Girls targeted from nine, boys from ten and it takes 22 YEARS for survivors to come forward: Chilling statistics of child sex abuse revealed in Royal Commission report
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its interim report on Monday
Analysis so far shows 90 per cent of Australian sex abusers are men
It takes men longer than women to disclose their abuse
The commission hasn't decided on a national redress scheme for survivors
Has asked government for $104 million and an extra two years to do its job
By Sarah Dean and Australian Associated Press
30 June 2014
It takes an average of 22 years for survivors of child abuse to come forward and many Australians who have been abused still haven't spoken out, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse says.
In its interim report, released on Monday, the commission said on average female victims were nine years old and male victims 10 years old when the abuse started and that it takes men longer than women to disclose their abuse.
The commission, which began its inquiry into institutional abuse on 13 January 2013, said its analysis also showed 90 per cent of sex abusers are men.
'We understand that although many people have come forward to the Royal Commission, it is likely that they represent only a minority of those abused,' the commission said....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2674893/Royal-Commission-finds-takes-22-years-survivors-child-sex-abuse-come-forward-average-abuse-begins-9-girls-10-boys.html
Rolf Harris child sex abuse education video surfaces after entertainer found guilty in London court Esther Han July 1, 2014
....This is the opening scene of what is now an unsettling 20-minute long anti-child-abuse video that prosecutors planned to play for the jury at Harris' indecent assault trial before it was barred by the judge. Overnight, Harris was declared guilty of all 12 charges of indecent assault against four girls, from 1968 to 1986.
The video, called 'Kids Can Say No', was developed in the mid-1980s, when he was indecently assaulting young women and girls - including one as young as seven or eight.
Harris had commissioned and fronted the child protection video, with endorsement from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, after being inspired by similar programs in Australia. In the period when the video began to be widely shown in schools, youth clubs and health institutes in the United Kingdom, the court found he was also having sexual encounters with his daughter's best friend.
In 1986, he had sexually abused an eight-year-old girl at a community centre near her home when Harris performed ‘Two Little Boys' for the children....
http://www.smh.com.au/world/rolf-harris-child-sex-abuse-education-video-surfaces-after-entertainer-found-guilty-in-london-court-20140701-zsrph.html
Monday, June 30, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Recap: Jimmy Savile had sex with dead bodies in mortuary, shocking hospital report reveals
Recap: Jimmy Savile had sex with dead bodies in mortuary, shocking hospital report reveals
Jun 27, 2014 By Anthony Bond, Steve Robson
An investigation into Savile's abuse at Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) heard the now-dead entertainer claimed to have "interfered with the bodies of deceased patients"
Jimmy Savile boasted about having sex with corpses and had jewellery made from glass eyes he removed from their bodies, it was revealed today.
The sick paedophile also gloated to others that he enjoyed “posing” the corpses and that he would “wheel them around” at night at Leeds General Infirmary.
The twisted crimes were revealed in 28 NHS reports published today....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/recap-jimmy-savile-sex-dead-3767280
Sickening extent of Jimmy Savile's full depravity laid bare in shocking NHS report
By Andrew Gregory, Tom Pettifor, David Collins Jun 26, 2014
The sex beast, free to roam hospitals abusing victims at will, boasted of having sex with corpses while he continued to abuse until he was 82
Police are probing claims sick Jimmy Savile was involved in the death of a young girl.
The former DJ was allegedly seen dragging away a child at a care home who was later said to have died.
The sickening extent of his depravity was laid bare today as damning NHS reports revealed the pervert was free to roam hospitals abusing victims at will – even targeting the dead.
The mass of NHS papers revealed vile Savile boasted about having sex with corpses in a mortuary, posed with bodies and wheeled them around at night, stole glass eyes from the dead and made them into rings and abused teenage patients in their beds as they recovered from surgery.
And it is said the paedophile targeted at least 103 men, women, boys and girls aged between five and 75 for his attacks in hospitals and state institutions, which included three rapes....
He bragged about having sex with corpses at Leeds General Infirmary. A former nurse at Broadmoor said Savile told her about his appalling activities at the Yorkshire hospital, where he was a charity fundraiser and volunteer porter.
He said he would “muck about” posing with dead bodies of men and women together before taking photographs.
The nurse added: “I was a little bit upset because I had no concept, in those days, of… while I’d heard of necrophilia… but I didn’t understand what it meant.”
It is claimed former Top of the Pops frontman Savile told her he sexually assaulted the bodies as well, something he sickeningly dubbed “garamoosh”.
A former patient at Barnet General Hospital in North London said nurses told her in 1983 that Savile “liked to have sex with dead bodies”....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sickening-extent-jimmy-saviles-full-3769301
Jun 27, 2014 By Anthony Bond, Steve Robson
An investigation into Savile's abuse at Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) heard the now-dead entertainer claimed to have "interfered with the bodies of deceased patients"
Jimmy Savile boasted about having sex with corpses and had jewellery made from glass eyes he removed from their bodies, it was revealed today.
The sick paedophile also gloated to others that he enjoyed “posing” the corpses and that he would “wheel them around” at night at Leeds General Infirmary.
The twisted crimes were revealed in 28 NHS reports published today....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/recap-jimmy-savile-sex-dead-3767280
Sickening extent of Jimmy Savile's full depravity laid bare in shocking NHS report
By Andrew Gregory, Tom Pettifor, David Collins Jun 26, 2014
The sex beast, free to roam hospitals abusing victims at will, boasted of having sex with corpses while he continued to abuse until he was 82
Police are probing claims sick Jimmy Savile was involved in the death of a young girl.
The former DJ was allegedly seen dragging away a child at a care home who was later said to have died.
The sickening extent of his depravity was laid bare today as damning NHS reports revealed the pervert was free to roam hospitals abusing victims at will – even targeting the dead.
The mass of NHS papers revealed vile Savile boasted about having sex with corpses in a mortuary, posed with bodies and wheeled them around at night, stole glass eyes from the dead and made them into rings and abused teenage patients in their beds as they recovered from surgery.
And it is said the paedophile targeted at least 103 men, women, boys and girls aged between five and 75 for his attacks in hospitals and state institutions, which included three rapes....
