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“Stranger Danger” – Being Aware of Your Surroundings
In September of 2004, my step-mother was kidnapped and thrown into a trunk by a serial rapist. Because she remained calm and was prepared, she was able to use her cellular phone to call for help and within an hour, a violent rapist was taken off of the streets. Even still, there are actions she could have taken, prior to the kidnapping that could have prevented it altogether. Having gone through this incident with her and my father, I became energized to learn all that I could about how young women and children can protect themselves.
Each year, over 300,000 children go missing or are abducted. Along with that figure, there are 1,872 rapes every day. While law enforcement does a great job of catching perpetrators, our country will be a much safer place when women and children, through education, can avoid becoming victims in the first place.
Strangers are not only people that a person hasn’t met before. Children and adults both need to realize that people they may see everyday on the street or in a store are still strangers when it comes to their safety. This is very true when it comes to young children. Parents may greet a person at their front door in a friendly manner, giving their young child the impression that this person is a friend of the family. The child will then go outside to play and that person could come up to the young child and get them to go with them. This is the education that needs to be promoted to society as a whole to keep everyone safe. In my program, I teach the children through an activity book about how to dial 9-1-1, make sure they know their full name, their parents’ full names, their addressed and phone numbers to contact family members. Also I remind them not to play in deserted areas, use the buddy system, never get in a car with a stranger and make a big scene by screaming “I don’t know you” or “You’re not my mom/dad” to get attention from bystanders. If trapped in an abductor’s car, I give them information on what to do to get out of that situation. Another important piece of information I give children is that adults don’t typically ask children for help, or offer toys or candy. A circle of safety needs to be instilled in children to know how close a stranger can be and still be safe. Never step towards a stranger, they should always take a step back and walk away.
While Stranger Danger is my priority, I am also working with my community to install the Amber Alert system so that in the case Stranger Danger fails, we can quickly retrieve a kidnapped victim. I have found that the Amber Alert program is the most successful in finding the victims and the victimizers and I believe that with more help and enthusiasm, we can teach individuals to become more aware and more capable if the situation were ever to transpire.
While there is much attention paid to the victims and the victimizers in violent crime, much less attention is concentrated on how the innocent can avoid being victimized. It would truly be a wonderful state of affairs if we no longer faced the daily onslaught of horror stories of kidnappings, rapes and murders, and instead began to hear stories about how young women and children turned the tales and played a key role in stopping violent crime.
The Miss Oklahoma’s Outstanding Teen program provides a unique spotlight for the title holder to advance her platform. As the principles in my presentation become commonplace, countless people will avoid the dangers and the scars of violence, improving the future of our nation and our world. I am ready for this job, so let’s get to work on protecting the youth of our country.
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