My sister has fought for 5 years to keep these children safe. She was married to a verbally and physically abusive man and they had moved to Louisiana. She took the children and left him in 2008. In February of 2009 this man showed up in Illinois requesting a visit with his children. My sister agreed to a supervised overnight visit. During this time period he took the children back to Louisiana and began a long and brutal custody battle that finally ended in 2012 with my sister having sole custody and he having NO visitation with the children. My sister was awarded this due to the fact that the Louisiana court found that the Father had sexually abused one of the children. This abuse was discovered when my nephew was 4 years old. He was acting out sexually, had become aggressive, and was able to speak about the abuse with professionals. My sister pled with the courts from the start to help her children because she knew he was dangerous. The Father had also confessed to her and various others that he was afraid he would harm the children. After the initial ruling the Father took the case to the Louisiana Court of Appeals and they upheld the judgment of the original court. My sister and her children have lived in peace until recently. It was discovered that the Father had hired a private investigator to discover the whereabouts of the children and has filed for unsupervised visits in Illinois. This is a horror that no child should have to suffer and if we unite as one we can try an end this cycle of abuse.

I am asking you to sign this petiotion so that all children can be kept safe and that laws can be passed to ensure that these perptrators are not allowed to change jurisdiction at will, that they are forced to register as sex offenders even if they are not criminally convicted, and that laws are strengthened to stop abusers from using the legal system to further harm their victims. My sister was told by multiple agencies that if it had been a stranger that had sexually abused her child that they would liukely be in jail. For it to be more offensive and more easily prosecuted for a stranger to damage a child then a parent is unthinkable. In both cases it is a heinous act that needs to be stopped.