He bragged about having sex with corpses at Leeds General Infirmary. A former nurse at Broadmoor said Savile told her about his appalling activities at the Yorkshire hospital, where he was a charity fundraiser and volunteer porter.
He said he would “muck about” posing with dead bodies of men and women together before taking photographs.
The nurse added: “I was a little bit upset because I had no concept, in those days, of… while I’d heard of necrophilia… but I didn’t understand what it meant.”
It is claimed former Top of the Pops frontman Savile told her he sexually assaulted the bodies as well, something he sickeningly dubbed “garamoosh”.
A former patient at Barnet General Hospital in North London said nurses told her in 1983 that Savile “liked to have sex with dead bodies”....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sickening-extent-jimmy-saviles-full-3769301
Friday, June 27, 2014
West Yorkshire police The Cook Report and Savile’s ‘satanic rituals’, Cops probe claim that notorious sex abuse cases are linked
Cops probe claim that notorious sex abuse cases are linked
Friday 27th June 2014 Crime Desk By Nicola Tallant
GARDAI have been asked to investigate links between two notorious child abuse cases amid claims that a network of paedophiles preyed on children in one of the country’s most affluent suburbs.
Rape victim Fiona Doyle has given a statement to cops investigating the Dalkey House of Horror file saying she believes there are sinister connections between the two cases.
And she has appealed to anyone who was abused in the area, or knew about abuse, to come forward.
The Sunday World understands that at least one other claim of historical sex abuse in the Killiney area has also been made.
Fiona, who won a People of the Year award for her bravery, says she believes that child abuse was rife in South County Dublin.
After a lengthy campaign for justice backed by the Sunday World, Gardai in Dun Laoghaire are currently reviewing allegations made by Cynthia Owen that she was raped by a group of men in Dalkey, and by members of her own family, and that she bore two children out of incest and rape when she was aged 11 and 14.
Among those who have given statements to the investigation is Fiona, whose father Patrick O’Brien was jailed for 12 years after an outcry when he was initially freed on bail pending sentence.
Fiona has told Gardai how her uncle Michael Cowap, recently deceased, and a friend of her father’s also raped her as a young child. But the 47-year-old mum says that she has now become aware of a number of different paedophile rings operating in the Dun Laoghaire area....
Three of my father’s friends that I know of were paedophiles. They were from the same area. There was an underlying acceptance of sexual abuse of children in the greater Dun Laoghaire area. A lot of people knew of my abuse and did nothing....
The Sunday World understands that a number of people have now come forward to Gardai in Dun Laoghaire. One has alleged she was sexually abused on Killiney Hill and another has told this newspaper she recalls being told ritual abuse took place on Dalkey Island.
http://www.sundayworld.com/top-stories/crime-desk/ring-of-evil
Jimmy Savile: ‘It couldn't happen again.’ Yes it could and it's probably happening right now
Beginning his working life in the aviation industry and trained by the BBC, Tony Gosling is a British land rights activist, historian & investigative radio journalist. June 27, 2014
We heard this week yet more horrors about the BBC presenter, 'volunteer hospital porter' and prolific child abuser Jimmy Savile having molested living patients at 28 separate hospitals, as well as testimony that he gained access to at least one mortuary to sexually abuse corpses. But despite Savile having up to a thousand victims, it was only due to the immense courage and persistence of a handful of selfless journalists that the devastating story of Britain’s most prolific ever pedophile and child abuser saw the light of day.
Since the scandal broke in October 2012, the London media have criticized police, royalty, government officials, health service managers and BBC staff for covering up Savile’s crimes, but few if any of these media commentators has admitted to their own vital role in hushing up Britain's 'worst kept secret' for decades....
Many have been shocked at Savile’s ability to keep his child sexual abuse secret for nearly fifty years, while mingling with royalty and others at the top of British society. Those he abused were told they better never breathe a word about it because he had ‘friends in high places,’ which he did.
Those who endorsed Britain’s most prolific ever child sex abuser were not just the obvious and unpunished BBC bosses, but included Prince Charles and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher....
Social Affairs Correspondent Liz Mackean, from the BBC’s nightly flagship Newsnight, was the only senior journalist in the country with the courage to bite the bullet on the ‘worst kept secret in journalism.’ She put her career on the line and pushed her editor to broadcast the Savile accusations. Despite Liz, a former BBC Radio colleague of mine, having obtained heart-wrenching interviews with Savile’s victims in December 2011, Newsnight editor Peter Rippon refused to even watch, let alone transmit them....
West Yorkshire police The Cook Report and Savile’s ‘satanic rituals’
Psychotherapist Valerie Sinason had been talking for years, to anyone who would listen, about Savile. She personally interviewed two of his victims in her London based 'Clinic for Dissociative Studies' who told her at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire that they had been repeatedly sexually abused in horrific rituals they described as 'satanic.'
Wearing robes and masks in the hospital basement and to Latin chants of ‘Hail Satanus’, the idea, it seems, was two-fold: for Savile to ‘share’ his victims with other abusers and also to so deeply traumatize the children with supernatural threats of demons and devil masks that, through fear, they would never dare breathe a word to anyone. They were being groomed, as so many children are in government ‘care homes’ for serial abusers, and for pimps, heading down the lonely road to a life of abuse or prostitution.
Sinason has not been the only one to talk of satanic ritual abuse in connection with Savile. Britain’s most popular TV journalist ever, Roger Cook, also exposed what he believed was a satanic ritual abuse ring in Savile's home town of Leeds, Yorkshire. During the airing of an edition called the 'The Devil's Work' on 17 July, 1989 (under the umbrella of the ten-million-viewers-a-night 'Cook Report' series), witnesses told Cook that a certain ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice shop’, run by one Chris Bray, was connected to a ritual abuse ring in the city. Post-transmission threats by Bray to prosecute Central TV proved empty....
http://rt.com/op-edge/168876-savile-scandal-bbc-presenter/
Friday 27th June 2014 Crime Desk By Nicola Tallant
GARDAI have been asked to investigate links between two notorious child abuse cases amid claims that a network of paedophiles preyed on children in one of the country’s most affluent suburbs.
