Sex abuse survivor implores Iowa lawmakers to require prevention instruction in schools

DES MOINES — Erin Merryn remembers reading the diary she wrote as a young girl and coming across an entry made after she was raped by her older cousin.

“No one ever warned me about people like my cousin,” the entry said.

That realization has become a call to action for Merryn, who was abused over a six-year span during her childhood in Illinois and Wisconsin and has dedicated her life to encouraging states to require sexual assault and sexual abuse awareness and prevention education in schools.

To date, 38 states have passed a version of what has become known as Erin’s Law. This week, Merryn was at the Iowa Capitol imploring state lawmakers to make Iowa the 39th state to pass Erin’s Law.

“We do tornado drills, bus drills, fire drills, mandated in all states every year. We now do the mass lockdown drills because there’s so many school shootings,” Merryn said during a legislative hearing on a version of Erin’s Law. “And I’m going to tell you right now, kids are far more likely to be sexually abused than be in a mass shooting, a tornado, escaping a fire in a bus, you name it. We don’t talk about this.”

Merryn has been advocating for similar requirements across the country for 16 years. Versions of Erin’s Law have been introduced in the Iowa Legislature for at least 14 years.

The latest Iowa bill is Senate File 172. It would require all Iowa schools to teach sexual abuse and sexual assault awareness and prevention to students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The Iowa Department of Education would be charged with offering age-appropriate and research-based curriculum for schools’ use.

Merryn said her nonprofit charitable organization is working on curriculum that will be offered for free.

All three Iowa senators on the bill’s subcommittee approved advancing it, making it eligible for consideration by the Iowa Senate Education Committee. There is not yet similar legislation advancing in the Iowa House. Republicans hold agenda-setting majorities in both chambers.

“There are so many crimes that are horrific, but to abuse a child, to me, it’s hard to think of anything worse than that,” Sen. Jeff Taylor, a Republican from Sioux Center who led the subcommittee on the bill, said during Thursday’s hearing. “And so yes, we can be tough on crime. We can crack down on offenders after the fact. But really the goal ought to be try to prevent this from occurring in the first place. And I see this bill as an important piece of that puzzle.”

Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democrat from Waukee, said this type of education and instruction is critical and said it would be shortsighted to assume all children are, outside of school, learning about sexual assault and abuse.

“Especially for those kids who this might be happening in their homes, and they might not be getting that education from their parents, and they might be at risk in their churches, in their homes, in their schools. … It’s incredibly important for these kids to have this knowledge,” Trone Garriott said.

No lobbying organization is registered in opposition to the bill, according to state lobbying records. Prevent Child Abuse Iowa, the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Blank Children’s Hospital, the Iowa School Social Workers Association and the Iowa Nurses Association are among those registered in support.

Merryn said the education requirement in Erin’s Law has been effective in other states. She highlighted two examples.

Merryn said in Virginia, two cousins in different school districts after receiving sexual assault and abuse awareness and prevention instruction revealed they had been abused — only then learning from each other that they has been abused by the same uncle.

And Merryn said in the first year after Erin’s Law passed in New York, a speaker at one school had nine boys tell him they had been sexually abused by the school’s principal.

“I’m telling you right now, there’s monsters just like him sitting here in Iowa that are doing the same thing. Not saying it’s the principal, but there are others sitting in this state,” Merryn said. “And when I finally get Iowa to pass this, I will be sending those news articles out to say, ‘See what I’m talking about? We put another monster behind bars because you did the right thing. You passed this and you got the legislation into the schools.’”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

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