How One Survivor Is Preventing Childhood Sexual Abuse

because 95% of abuse can be prevented if people are aware of it.

95% can be prevented. Awareness is the biggest thing because the biggest misconception about this topic is that it is just involves physical touch. The reason that we do that, I want to put this out there, it's not for the kids, it's for the adults. It can be adults around comfortable. They don't want to be uncomfortable confronting this person who did something to their child. So we've got to, we've got to change that.

Ivan Sandamir is an author, survivor, and child sexual abuse prevention advocate dedicated to breaking intergenerational cycles of trauma through education, awareness, and her impactful work.

In the reality that person could be, you know, desensitizing the kids. And what he's doing is he's

saying, "Look, I can be naked in front of the parents and they think it's funny." Wow, yeah. And so guess what? I can be naked in front of you too, and what are you going to think? It's funny. It's all about... Hello and welcome back to another episode of Legacy Maker, sat with her on today, and she's got a big mission, big target, big goal, conquering a really big problem in the world, which is child sex abuse.

She's built in a foundation to do it exactly that. She's a podcast that she has books around it. And this is what Legacy Maker makes. There's all about people making a difference in the world, and Ivan's definitely one of those people. So excited. Welcome to the show. Thank you.

“So let's start from the ground up, you know, what's the mission and why?”

Yeah, the mission is to raise awareness about childhood sexual abuse prevention and awareness because 95% of abuse can be prevented if people are aware of it. 95%. 95% can be prevented. That's the mission is to prevent abuse from occurring to our children. Yeah, and, you know, it's just like, obviously, you know, most of my business is a more product

advertising base, but what I teach is the first thing with getting your product out there is awareness.

And I feel it's kind of the same thing here that it's like awareness and education. Oh, a thousand percent, a thousand percent. Awareness is the biggest thing because the biggest misconception about this topic is that it is just involves physical touch. Yeah. And that's where the awareness comes in is that no, it's not just physical touch. It, you know, in voyeurism and exhibitionism and, you know, people exposing themselves and,

you know, exposing kids to, you know, magazines or movies. It's a bunch of things that that can constitute as child sexual abuse and people don't realize that. And why show, you know, obviously, you talk more about it in your episode and I ring,

“but what led you to this and why you believe so strongly and why you've pursuing this?”

Yeah, well, because I am an adult survivor myself of a lot of trauma. A lot of childhood trauma. I've been abused probably by more than 12 people throughout my childhood. And, um, and I realized that my own family that they didn't know that child sexual abuse involved touched. When I would tell them, then things that happened to me that didn't involve touch. It was, oh, but that's not a big deal. You know, he didn't touch you. You know, so as long as he didn't

touch you, it's okay. And that that's that can be further from the truth. So, so let's talk about that on the education side. Yeah. What are some of the big pieces like that? Not using your own examples, but just generalize that maybe a happening like the most common cases that happen, the parents will family dismiss because they don't realize. Yeah. The biggest one is, you know, family friends who are those crazy family friends that, you know, I gave this example earlier

that, you know, they go to the pool and they just, they think it's funny to, you know, take their pants off and everybody's laughing, oh, look at this guy, you know, running around naked in front of all the kids and the reality that person could be, you know, de-sensitizing the kids and what he's doing is he's saying, look, I can be naked in front of the parents and they think it's funny.

“Wow. Yeah. And so guess what? I can be naked in front of you too and what are you going to think?”