Rape victim Fiona Doyle has given a statement to cops investigating the Dalkey House of Horror file saying she believes there are sinister connections between the two cases.
And she has appealed to anyone who was abused in the area, or knew about abuse, to come forward.
The Sunday World understands that at least one other claim of historical sex abuse in the Killiney area has also been made.
Fiona, who won a People of the Year award for her bravery, says she believes that child abuse was rife in South County Dublin.
After a lengthy campaign for justice backed by the Sunday World, Gardai in Dun Laoghaire are currently reviewing allegations made by Cynthia Owen that she was raped by a group of men in Dalkey, and by members of her own family, and that she bore two children out of incest and rape when she was aged 11 and 14.
Among those who have given statements to the investigation is Fiona, whose father Patrick O’Brien was jailed for 12 years after an outcry when he was initially freed on bail pending sentence.
Fiona has told Gardai how her uncle Michael Cowap, recently deceased, and a friend of her father’s also raped her as a young child. But the 47-year-old mum says that she has now become aware of a number of different paedophile rings operating in the Dun Laoghaire area....
Three of my father’s friends that I know of were paedophiles. They were from the same area. There was an underlying acceptance of sexual abuse of children in the greater Dun Laoghaire area. A lot of people knew of my abuse and did nothing....
The Sunday World understands that a number of people have now come forward to Gardai in Dun Laoghaire. One has alleged she was sexually abused on Killiney Hill and another has told this newspaper she recalls being told ritual abuse took place on Dalkey Island.
http://www.sundayworld.com/top-stories/crime-desk/ring-of-evil
Jimmy Savile: ‘It couldn't happen again.’ Yes it could and it's probably happening right now
Beginning his working life in the aviation industry and trained by the BBC, Tony Gosling is a British land rights activist, historian & investigative radio journalist. June 27, 2014
We heard this week yet more horrors about the BBC presenter, 'volunteer hospital porter' and prolific child abuser Jimmy Savile having molested living patients at 28 separate hospitals, as well as testimony that he gained access to at least one mortuary to sexually abuse corpses. But despite Savile having up to a thousand victims, it was only due to the immense courage and persistence of a handful of selfless journalists that the devastating story of Britain’s most prolific ever pedophile and child abuser saw the light of day.
Since the scandal broke in October 2012, the London media have criticized police, royalty, government officials, health service managers and BBC staff for covering up Savile’s crimes, but few if any of these media commentators has admitted to their own vital role in hushing up Britain's 'worst kept secret' for decades....
Many have been shocked at Savile’s ability to keep his child sexual abuse secret for nearly fifty years, while mingling with royalty and others at the top of British society. Those he abused were told they better never breathe a word about it because he had ‘friends in high places,’ which he did.
Those who endorsed Britain’s most prolific ever child sex abuser were not just the obvious and unpunished BBC bosses, but included Prince Charles and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher....
Social Affairs Correspondent Liz Mackean, from the BBC’s nightly flagship Newsnight, was the only senior journalist in the country with the courage to bite the bullet on the ‘worst kept secret in journalism.’ She put her career on the line and pushed her editor to broadcast the Savile accusations. Despite Liz, a former BBC Radio colleague of mine, having obtained heart-wrenching interviews with Savile’s victims in December 2011, Newsnight editor Peter Rippon refused to even watch, let alone transmit them....
West Yorkshire police The Cook Report and Savile’s ‘satanic rituals’
Psychotherapist Valerie Sinason had been talking for years, to anyone who would listen, about Savile. She personally interviewed two of his victims in her London based 'Clinic for Dissociative Studies' who told her at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire that they had been repeatedly sexually abused in horrific rituals they described as 'satanic.'
Wearing robes and masks in the hospital basement and to Latin chants of ‘Hail Satanus’, the idea, it seems, was two-fold: for Savile to ‘share’ his victims with other abusers and also to so deeply traumatize the children with supernatural threats of demons and devil masks that, through fear, they would never dare breathe a word to anyone. They were being groomed, as so many children are in government ‘care homes’ for serial abusers, and for pimps, heading down the lonely road to a life of abuse or prostitution.
Sinason has not been the only one to talk of satanic ritual abuse in connection with Savile. Britain’s most popular TV journalist ever, Roger Cook, also exposed what he believed was a satanic ritual abuse ring in Savile's home town of Leeds, Yorkshire. During the airing of an edition called the 'The Devil's Work' on 17 July, 1989 (under the umbrella of the ten-million-viewers-a-night 'Cook Report' series), witnesses told Cook that a certain ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice shop’, run by one Chris Bray, was connected to a ritual abuse ring in the city. Post-transmission threats by Bray to prosecute Central TV proved empty....
http://rt.com/op-edge/168876-savile-scandal-bbc-presenter/
Thursday, June 26, 2014
"Welcome to Hell:" The Border Patrol's Repeated Abuse of Children
"Welcome to Hell:" The Border Patrol's Repeated Abuse of Children
06/24/2014 James Lyall Staff Lawyer, ACLU Border Litigation Project
Detainees wrested from sleep every 30 minutes, the lights in their frigid cells never turned off. One detainee told by officials, don't lie or you'll be raped. Another detainee sexually abused by guards. Detainees forced to stand in stress positions. Others denied adequate food, water, and medical treatment and held in dehumanizing conditions. "Welcome to hell," one guard told a detainee, a good metaphor for what occurs across these sites of torment.
These incidents don't come from military prisons in Iraq or Afghanistan or CIA black sites. This has been happening for years along the Southwest border in U.S. government facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and its Border Patrol. The victims: children, some as young as infants, as documented in a recent complaint filed by a group of immigrant rights advocates who interviewed 116 unaccompanied children previously held in CBP custody.
Just as appalling, government agencies have known about these abuses for a long time, but failed to take action. Now, more children are vulnerable to harm in Border Patrol custody than ever before. Since October, 47,000 children have left their homes in Central America, mainly in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, for the United States. They flee destabilizing violence and crime fomented by criminal syndicates and gangs, more often than not without a loved one leading the way....
One in four detained children reported physical abuse at the hands of CBP, including sexual assaults and beatings. More than half reported verbal abuse, including racist and sexist insults and even death threats, as well as the denial of urgent medical care.....
