our children.

We're asking everyone to stand in solidarity with us.

Reporter: Alright, Angela Williams, she is the founder of the voice movement. Thank you so much.

Angela: Thank you.