It's funny. It's all about manipulation and these perpetrators manipulate the parents before they could even get to the kids. Well, you do see that, like, you know, if you watch the movies

Absolutely. Like, that's the best way to put it. Yeah. You know, it's things like in front of the

parents, they may, you know, brush your hair off your shoulder, you know, or they might hug you every time they see just so, say look, I'm hugging you in front of your parents. Yeah, yeah. So this is okay

“because I'm doing in front of your parents. Yeah. That's how it starts. Yeah, they, you know,”

I've watched some Netflix shows on more like the serial killers and most of the time they're actually very small, like super small and like how they strategize and plan and, you know, just talking about it now and can see it's, yeah, it's similar here and yeah, I mean, that education piece is so important because I mean, obviously parents trusting of their friends and then, you know, so they don't understand, right? Right. And that's the other thing. Yeah. Is that 40% of people who abuse children

are family members? Wow. So it's actually the people that you know, love and trust the most who are

most likely to harm your child. Yeah. And I've heard that, you know, we've had the interviews and people I've known where it's been the uncool or, you know, it's like a, a rare distant relative of some sort or a best family friend, Godparents. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, in either, you know, they find excuses for it. You know, it's justified or they were drinking or, you know, they were drugs. They wouldn't do that if they weren't on alcohol or whatever. You know, um, and so

that happens a lot when it involves family member and friends in particular, a lot of justification, a lot of trying to sweep it under the rug. And I have to say that the reason that we do that, and I want to put this out there, stop for the kids. It's for the adults because the adults are uncomfortable. Yeah. They don't want to be uncomfortable confronting this person who did something to their child. So we've got to, we've got to change that. Yeah. And I did, but, and I do think

America, like, come in from the UK has a much more just general openness to discuss it, which I mean, a good step in the right direction. Like, I came from the UK where, I don't think anyone would discuss any of these things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very different culture. Yeah. And here, I need a lot of people where, you know, they're pretty open about what their experience was and and doing great things like you're doing a flight now trying to, you know, create that education

and get that message out there because I don't know the start, maybe you do, but I mean, it's a crazy number of how much it's happening and not reported. Well, that's just a thing.

I mean, I can tell you that 42, right now, there are 42 million plus adult survivors. Yeah.

Of sexual abuse, but that's only the reported cases. Yeah. So I imagine the unreported and I believe

“that it's half of the people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it crazy. Yeah. That's what I mean. It's”

a crazy amount. It really is. But the, a lot of people don't report because they're afraid that they're not going to be believed. Yeah. They're embarrassed. They blame themselves because a lot of the culture is, well, why did you go there? Why did you wear that skirt? Why did you drink? Why did you? Well, and it's harder when it is a family friend, right? Like, you know, I can imagine it's, you know, if it was telling your parents about a stranger, it's a little

maybe easier than a family friend that comes over every weekend. Well, yeah, because I can speak to that directly as a child, you think I am ruining this friendship. Yeah. I'm going to cause this rift. I, I'm causing this rift. Not that person that abused me is the one that's causing this problem, and they have to deal with that. Well, I can imagine also you're scared that they're going to just, you know, there's going to be a confrontation, but then the person's going to be

back next weekend. And now, well, that's just the thing. Yeah. And I know that personally, where I've told and the person was forgiven. Yeah. And we're just came back right back to the house. Yeah. The same psychology like bullying and school, the kids don't want to tell the teacher 'cause they have to go back to school with a kid, right? It's not like a kid vanishes forever. Exactly. Yeah. And so it's really difficult when involves family friends and family, especially

family, think about family members. Yeah. Yeah. You know, uncles and, you know, because when it can be abusers too, we need to to make that very clear. Yeah. It's, uh, it's crazy when you really think about it. And you think this, because I do feel like in the last 10 years, it's, there's been a massive rise. Is that because there's more openness to discuss it or because it's

“more on the rise from a statistic standpoint? I think people are more talking about it,”

but they're not talking about the normal everyday people. They're talking about the celebrities that happens to. They're talking about, that seems to be important to society as what happens to celebrities. Um, and that's frustrating for me to be honest with you because there are so many

highlighted and, and told, you know, not just the celebrities. Yeah. So I think what really needs