Seven out of ten interviewed reported detentions lasting longer than the 72-hour period mandated by law. Three out of ten children reported that their belongings were confiscated and never returned. Many others reported being shackled during transport, the metal restraints excruciatingly digging into their wrists and ankles. Eighty percent reported CBP personnel denied them adequate food and water.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-lyall/welcome-to-hell-the-borde_b_5527967.html
Systemic Abuse of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children by U.S. Customs and Border Protection
http://www.acluaz.org/sites/default/files/documents/DHS%20Complaint%20re%20CBP%20Abuse%20of%20UICs.pdf
06/24/2014 James Lyall Staff Lawyer, ACLU Border Litigation Project
Detainees wrested from sleep every 30 minutes, the lights in their frigid cells never turned off. One detainee told by officials, don't lie or you'll be raped. Another detainee sexually abused by guards. Detainees forced to stand in stress positions. Others denied adequate food, water, and medical treatment and held in dehumanizing conditions. "Welcome to hell," one guard told a detainee, a good metaphor for what occurs across these sites of torment.
These incidents don't come from military prisons in Iraq or Afghanistan or CIA black sites. This has been happening for years along the Southwest border in U.S. government facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and its Border Patrol. The victims: children, some as young as infants, as documented in a recent complaint filed by a group of immigrant rights advocates who interviewed 116 unaccompanied children previously held in CBP custody.
Just as appalling, government agencies have known about these abuses for a long time, but failed to take action. Now, more children are vulnerable to harm in Border Patrol custody than ever before. Since October, 47,000 children have left their homes in Central America, mainly in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, for the United States. They flee destabilizing violence and crime fomented by criminal syndicates and gangs, more often than not without a loved one leading the way....
One in four detained children reported physical abuse at the hands of CBP, including sexual assaults and beatings. More than half reported verbal abuse, including racist and sexist insults and even death threats, as well as the denial of urgent medical care.....
Seven out of ten interviewed reported detentions lasting longer than the 72-hour period mandated by law. Three out of ten children reported that their belongings were confiscated and never returned. Many others reported being shackled during transport, the metal restraints excruciatingly digging into their wrists and ankles. Eighty percent reported CBP personnel denied them adequate food and water.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-lyall/welcome-to-hell-the-borde_b_5527967.html
Systemic Abuse of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children by U.S. Customs and Border Protection
http://www.acluaz.org/sites/default/files/documents/DHS%20Complaint%20re%20CBP%20Abuse%20of%20UICs.pdf
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
FBI: 168 kids rescued, 281 pimps nabbed in sex-trafficking crackdown, Deputies: Day care, mentoring program a front for Sanford child porn operation, Child abuse victims stung by Albany inaction (Child Victims Act)
FBI: 168 kids rescued, 281 pimps nabbed in sex-trafficking crackdown
CBS/AP June 23, 2014
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 170 victims of child sex trafficking, many of whom had never been reported missing, were rescued in the last week as part of an annual nationwide crackdown, the FBI said Monday.
Besides the 168 children rescued from the sex trade, 281 pimps were arrested during the same period on state and federal charges.
"These are not faraway kids in faraway lands," FBI Director James Comey said in announcing the annual enforcement push known as Operation Cross Country. Instead, he added, "These are America's children."
This is the eighth such week long-operation, which this year unfolded in 106 cities. The FBI says nearly 3,600 children have so far been recovered from the streets....
He said one concerning trend is the increasing prevalence of children who are being prostituted online.... http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-168-kids-rescued-281-pimps-nabbed-in-sex-trafficking-crackdown/
Deputies: Day care, mentoring program a front for Sanford child porn operation 6/25/14
Sanford, N.C. — A pseudo day care and mentoring program operating out of the Sanford home of a convicted sex offender was actually a front for a child porn production operation, Harnett County Sheriff’s Office detectives said.
Four people have been arrested in the case. Investigators are searching for Tommy Wall, a fifth person who may be in the Raleigh or Fayetteville areas....
Investigators say Bailey Joe Mills, 33, who was convicted three times on charges related to sexual contact with children, ran the operation out of his former Nicole Drive home. They believe Mills ran the day care and mentoring program to attract young girls to his residence and to create a relationship with their parents. Mills then offered the girls money to have sex with men he found through different social media sites, authorities said....
Mills has had multiple arrests and convictions over the years....
The operation, which involves about 10 male and female victims ranging from ages 1 to 14, dates back to 2013, but it wasn’t discovered until Mills’ arrest in January. Investigators said they realized they had a much bigger case after going through Mills’ computer and cell phones.... http://www.wral.com/deputies-day-care-and-mentoring-program-a-front-for-child-porn-operation/13758447/
Child abuse victims stung by Albany inaction
By Shant Shahrigian 6/25/14
Horace Mann School graduate Joseph Cumming says it took him 34 years to fully realize his treatment at the hands of his music teacher Johannes Somary was sexual abuse. But by then, even if he had wanted to, it was far too late for him to take legal action. New York’s criminal and civil statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors is five years after the victim turns 18.
After revelations of decades of abuse involving more than 30 victims at Horace Mann emerged in June 2012, the Bronx District Attorney’s office said the limitations prevented it from prosecuting any of the perpetrators.
The state legislature’s recent failure to take up the Child Victims Act — which would eliminate the criminal and civil statues of limitations for child sexual abuse and create a one-year window for past victims to seek justice — infuriated Mr. Cumming and other survivors....
“The main reason [the Child Victims Act] has not passed is that there is a caucus of centrist Democrats in the senate who have blocked it again and again,”....
A man who says he suffered sexual abuse at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y., which earlier this year acknowledged abuse of students in the 1960s, echoed Mr. Cumming’ point of view.
“These politicians end up protecting very bad people,” said the surivor, who did not want his name published.
The New York State Catholic Conference is strongly opposed to the act, saying it would unfairly subject the church — which has seen widespread allegations of child abuse by priests in recent years — to costly litigation. http://riverdalepress.com/stories/Child-abuse-victims-stung-by-Albany-inaction,54539
CBS/AP June 23, 2014
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 170 victims of child sex trafficking, many of whom had never been reported missing, were rescued in the last week as part of an annual nationwide crackdown, the FBI said Monday.
