National Child Abuse Prevention Month, 1997

Proclamation 6981 of April 1, 1997

National Child Abuse Prevention Month, 1997

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

We live in a Nation blessed with liberty and
prosperity. Yet, many of our children still suffer the
horrors of child abuse and neglect, knowing no
happiness, and sometimes even losing their lives. And,
it is a problem that grows worse. Last year, the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services reported that
an estimated 3 million American children were abused or
neglected, twice as many as 5 years earlier. Almost
half a million of our children were seriously injured
because of this mistreatment, quadruple the number from
the previous report. Tragically, more than 1,100 abused
children died last year--an incomprehensible 80 percent
of them at the hands of their own parents. We must not
let this senseless suffering continue.

My Administration is continuing its efforts to make our
children safer. Already, we have developed new family-
based prevention services to work with families at
risk, and we have said to those who would prey on our
children in public housing that one conviction for drug
dealing or a violent crime will result in expulsion
from public housing. We are working to establish a
national registry for sexual predators, and we have
preserved the Federal investment in child protective
services so States have the resources to help children
in danger. We have taken guns off the street by banning
19 deadly assault weapons, and we are putting 100,000
more police officers on the streets to patrol our
neighborhoods. And my Administration has developed a
plan that aims, by the year 2002, to double the number
of children placed in adoption or permanent placements
from the public foster care system.

During this month of April, we pause to recognize and
praise the work of those parents and other caretakers
who see that the physical, mental, emotional,
educational, and medical needs of our children are
adequately met. I commend the efforts of the dedicated
and compassionate men and women who assist families in
crisis and enable these families to prevent child
abuse. Without the commitment, knowledge, and skill of
these men and women, many more children would find
themselves the victims of abuse and the lives of many
children who are abused and neglected would never
improve. With their involvement, the lives of our most
vulnerable children are immeasurably enriched. This
month reminds us that every child is entitled to live
his or her life to its fullest, free from fear and
want. As Thomas Jefferson stated so eloquently, ``The
Giver of life gave it for happiness and not for
wretchedness.'' We hold our children's future in trust.
Let us not fail them.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim April 1997 as National Child
Abuse Prevention Month. I call upon all Americans to
observe this month by demonstrating our respect and
gratitude for those who devotedly and unselfishly work
to keep children safe, by learning how we can help keep
children from harm's way, and by taking responsible
actions to protect our precious children.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
first day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen
hundred and ninety-seven, and of the Independence of
the United States of America the two hundred and
twenty-first.