Even now, 20 years later, the triggers can pop up anytime or anywhere for Alicia “Kozak” Kozakiewicz.
“I’m watching them take their pictures and doing all kinds of stuff with their phones,” says the 34-year-old as she shakes her head and sighs. “If they only knew how dangerous that device could be!”
It was Jan. 1, 2002, when the predator — whose name Alicia will not speak — finally struck. As her family sat around the dinner table after a traditional Polish New Year’s meal of pork and sauerkraut, Alicia told her mother she had a stomachache and wanted to lie down before returning to the table for dessert.
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Alicia Kozakiewicz.Billy Delfs
But instead of going upstairs to her room, she slipped past the Christmas tree and out the front door to say a quick hello to her new friend, who was waiting in a car parked down the block.
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Despite the intense winter cold, she hadn’t bothered to put on a coat. Alicia doesn’t have a clear memory of what happened next, except that she heard her name called out and the next thing she knew, she was in the man’s car.
“He was squeezing my hand so tightly that I thought it was broken,” she recalls. “He was barking commands at me. ‘Be good. Be quiet.'”
And she saw handcuffs and ropes in the back seat.
Since those harrowing days, Alicia, who now has a master’s degree in forensic psychology, hasdedicated her lifeto educating parents and children about the dangers on the internet. “It’s part of my healing — and literally about saving lives,” says Alicia.
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In recent years, Internet crimes against children have skyrocketed as computers have moved from family rooms to the cellphones in every teenager’s pocket. The pandemic lockdown, which trapped young people at home on their computers, only made things worse. “Predators were also home, and it was a recipe for disaster,” says Alicia.
TheNational Center for Missing & Exploited Childrenreports logging a staggering 29 million calls to its Cyber Tipline last year — a 35 percent rise from the previous, record-breaking year. “We’re seeing a dramatic increase,” says John Bischoff, VP at NCMEC.
Now more than ever, Alicia says, it’s important for families to hear about her own abduction nightmare to help protect other young people.
“You need to act as though you are in a scary alley on the Internet,” she says. “Even if you are somewhere that should be safe, you’re letting your child wander around that dark alley.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
source: people.com