Besides the 168 children rescued from the sex trade, 281 pimps were arrested during the same period on state and federal charges.
"These are not faraway kids in faraway lands," FBI Director James Comey said in announcing the annual enforcement push known as Operation Cross Country. Instead, he added, "These are America's children."
This is the eighth such week long-operation, which this year unfolded in 106 cities. The FBI says nearly 3,600 children have so far been recovered from the streets....
He said one concerning trend is the increasing prevalence of children who are being prostituted online.... http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-168-kids-rescued-281-pimps-nabbed-in-sex-trafficking-crackdown/
Deputies: Day care, mentoring program a front for Sanford child porn operation 6/25/14
Sanford, N.C. — A pseudo day care and mentoring program operating out of the Sanford home of a convicted sex offender was actually a front for a child porn production operation, Harnett County Sheriff’s Office detectives said.
Four people have been arrested in the case. Investigators are searching for Tommy Wall, a fifth person who may be in the Raleigh or Fayetteville areas....
Investigators say Bailey Joe Mills, 33, who was convicted three times on charges related to sexual contact with children, ran the operation out of his former Nicole Drive home. They believe Mills ran the day care and mentoring program to attract young girls to his residence and to create a relationship with their parents. Mills then offered the girls money to have sex with men he found through different social media sites, authorities said....
Mills has had multiple arrests and convictions over the years....
The operation, which involves about 10 male and female victims ranging from ages 1 to 14, dates back to 2013, but it wasn’t discovered until Mills’ arrest in January. Investigators said they realized they had a much bigger case after going through Mills’ computer and cell phones.... http://www.wral.com/deputies-day-care-and-mentoring-program-a-front-for-child-porn-operation/13758447/
Child abuse victims stung by Albany inaction
By Shant Shahrigian 6/25/14
Horace Mann School graduate Joseph Cumming says it took him 34 years to fully realize his treatment at the hands of his music teacher Johannes Somary was sexual abuse. But by then, even if he had wanted to, it was far too late for him to take legal action. New York’s criminal and civil statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors is five years after the victim turns 18.
After revelations of decades of abuse involving more than 30 victims at Horace Mann emerged in June 2012, the Bronx District Attorney’s office said the limitations prevented it from prosecuting any of the perpetrators.
The state legislature’s recent failure to take up the Child Victims Act — which would eliminate the criminal and civil statues of limitations for child sexual abuse and create a one-year window for past victims to seek justice — infuriated Mr. Cumming and other survivors....
“The main reason [the Child Victims Act] has not passed is that there is a caucus of centrist Democrats in the senate who have blocked it again and again,”....
A man who says he suffered sexual abuse at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y., which earlier this year acknowledged abuse of students in the 1960s, echoed Mr. Cumming’ point of view.
“These politicians end up protecting very bad people,” said the surivor, who did not want his name published.
The New York State Catholic Conference is strongly opposed to the act, saying it would unfairly subject the church — which has seen widespread allegations of child abuse by priests in recent years — to costly litigation. http://riverdalepress.com/stories/Child-abuse-victims-stung-by-Albany-inaction,54539
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Politics had no role in Sandusky probe, Friedman Sex Abuse Conviction
Report: Politics had no role in Sandusky probe
By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press June 23, 2014
HARRISBURG — A report released Monday detailing the handling of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case faults police and prosecutors for long delays in bringing charges but found no evidence that politics affected the investigation.
The report, commissioned by Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane and written by former federal prosecutor Geoff Moulton, blamed a three-year time lapse in filing charges on communication problems, an expungement of a 1998 complaint about the former Penn State coach and a failure to take certain investigative steps early on.
“The facts show an inexcusable lack of urgency in charging and stopping a serial sexual predator,” said Kane, who had vowed to conduct a review of the investigation while running for office. “The report documents that more investigative work took place in just one month in 2011 than in all of either 2009 or 2010.”
Moulton said his review, including internal emails by state prosecutors, “revealed no direct evidence that electoral politics influenced any important decision made in the Sandusky investigation.”....
Sandusky was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys and is serving a long prison sentence....
http://www.tribune-democrat.com/latestnews/x1396897838/Report-Politics-had-no-role-in-Sandusky-probe
Jesse Friedman, Who Pleaded Guilty To Child Abuse In 1988, Fights For Exoneration June 24, 2014
MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) – A man portrayed in an Oscar-nominated documentary about a notorious 1988 sex abuse case has launched another attempt to clear his name.
Jesse Friedman and his attorney filed a motion Tuesday in Nassau County Court. They want a judge to hold a hearing to review evidence in the case.
Friedman and his father, Arnold Friedman, pleaded guilty in 1988 to abusing 13 children during a computer class that the elder Friedman taught at their Great Neck home. But Jesse Friedman has maintained that he was coerced into confessing....
Last year, Rice determined that Friedman was properly convicted.
“By any impartial analysis, the re-investigation process prompted by Jesse Friedman, his advocates and the 2nd Circuit, has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender,” Rice’s report stated.
About a half-dozen prosecutors, supplemented by an independent review team that included noted defense attorney Barry Scheck, investigated claims that police used flawed interview techniques, employed hypnotism to elicit victims’ memories and took advantage of a moral panic that was sweeping the country in the late 1980s.
It also examined whether Friedman had caved to pressure from a county court judge and prosecutors to plead guilty, and methodically addressed that and all the other criticisms.
The report said during the first two weeks of the investigation, at least 35 children were interviewed by a team of 12 detectives working in two-person teams. No single detective dominated the investigation and different teams obtained incriminating statements from different victims, the report said.
The review team also said it found no credible evidence that hypnosis was used by investigators on any child....
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/06/24/jesse-friedman-who-pleaded-guilty-to-child-abuse-in-1988-fights-for-exoneration/
Rice: No Reason To Overturn Friedman Sex Abuse Conviction
Friedman Claims There's 'Nothing But Lies In The Report' June 24, 2013
MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) – There is no reason to overturn the conviction of a man in a notorious 1980s sex abuse scandal, New York prosecutors announced Monday after a three-year review....
But Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice released a 168-page report Monday that concluded there was strong reason to investigate and prosecute both Friedman and his father, Arnold, when the scandal erupted in 1987. The new inquiry also concluded that the two abused young boys taking computer classes in the basement of their Great Neck home....
Friedman, speaking at a news conference on Monday, said he’s disappointed in the DA’s report but added he’ll continue his battle to clear his name....
“By any impartial analysis, the re-investigation process prompted by Jesse Friedman, his advocates and the 2nd Circuit, has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender,” the report stated....
The panel also noted that after his guilty plea, Friedman went on “The Geraldo Rivera Show” against his attorney’s advice and re-affirmed his guilt and discussed the abuse he and his father inflicted on the children.
The panel also re-interviewed parents of some of the victims and found none “have any reason today to disbelieve that their sons were victims of the Friedmans.”
The parents described their children having emotional problems, including bed wetting, defecating in their clothing, sleeplessness, nightmares, stuttering, a decline in school performance, separation anxiety and an overwhelming sense of fear....
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/24/rice-no-reason-to-overturn-friedman-sex-abuse-conviction/
Capturing the Friedmans
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/1.html
Deconstructing the Myths Advanced by the Film "CApturing the Friedmans"
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/myths.html
In Their Own Words: Jesse's Victims Speak Out
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/vict.html
By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press June 23, 2014
HARRISBURG — A report released Monday detailing the handling of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case faults police and prosecutors for long delays in bringing charges but found no evidence that politics affected the investigation.
The report, commissioned by Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane and written by former federal prosecutor Geoff Moulton, blamed a three-year time lapse in filing charges on communication problems, an expungement of a 1998 complaint about the former Penn State coach and a failure to take certain investigative steps early on.
“The facts show an inexcusable lack of urgency in charging and stopping a serial sexual predator,” said Kane, who had vowed to conduct a review of the investigation while running for office. “The report documents that more investigative work took place in just one month in 2011 than in all of either 2009 or 2010.”
Moulton said his review, including internal emails by state prosecutors, “revealed no direct evidence that electoral politics influenced any important decision made in the Sandusky investigation.”....
Sandusky was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys and is serving a long prison sentence....
http://www.tribune-democrat.com/latestnews/x1396897838/Report-Politics-had-no-role-in-Sandusky-probe
Jesse Friedman, Who Pleaded Guilty To Child Abuse In 1988, Fights For Exoneration June 24, 2014
MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) – A man portrayed in an Oscar-nominated documentary about a notorious 1988 sex abuse case has launched another attempt to clear his name.
Jesse Friedman and his attorney filed a motion Tuesday in Nassau County Court. They want a judge to hold a hearing to review evidence in the case.
Friedman and his father, Arnold Friedman, pleaded guilty in 1988 to abusing 13 children during a computer class that the elder Friedman taught at their Great Neck home. But Jesse Friedman has maintained that he was coerced into confessing....
Last year, Rice determined that Friedman was properly convicted.
“By any impartial analysis, the re-investigation process prompted by Jesse Friedman, his advocates and the 2nd Circuit, has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender,” Rice’s report stated.
About a half-dozen prosecutors, supplemented by an independent review team that included noted defense attorney Barry Scheck, investigated claims that police used flawed interview techniques, employed hypnotism to elicit victims’ memories and took advantage of a moral panic that was sweeping the country in the late 1980s.
It also examined whether Friedman had caved to pressure from a county court judge and prosecutors to plead guilty, and methodically addressed that and all the other criticisms.
The report said during the first two weeks of the investigation, at least 35 children were interviewed by a team of 12 detectives working in two-person teams. No single detective dominated the investigation and different teams obtained incriminating statements from different victims, the report said.
The review team also said it found no credible evidence that hypnosis was used by investigators on any child....
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/06/24/jesse-friedman-who-pleaded-guilty-to-child-abuse-in-1988-fights-for-exoneration/
Rice: No Reason To Overturn Friedman Sex Abuse Conviction
Friedman Claims There's 'Nothing But Lies In The Report' June 24, 2013
MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) – There is no reason to overturn the conviction of a man in a notorious 1980s sex abuse scandal, New York prosecutors announced Monday after a three-year review....
But Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice released a 168-page report Monday that concluded there was strong reason to investigate and prosecute both Friedman and his father, Arnold, when the scandal erupted in 1987. The new inquiry also concluded that the two abused young boys taking computer classes in the basement of their Great Neck home....
Friedman, speaking at a news conference on Monday, said he’s disappointed in the DA’s report but added he’ll continue his battle to clear his name....
“By any impartial analysis, the re-investigation process prompted by Jesse Friedman, his advocates and the 2nd Circuit, has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender,” the report stated....
The panel also noted that after his guilty plea, Friedman went on “The Geraldo Rivera Show” against his attorney’s advice and re-affirmed his guilt and discussed the abuse he and his father inflicted on the children.
The panel also re-interviewed parents of some of the victims and found none “have any reason today to disbelieve that their sons were victims of the Friedmans.”
The parents described their children having emotional problems, including bed wetting, defecating in their clothing, sleeplessness, nightmares, stuttering, a decline in school performance, separation anxiety and an overwhelming sense of fear....
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/24/rice-no-reason-to-overturn-friedman-sex-abuse-conviction/
Capturing the Friedmans
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/1.html
Deconstructing the Myths Advanced by the Film "CApturing the Friedmans"
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/myths.html
In Their Own Words: Jesse's Victims Speak Out
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/ctf/vict.html
Monday, June 23, 2014
Myths About the Country Walk Case, Ugandans drum alarms to rescue abducted children (ritual killings), India’s ‘Temple Slaves’ Struggle to Break Free
Myths About the Country Walk Case
Ross E. Cheit David Mervis
ABSTRACT
The Country Walk case in Dade County, Florida was long considered a model for how to prosecute a multi-victim child sexual abuse case involving young children. In the past 10 years, however, a contrary view has emerged that the case was tainted by improper interviewing and was likely a false conviction. This is the first scholarly effort to assess the competing views of this case. Critics of this case advance three primary claims: (1) the positive STD test result from Frank Fuster’s son was unreliable; (2) highly suggestive interviewing produced the children’s claims; and (3) Frank Fuster’s wife, Ileana, was coerced into testifying against her husband. On close examination, all three claims prove to be false. This article documents the reasons why these claims constitute myths and why those findings are significant in the larger debate on children as witnesses.
