Supporters of Child Victims Act Launch Ads in Long Island District of GOP Senate Boss John Flanagan

By Kenneth Lovett
New York Daily News
June 13, 2017

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ads-supporting-child-victims-act-hit-john-flanagan-district-article-1.3245303

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan has kept the Child Victims Act from reaching the floor for a vote. (HANS PENNINK/AP)

Advocates pushing for passage of the Child Victims Act have begun running a digital ad campaign that largely targets those living in the district of state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, who has kept the legislation from coming to the floor for a vote.

"Survivors are banding together to protect the next generation and to stand up for their rights," said victim Ana Wagner, who is featured in the video. "We have over 70,000 signatures on a petition in support of this bill. Sen. Flanagan needs to ask himself how hard he's going to fight against children?"

The ads will appear on social media across the state but largely target Flanagan’s Suffolk County district, said Stop Abuse Campaign Committee founder Andrew Willis.

In the Stop Abuse Campaign video, Wagner doesn’t mention Flanagan. She recounts being raped as a child and the terror she feels when she looks at her kids.

“It’s still hard to talk about,” she said in the video. She says she was 32-years-old when she told the police, who said there was nothing she could do because New York law required her to file a case before she turned 23.

“Now he is protected by New York State law,” Wagner says of her attacker. “I think about him doing it to other little girls and boys.”

“Justice is about protecting children. Not sexual predators,” Wagner says. “Help me hold predators accountable. Sign my petition. Tell the men and women we elected to pass the Child Victims Act. Help me protect my children. Help me protect yours.”

Andrew Willis, a victim of child sexual abuse, speaks at a rally for the Child Victims Act in August 2016. (ROBERT SABO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

The Assembly last week for the first time since 2008 passed a bill. The Senate has never taken up the measure.

With the legislative session set to end June 21, advocates are making last-ditch efforts to get a measure enacted into law.

“Survivors and their supporters are donating money to run this ad to parents across New York,” Willis said. “When people understand the problem, 43,000 New York children being abused every year, when they understand the Child Victims Act they support it.”

Flanagan rep Scott Reif said “we take this issue very seriously and it continues to be reviewed."

Separately, SafeHorizon, which works with victims, and survivors this week launched their own #FaceItNY campaign urging supporters of the Child Victims Act to post a selfie on Facebook or Twitter that tags their state senators and the governor and briefly states why they support the measure.