But New York attorney James Marsh notes one of his clients, a young woman known only as Amy, has provided a statement “in well over 500 criminal cases.”
The statement “not only expresses the often-devastating effect of a crime on a victim, but in cases like child pornography — where the victims are young and all but invisible to the court — (it) really empowers a victim like Amy in what is otherwise seen as a so-called victimless crime.”
Amy’s words, written at age 19, recount a life scarred by a family member’s sexual abuse starting when she was 4. That experience “destroyed the normal childhood, teenage years and early adulthood that every one deserves,” Amy said in a four-page account.
“Every day of my life I live in constant fear that someone will see my pictures and recognize me and that I will be humiliated all over again. “It hurts me to know someone is looking at them — at me — when I was just a little girl being abused for the camera.”