CONCLUSIONS
Three major claims that have been advanced to challenge the conviction of Frank Fuster do not stand up to close factual scrutiny; they stand only as myths. As such, they inform us about our cultural fears and they alert us to our cultural blind spots. This is not an explication of all the evidence in the case. A longer version of this analysis, covering virtually every claim advanced at the trial and since, will be published as a chapter in a forthcoming book. This analysis covers enough of the evidence to generate a hypothesis about the previously unrecognized problem of disconfirmation bias. Ceci and Bruck (1995) “believe that the evolution of many of the mass-allegation day-care cases” are caused by the phenomenon of “interviewer’s bias,” also known as “confirmation bias” (p. 93). A close examination of the Country Walk case, however, reveals that a reverse kind of bias is apparently at work. Disconfirmation bias involves a selective examination of evidence with a predisposition toward the child-suggestibility defense.
The persistence of all three myths analyzed in this article seems to exemplify disconfirmation bias. These myths can be believed only by ignoring available evidence to the contrary. The exaggerated claim on error rates and STD testing can be uncovered by reading the sources cited in Whittington’s affidavit. So, too, the child-suggestibility defense can be debunked by reading the trial transcripts....
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, Vol. 16(3) 2007
doi:10.1300/J070v16n03_06 http://blogs.brown.edu/pols-1821t-2010fall-s01/files/2010/12/Country_Walk_Myths.pdf
Ugandans drum alarms to rescue abducted children
Mon Jun 23, 2014
By Rodney Muhumuza AP Writer
BUIKWE, Uganda — When a child goes missing in this central Ugandan district, villagers beat drums into a pulsing rhythm that sends rescuers scampering through bushes. Others, riding motorcycles, try to block exit routes.
In response to the kidnappings and ritual killings of children here, the traumatized community has created a rudimentary but effective abduction alert system that has saved at least two children so far this year.
Although the problem of children being killed as human sacrifices is reported in several parts of Uganda, Buikwe has gained notoriety recently as the country’s witchcraft capital. One in three households here keeps a shrine — a thatched hut in which so-called witchdoctors can be consulted — a frightening statistic that explains the prevalence of superstitious practices that threaten the lives of many children and even adults....
Eight children have been abducted and ritualistically killed in Buikwe this year, their mutilated bodies dumped in bushes and sugarcane plantations, according to local officials.
Across Uganda, at least 729 children were abducted in 2013, according to a Ugandan police report that also cited a 39 percent increase in crimes against children over the previous year..... http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/ugandans-drum-alarms-to-rescue-abducted-children/article_ddac5238-2ba8-512e-a0f8-9056ba3925c1.html
India’s ‘Temple Slaves’ Struggle to Break Free
By Stella Paul Tuesday, June 24, 2014
NIZAMABAD, India, Jun 22 2014 (IPS) - At 32, Nalluri Poshani looks like an old woman. Squatting on the floor amidst piles of tobacco and tree leaves that she expertly transforms into ‘beedis’, a local cigarette, she tells IPS, “I feel dizzy. The tobacco gives me headaches and nausea.”
At the rate of two dollars for 1,000 cigarettes, she earns about 36 dollars a month. “I wish I could do some other job,” the young woman says longingly.
But no other jobs are open to her in the village of Vellpoor, located in the Nizamabad region of the southern Indian state of Telangana, because Poshani is no ordinary woman.
She is a former jogini, which translates loosely as a ‘temple slave’, one of thousands of young Dalit girls who are dedicated at a very young age to the village deity named Yellamma, based on the belief that their presence in the local temple will ward off evil spirits and usher in prosperity for all.
Poshani says she was just five years old when she went through the dedication ritual.
First she was bathed, dressed like a bride, and taken to the temple where a priest tied a ‘thali’ (a sacred thread symbolising marriage) around her neck. She was then brought outside where crowds of villagers were gathered, held up to their scrutiny and proclaimed the new jogini.
For several years she simply lived and worked in the temple, but when she reached puberty men from the village – usually from higher castes who otherwise consider her ‘untouchable’ – would visit her in the night and have sex with her.
Poshani says she was never a sex worker in the typical sense of the word, because she was never properly paid for her ‘services’. Rather, she was bound, by the dedication ritual and the villagers’ firm belief in her supernatural powers, to the temple....
According to official records, there are an estimated 30,000 joginis – also known as devdasis or matammas – in Telangana today. An additional 20,000 live in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh..... http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/indias-temple-slaves-struggle-to-break-free/
Ross E. Cheit David Mervis
ABSTRACT
The Country Walk case in Dade County, Florida was long considered a model for how to prosecute a multi-victim child sexual abuse case involving young children. In the past 10 years, however, a contrary view has emerged that the case was tainted by improper interviewing and was likely a false conviction. This is the first scholarly effort to assess the competing views of this case. Critics of this case advance three primary claims: (1) the positive STD test result from Frank Fuster’s son was unreliable; (2) highly suggestive interviewing produced the children’s claims; and (3) Frank Fuster’s wife, Ileana, was coerced into testifying against her husband. On close examination, all three claims prove to be false. This article documents the reasons why these claims constitute myths and why those findings are significant in the larger debate on children as witnesses.
CONCLUSIONS
Three major claims that have been advanced to challenge the conviction of Frank Fuster do not stand up to close factual scrutiny; they stand only as myths. As such, they inform us about our cultural fears and they alert us to our cultural blind spots. This is not an explication of all the evidence in the case. A longer version of this analysis, covering virtually every claim advanced at the trial and since, will be published as a chapter in a forthcoming book. This analysis covers enough of the evidence to generate a hypothesis about the previously unrecognized problem of disconfirmation bias. Ceci and Bruck (1995) “believe that the evolution of many of the mass-allegation day-care cases” are caused by the phenomenon of “interviewer’s bias,” also known as “confirmation bias” (p. 93). A close examination of the Country Walk case, however, reveals that a reverse kind of bias is apparently at work. Disconfirmation bias involves a selective examination of evidence with a predisposition toward the child-suggestibility defense.
