For the third year, a young Florida woman will be hiking across the state to call attention to the crime of childhood sexual abuse. Tom Flanigan reports the effort is also focused on trying to close some loopholes in existing state law.
Lauren Book says present Florida law would not have allowed the Penn State abuse case to be reported.
"If the person who was offending against the child was not a direct caregiver, that report will not be taken."
So Lake Mary Republican Representative Chris Dorworth has filed a bill to fix that.
"This is I think year four of our trek trying to close the loop on a lot of the legislative issues that we put in place."
Dorworth says another gap is the lack of a fund to pay for victim relocation. Meanwhile Lauren Book, herself a victim of childhood sex abuse, will begin a fifteen-hundred mile walk from Key West to Tallahassee the middle of this month. She'll use the hike, which she plans to do in thirty-nine days, to focus more attention on the problem and the proposed legislative responses.
