THE FOUNDER

 

 Gwyndolyn McClellan

 

I want to take a moment to share my journey with you. For over 30 years, I’ve dedicated my life to addressing the urgent issues surrounding child abuse, including abuse of both people and animals, and other social issues.

In 1995, the torturous and heinous death of 7-year-old Lucas Ciambrone at the hands of his adoptive parents spurred me into politics, with a mission to fight against child abuse. Before this, as I traveled around the United States and Canada, I collected newspaper articles about children who had died from child abuse. At this time, I focused only on children aged 0–18. By the time Lucas Ciambrone died, I had hundreds of articles on this issue. Initially, I cried while reading about the horrific deaths.

Many nights I couldn’t sleep after reading their stories. Sometimes I couldn’t bear reading about another tragedy—someone crying for help, day or night, without response. Thus, I would sometimes refrain from searching for articles for a few weeks or more. But a passion within me yearned to quiet the crying and ease the sorrow. Therefore, I always returned to my search, trying to understand what was happening and who was inflicting the pain.

When I began working with Congress on this issue in 1995, my focus was on education—educating not only Congress, but world leaders and their constituents. I discovered that the definition of child abuse was too narrow, limited by age. Elderly people were being abused in nursing homes; society abused adults in many ways. Using age as the criterion for child abuse was fallacious, because every person born is someone’s child. Therefore, age could not be the criterion. Instead, the criterion had to be any heinous act against any human being or animal resulting in abuse. Yes, even animals needed to be considered. I read about how animals are used for sexual gratification, entertainment, revenge, etc., and was appalled.

Each week, I sent a newsletter to world leaders and Congress on child abuse issues. China began publishing daily information on child abuse in its newspapers. In addition, I wrote books, developed a movie, and produced music on the subject to raise money. One of my songs, “They Cried And Nobody Heard Them,” is the theme song for Voiceopin International and the name of the child abuse museum.