“to change is we need to, that, you know, celebrity, that's important, obviously, because if”

awareness, but we need to move away from celebrity story. I'm really start talking to every day people who are, you know, they don't have the financial resources to get the help that they need. You know, we need to talk to these people to see how really, really affects people. Yeah. And what what is, you know, you'll go with a foundation and how do you, you know, how do you, how do you want to go out there and even address this problem? I'll provide more support for victim. Well,

the first thing is that I, as far as um, lifting statute of limitations, um, I'm really focusing on

doing my research to see where those still exist. Fortunately, so far, every state that I looked that so far, there are no statute of limitations. So that's good so far, but that doesn't mean that we still don't have to, that we still have to fight for rights for the victims, um, you know, as far as, you know, encouraging them to report abuse that happened to them as children, you know, because a lot of times we're like, oh, I don't want to go back there. You know, that have, I mean,

no, that was, you know, however many years ago, it's done an over with no. If that person's out there and they did something to you, you deserve the fucking go after them and for what they did to you.

Well, and it's, it's kind of the leopard never changed its spot situation,

or that it's obviously more likely that it's still happening with that person. Absolutely. I'm going to give you a, I'll give you a perfect example. One of my abusers was not held accountable in several years later, or went on to harbor a young girl, um, of runaway, abuse her, and was convicted of that. So who knows if he had been held accountable for what he did to me,

“if he, if he would have had the chance to do that. Yeah. And so that's what it's all about. It's,”

you know, these people that have harmed people, they don't get the right to walk around, you know, our, you know, every day like they did nothing while the victims suffer an entire lifetime for what they did. It's just not fair. Yeah. And so I'm standing up for that. Yeah, no, and I mean, that great, you know, about what you're doing and, and, you know, even this podcast and the show and just getting that education and awareness out there and, and, um, I think that

is one of the great things of, you know, the internet has many downsides, but one of the great things is the ability to at least provide the education more of a mass level, right, through books, through podcasts, through social media and the internet. So let's talk about how else you're doing though. You have the podcasts in the book. Yes. Can you talk a little about those? Yeah. I mean, I go to book festivals. I speak at libraries. I speak at conferences. Um, you know, wherever I have

“the opportunity to talk about this. That's, that's where I'll go. That's what I'll do. So if anybody”

out there, you know, it's looking for someone to speak on the topic, you know, I'm, I'm your girl. Yeah, I'm me. And tell us about the book. What do they go into? Yeah. So, um, the invisible girl is my memoir. Um, that goes into my story and what I've endured as a child. I mean, it's a great title too, because I can imagine that's how people feel. Well, yeah. Right. And, you know, I knew that I was going to write a book at 10 years old. Wow. And I knew that it was going to be the

invisible girl. So, uh, it's just, I, I knew it is because I was present, but no one was seeing me. No one was seeing my pain and what I was enduring. And so that really goes into what I, my experiences and how I healed. The second book here, um, is the guide is, is my guide for parents on how to prevent it. This tells you everything that you need to know, um, you know, and it's all in the title. It's a little bit lengthy, a little bit malty. I, you know, I didn't think it through.

When I released it, but it tells you, you know, what childhood sexual abuse is, who is most likely to abuse? Why it's so important that we prevent it? Where prevention begins? I'm going to give you a hint, starts in the home. You know, at home, um, how to know if there's a perpetrator around you, when to be concerned that something may have happened to your child and then a plan to put in place that every family should have to, for a just being additional prevention steps. Well, and it's

into, you know, I joke about parenthood. There's never, you don't get given a handbook when you have

the baby, right? Unlike how to be a great parent, uh, and generally as a parent, you, you kind of, like, most things in business and life, you learn through experience. Like, oh, the kid fell over while I need to do, you know, make sure you hold their hand next time at the crosswalks. They don't fall in the road sort of thing, uh, which is, you know, are the kid's built milk? Okay, well, I need a

something that you want to have to learn through experience, right? So this education, it's kind of like when they teach sex ed in school, it's so important, but I guess there's no, there's no where really parents go to learn this, sadly, until they may be our face with the issue. And that's the problem, right? That is the problem. And that's exactly why I want to get there ahead of the game.

