About Minors Can’t Consent

Minors Can’t Consent is a safe space for survivors of sexual abuse and the people who love them to share their stories, find resources, and begin the healing process. It was created by Claudia Barker, a writer and survivor of sexual abuse. 

Claudia’s experience of outing a sexual predator, who was her former high school teacher, on the front page of The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate newspaper, decades after the crimes took place, was liberating. The support she received, and the community she found with other survivors, convinced her that there is value in sharing these stories, to raise awareness of how often this happens in places like schools, camps, and churches.

Through Minors Can’t Consent, she aims to educate people about how sexual predation happens, how to spot it, and how to prevent it. She wants to help survivors, especially those abused as teenagers by adults, understand that what happened to them was not their fault, even if they believe they “participated” in it.

Subscribe to Claudia’s Substack, “Claudia Barker Writes: Reflections from a Relentless Optimist,” here.

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Why This Website?

“I believe the majority of survivors of sexual abuse, especially abuse perpetrated on teenagers who may believe they “consented,” blame themselves. Most people who are sexually abused as children and teens don’t come to terms with it—realizing that what happened to them was abuse—until they are in their mid-fifties. Minors Can’t Consent aims to convince these survivors that what happened was not their fault so they may lay that burden of guilt down, or transfer it to the perpetrator, where it belongs.”

— Claudia Barker