Dear Future President,

Today I would like to address the topic of child abuse. Child abuse can be done in all sorts of ways, none of which, in my opinion, are right. Many parents may call it discipline, but when taken too far, it quickly turns into abuse.

Many victims of child abuse may not know what is being done to them is wrong or they're mentally forced to believe they are the ones in the wrong. This issue should be one of your top priorities because it affects our children as well as our future of this country. We could not leave this issue alone or at the bottom of the list knowing that approximately 1,923 children are victims of abuse every single day.

Being abused as a child is not only a problem when it is being done, but almost always affects the person later in life. Parents do not realize just how much what they are doing haunts their child every day. It takes little to no effort for a parent to lash out and take all of their anger out on their child, while it takes the child everything they have in them to keep going. These children are our future, and we must show them care and respect, just as we do for our leaders today.

Abuse could ruin any chances of children being who they want to be. Physical damage isn’t even the worst part. Emotionally, this type of abuse causes children to feel inferior and broken down, not to mention that sometimes it goes as far as death. Children lose themselves at such a young age just because their parents didn’t think twice when chastising them. As a country we could not possibly know and understand these cold hard facts without doing something about it. As a community, we must come together to protect one another. That is the point of my letter today. On the behalf of our country, I ask that this issue is addressed immediately so we can remain a loyal community for our future leaders.

With hope,

Emma Cortez