Research suggests 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 20 boys will experience child sexual abuse in the United States.

State lawmakers in Kentucky are fighting back by trying to criminalize what's called grooming.

The act of building a relationship with a minor with the intent to abuse them.

Our McKenzie Spink brings us the discussion on House Bill four from today's House Judiciary Committee.

Representative Marianne Proctor, sponsor of House Bill four, says the measure will close the current gap in the law between predatory behavior and the physical sexual abuse of a minor.

What it is seeking to do is criminalize the behavior of grooming.

When an adult engages in, entices courses, or solicits a minor to prepare them for sexual conduct.

House Bill four has specific language regarding persons of authority or trust, such as a coach or teacher.

The bill would make intimate or secret relationships with minors a felony.

There are exceptions laid out protecting curriculum on sex education, but concerns about protecting teachers arose during discussion.

A teacher teaching health or sex education to young people, to a whole class, and then after the class said one of the students wants to clear something up or come to the teacher and talk about it.

My concern is that would prevent that.

Or the teacher might be nervous about discussing anything from the class.

Supporters of the bill say the language protecting those conversations is clear.

The language is you can't entice, coerce, solicit or prepare the minor to engage in sexual conduct with yourself or another person.

I think that's pretty clear.

So someone saying, hey, I'm having, you know, these, these these issues with my body or whatever.

That is nowhere near the language of this statute.

The attorney who helped draft the bill says the process of having to prove mal intent was designed to help weed out good faith discussions.

We knew this intent is going to be difficult to prove.

And that's should be the case.

Law enforcement, when they investigate these crimes, they kind of have to see, do I think this fits the statute?

They have to apply some common sense and interpretation.

Then that comes to a prosecutor who then has to make a similar interpretive look at it.

It'll have to because it's a felony if it's charged in district court.

We'll have to have a preliminary hearing where a district court judge is going to say, does this meet the elements?

But we think between the statutory language and all those things that that should filter out these good faith, discussions that we are not intending to include.

There were five pass votes on the measure.

Several lawmakers voiced concern about tightening up the protections even further.

Democrat Representative Lindsey Burke took issue with the phrasing.

Prepare for sexual conduct as part of the definition of grooming.

Preparing a minor for sexual conduct.

It makes me think about a conversation between an 18 year old sister and a 14 year old sister who says, you don't have to be scared of sex.

Sex is nothing to be scared for.

Just make sure when you do it, you use a condom.

I want to be completely certain that under no circumstances is that kind of conduct punished.

With 14 yes votes, House Bill four passed the House Judiciary Committee and will next head to the House floor to be considered by the full body.

For Kentucky edition, I'm McKenzie Spink.

Thank you.

McKenzie.

House Bill four has over 30 co-sponsors, including Democratic Representative Daniel Grossberg of Louisville.