“And that's why I say prevention starts at home and it starts when our babies are babies. And,”

you know, when your child is old enough to understand, you start asking. It's almost to provide entraining to kids. That's right. You provide the train. You see, you ask him, okay, I need to change your diaper. Can I change your diaper? Can I now need to be clear? We're not asking kids for their permission. Yeah. Okay. We're not waiting around for this kid to say, okay, Mommy, changed either. No, it's just, it's normalizing that it's asking. It's normalizing. Yeah, and it's the

psychology of making the kid feel comfortable that, hey, if anyone ever does touch you or do the other things, you mentioned them maybe last obvious that you must almost come and tell us and it's

never going to, you're never going to be in trouble and making them feel comfortable. Yes, absolutely.

That's, and that's another huge thing is letting kids know that they have the safe space to come. Yeah. If anything happened because believe it or not, kids don't know that. Yeah. Well, I imagine

“it, it's just like staff, you know, you have to constantly tell staff, hey, if you get stuck on a”

project, tell us, come over to the staff or just stay stuck until they get behind and I view the kids of the same. They'll stay in that place until it comes to a head, which is too late at that point. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So I totally agree with you. It's about, you know, acknowledging, you know, letting the kid know that they have a safe place to come and starting those, you know, that body autonomy training very, very early. Well, and it's great because I would never, you know,

I don't have kids yet, but I will soon one day. Yes. I would never have fought about, you know,

well, you teach your kids to look left and right when crossing a road and you don't necessarily think about it. You don't. You teach them, hey, don't get in a car of a stranger, obvious, but you don't necessarily go, hey, if someone around has ever does this, come tell us, you know, but then it goes deeper into our families as far as we don't force our kids to hug our family members. That's grandma's, grandpa's, aunts, uncles, and the reason is, again, it's telling teaching the child that they have

the right to say no to in a year. If they can't say no to an adult, they don't know that they can't say no, you're that they can't say no to an adult outside the home. What is a fine line, right? Because it might be seen as rude, not hugging your grandma, but then how that car lays to where a distance has to understand. We're not being rude here, grandma, you know, we're just teaching him, you know, let's give a high five today instead or, you know, maybe a fist bump and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where the family has to understand that this is about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love that. So, so last couple of questions, you know, tell us what else are people going to get from the episode? And why do they find you if they want to check out the books podcast level? Yeah, well, everything is on my website at, you know, the invisible girl memoir.com. You know, what they're going to find in the episode, I hope is just a really

authentic recalling of, you know, what I've been through in an honest account of how I think that other people might possibly, you know, be able to start their healing process. Keep hitting the stand microphone. I'm sorry, you know, they can reach me at my email, [email protected], Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all those places. But the, the website, the invisiblegirl memoir.com, we'll be the best place for all things. And final question, someone's listening and there, there

are you, you know, they want to get more support or help because they've experienced this in their

childhood and never really pursued that and got that support. They need all they want to learn

more about. Yeah, training their family and child. Where do they go? Where can you help with that? Sure. So, you know, my books are available, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, you know, anywhere you can get books. But I also encourage people to, you know, there are hotlines that are out there. You know, National Abuse Hotline is one, there are other, you know, check for local organizations

“that, you know, might be able to offer support if you need it. That's what I would suggest. Yeah.”

Yeah. Good. And then check out your episode where I'm sure they can learn more about you and another searing. You've gone through your mission and legacy that you're building. Yes. Absolutely. Great. Well, guys, that's a wrap. Obviously, a very important subject and this is why we live to do what we do here to, you know, provide the education and visibility for people that are trying to make an impact in the world, whether it's for business, philanthropy, or through

addressing, you know, key areas that still sadly exist in today's society when they shouldn't. So, thank you so much for what you do. And check out the full episode and as always, keep working hard,