Paula Banks of Raymond is a social worker and business owner.
The first time I was sexually assaulted, I was 6 years old. A distant relative took advantage of the fact that my father had died the year before, and my mom was working three jobs to take care of me and my four siblings. I was too young to feel any shame. So I told my mom. And I never saw him again. My mom listened. And acted. Thank you, Mom!
Every nine minutes in the United States, a child is sexually assaulted. Approximately 1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of 6 boys in the U.S. are sexually assaulted or raped by the time they turn 18. According to the Department of Justice, 71% of juvenile victims are sexually assaulted by someone they know.
Let that sink in.
The second time I was sexually assaulted, I was 18 and on a bus trip from Boston to Colorado Springs to visit my sister. When I fell asleep, the guy sitting next to me sexually assaulted me. It was violent. I woke up startled but pretended I was still asleep. Why? Because 18-year-old me was afraid to make a scene. I never told anyone. And unlike 6-year-old me, I felt ashamed. Because that’s what we do to victims of sexual violence in this country. We make them feel shame.
The third time I was sexually assaulted, I was 42. I was in the recovery room of a local hospital. I had just had surgery and was coming out of my anesthesia when I felt a hand groping my breast under my hospital gown. I heard the door open to the room, and the male health care worker who was assaulting me jerked his hand out of my gown and left the room quickly. I told the female nurse what had just happened. She said, “Honey, lots of people hallucinate coming out of anesthesia. You were just dreaming.”
No. I wasn’t.
What has happened to us as a nation? Has the sexual violence against children and women in the U.S. become so normalized that we are numb to the issue? I guess so if we have a president who thinks it’s OK to assault women. He said it out loud. I mean, if he can do it …
And who is going to march on Washington over this issue? The children? The estimated 1 in 20 males in the U.S. who are committing these sexual assaults?
When Pam Bondi, U.S. attorney general, the highest level law enforcement official in the United States, chose to ignore and deny justice to the brave women victims who attended the Department of Justice inquiry into the cover-up of Jeffrey Epstein’s heinous crimes on Feb. 11, 2026, it was one of the greatest betrayals of American women and children in United States history. They were children when they were sexually assaulted. Her message? Nobody cares. Pam Bondi’s response is a pugnacious disgrace. She’s the one who should feel shame. She should have taken a page out of my mom’s playbook.
So I am calling on women and men everywhere to wake up, to care, and to hold our elected officials accountable to end the sexual violence against women and children in this country. To make it a bipartisan priority. No matter how well the Dow is doing.
There are approximately 42 million adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse in the United States. And we vote. A reported 1.9 million adult women are raped annually in the U.S., with another 6.5 million experiencing other forms of sexual violence. They vote too.
So, let’s start here in Maine, where our rate of child abuse in general is approximately twice the national average, and approximately 35.7 % of Maine women have been sexually assaulted during their lifetime. We’ve had it. We are coming out of the shadows.
And to politicians everywhere, unless you make ending sexual violence, and all violence against women and children, a priority, you can expect to lose the vote of many of the approximately 127 million women in the U.S of voting age. If not? You obviously won’t lose Pam Bondi’s vote, but you will surely lose ours.