Los Angeles,
\nFormer star athletes who were sexually abused by one-time sports doctor Larry Nassar condemned an \u201cepidemic\u201d of pedophilia in the United States, calling for a \u201cnationwide sweep\u201d and greater accountability.<\/p>\n
Jeanette Antolin, who was on the US national gymnastics team from 1995-2000, said that one out of every three girls and one out of every five boys will be a victim of sexual abuse before his or her 18th birthday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why child sexual abuse is such an epidemic is because kids are being silenced,\u201d she said, speaking at the two-day United State of Women Summit in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, who sued the US Olympic Committee for negligence over its handling of the Nassar abuse scandal, added: \u201cMore and more women are being heard and believed when they come forward, but we still have a long way to go.\u201d \u201cTo hold accountable those who abused, enabled and looked the other way is crucial,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Tiffany Lopez, a former Michigan State University softball star, wants the school and its sports officials to be held accountable.<\/p>\n
She reported to her trainer\u2019s Nassar\u2019s abuses as early as 1998, but no action was taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of the team trainers that I reported to are still on staff at the university,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n
Antolin told AFP that USA Gymnastics senior vice president Rhonda Faehn \u201cknew and did nothing. These people need to lose their jobs.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s coaches out there that abused their girls,\u201d Antolin added, stressing that the problem stretched far beyond Nassar alone, including her own personal coach in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be a nationwide sweep.\u201d Faehn was previously reported to have passed on abuse allegations to Steve Penny, the former USA Gymnastics president who was also accused of ignoring the scandal and resigned from the organization last year.<\/p>\n
At least 265 female athletes including several Olympic gold medal-winning gymnasts have said they were abused by Nassar over a two-decade period, in the guise of medical treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Los Angeles, Former star athletes who were sexually abused by one-time sports doctor Larry Nassar condemned an \u201cepidemic\u201d of pedophilia in the United States, calling for a \u201cnationwide sweep\u201d and greater accountability. Jeanette Antolin, who was on the US national gymnastics team from 1995-2000, said that one out of every three girls and one out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30286,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30284\/revisions\/30286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}