Report: Children were higher share of state's sex crime victims in 2020

Jul. 13—New Mexico lawmakers on a committee focused on health and human services got sobering news Tuesday on sex crimes in the state: An increasing share of reports involve sexual abuse of children and teens.

The most recent data available, from 2020, shows 47 percent of all sexual assault reports involved victims under 18, a jump from 41 percent the previous year.

The actual number of reports declined significantly between 2019 and 2020 — 25 percent for kids 13 and younger and 36 percent for those ages 14 to 17 — likely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

That's because adults who might have spotted signs of abuse were not regularly seeing children in school, at after-school programs or at camps.

"Nobody was noticing," said Alexandria Taylor, deputy director of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, which prepared the legislative report.

Providers who treat sexual assault survivors now have patients with newly reported sex crime allegations that date back to the pandemic shutdowns, she added.

"It's shocking," Taylor told members of the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee. "We are seeing an increase in the number of children under the age of 18 who are being impacted by sexual assault, and we want to address that."

The New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs will be asking the Legislature for more support in its next regular session, scheduled to begin in mid-January, Taylor said, including $3 million to boost and improve services for sexual assault survivors.

The Albuquerque-based coalition provides training and technical support to law enforcement officials, prosecutors, medical practitioners and others who serve victims of sexual assault. It also collects and analyzes data about sexual assaults and domestic violence and produces annual reports on its findings.

The nonprofit also plans to get a statewide sexual assault hotline up and running, an initiative that will require recurring funds, Taylor said.

She described a support system for sexual assault victims as one under stress as it undergoes unprecedented staff turnover since the start of the pandemic.

Sexual assault nurse examiners often experience secondary trauma "every single day by the nature" of their work, she said, adding support personnel for sex crime victims also struggle to stay in low-paying jobs. She noted data that shows 45 percent of workers said in a survey their salaries don't cover their basic needs.

"We need to focus on our workforce and ensure we have committed and qualified staff to provide these services," Taylor said.

She also asked legislators to support a bill requiring an affirmative consent education program in public schools.

Previous efforts to pass measures requiring mutual consent for teens to have sex — which would be incorporated in health classes for students in grades 8-11 — have failed to gain enough support to pass.

Rep. Liz Thomson, D-Albuquerque, has been the main sponsor of such bills for the past three years. She said after Tuesday's presentation she intends to keep introducing the measure "until it passes."

The statistics on child sexual assaults are "devastating — and we know sexual assault is widely underreported," Thomson said.

Jess Clark, director of sexual violence prevention for the Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, told lawmakers more must be done to educate young people about attitudes and behaviors regarding sexual assault in schools.

He spoke of a new state Department of Health campaign developed in collaboration with a coalition called It Starts With Us, which encourages young people to pursue healthy relationships and understand abuse is not acceptable.

He'd like to put together a sexual violence prevention program involving interviews with people who do not work in that field — such as authors and YouTube stars — about "what sexual violence prevention can look like in their world," Clark said.

"Every single one of us has a role to play in preventing sexual violence," he said.

Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, said as a practicing attorney who has sometimes dealt with child sexual abuse cases, she finds it "staggering what it costs the state to deal with untreated sexual abuse child victims."

"I need to know, we need to know, what those kids need to grow up safe and healthy and able to protect their own children after having gone through that," Chasey said.