The persistence of all three myths analyzed in this article seems to exemplify disconfirmation bias. These myths can be believed only by ignoring available evidence to the contrary. The exaggerated claim on error rates and STD testing can be uncovered by reading the sources cited in Whittington’s affidavit. So, too, the child-suggestibility defense can be debunked by reading the trial transcripts....
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, Vol. 16(3) 2007
doi:10.1300/J070v16n03_06 http://blogs.brown.edu/pols-1821t-2010fall-s01/files/2010/12/Country_Walk_Myths.pdf
Ugandans drum alarms to rescue abducted children
Mon Jun 23, 2014
By Rodney Muhumuza AP Writer
BUIKWE, Uganda — When a child goes missing in this central Ugandan district, villagers beat drums into a pulsing rhythm that sends rescuers scampering through bushes. Others, riding motorcycles, try to block exit routes.
In response to the kidnappings and ritual killings of children here, the traumatized community has created a rudimentary but effective abduction alert system that has saved at least two children so far this year.
Although the problem of children being killed as human sacrifices is reported in several parts of Uganda, Buikwe has gained notoriety recently as the country’s witchcraft capital. One in three households here keeps a shrine — a thatched hut in which so-called witchdoctors can be consulted — a frightening statistic that explains the prevalence of superstitious practices that threaten the lives of many children and even adults....
Eight children have been abducted and ritualistically killed in Buikwe this year, their mutilated bodies dumped in bushes and sugarcane plantations, according to local officials.
Across Uganda, at least 729 children were abducted in 2013, according to a Ugandan police report that also cited a 39 percent increase in crimes against children over the previous year..... http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/ugandans-drum-alarms-to-rescue-abducted-children/article_ddac5238-2ba8-512e-a0f8-9056ba3925c1.html
India’s ‘Temple Slaves’ Struggle to Break Free
By Stella Paul Tuesday, June 24, 2014
NIZAMABAD, India, Jun 22 2014 (IPS) - At 32, Nalluri Poshani looks like an old woman. Squatting on the floor amidst piles of tobacco and tree leaves that she expertly transforms into ‘beedis’, a local cigarette, she tells IPS, “I feel dizzy. The tobacco gives me headaches and nausea.”
At the rate of two dollars for 1,000 cigarettes, she earns about 36 dollars a month. “I wish I could do some other job,” the young woman says longingly.
But no other jobs are open to her in the village of Vellpoor, located in the Nizamabad region of the southern Indian state of Telangana, because Poshani is no ordinary woman.
She is a former jogini, which translates loosely as a ‘temple slave’, one of thousands of young Dalit girls who are dedicated at a very young age to the village deity named Yellamma, based on the belief that their presence in the local temple will ward off evil spirits and usher in prosperity for all.
Poshani says she was just five years old when she went through the dedication ritual.
First she was bathed, dressed like a bride, and taken to the temple where a priest tied a ‘thali’ (a sacred thread symbolising marriage) around her neck. She was then brought outside where crowds of villagers were gathered, held up to their scrutiny and proclaimed the new jogini.
For several years she simply lived and worked in the temple, but when she reached puberty men from the village – usually from higher castes who otherwise consider her ‘untouchable’ – would visit her in the night and have sex with her.
Poshani says she was never a sex worker in the typical sense of the word, because she was never properly paid for her ‘services’. Rather, she was bound, by the dedication ritual and the villagers’ firm belief in her supernatural powers, to the temple....
According to official records, there are an estimated 30,000 joginis – also known as devdasis or matammas – in Telangana today. An additional 20,000 live in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh..... http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/indias-temple-slaves-struggle-to-break-free/
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Child abuse 'has serious consequences for brain development', Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children
Child abuse 'has serious consequences for brain development'
Sunday 22 June 2014
A new study recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry has found an association between child abuse and the reduction of gray matter in the brain that is responsible for information processing.
Child abuse, also referred to as child maltreatment, describes all forms of physical and emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, negligence and any other exploitation that harms the health, development, dignity or survival of a child under the age of 18 years.
The World Health Organization (WHO) state that worldwide, around 20% of women and 5-10% of men report being sexually abused as children, while 23% of individuals report being physically abused during childhood....
The studies included 56 children or adolescents and 275 adults with a history of childhood abuse, as well as 56 children and 306 adults who had not been exposed to childhood maltreatment.
Using a 3D meta-analytical neuroimaging technique created by Radua - called "signed differential mapping" - the team was able to determine the volumes of gray matter in each individual.
They found that the individuals who had been exposed to childhood maltreatment had much smaller volumes of gray matter in certain brain areas, compared with those who had no history of child abuse....
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/278537.php
Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children
June 17, 2014 Tulane University
Summary:
Children in homes affected by violence, suicide, or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres -— a cellular marker of aging -- than those in stable households. The study suggests that the home environment is an important intervention target to reduce the biological impacts of adversity in the lives of young children.
Researchers discovered that children in homes affected by domestic violence, suicide or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres, which is a cellular marker of aging, than those in stable households. The findings are published online in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Telomeres are the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep them from shrinking when cells replicate. Shorter telomeres are linked to higher risks for heart disease, obesity, cognitive decline, diabetes, mental illness and poor health outcomes in adulthood. Researchers took genetic samples from 80 children ages 5 to 15 in New Orleans and interviewed parents about their home environments and exposures to adverse life events.
"Family-level stressors, such as witnessing a family member get hurt, created an environment that affected the DNA within the cells of the children," said lead author Dr. Stacy Drury, director of the Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Laboratory at Tulane. "The greater the number of exposures these kids had in life, the shorter their telomeres were -- and this was after controlling for many other factors, including socioeconomic status, maternal education, parental age and the child's age."
S. S. Drury, E. Mabile, Z. H. Brett, K. Esteves, E. Jones, E. A. Shirtcliff, K. P. Theall. The Association of Telomere Length With Family Violence and Disruption. PEDIATRICS, 2014; 134 (1): e128 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-3415
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140617102505.htm
The Association of Telomere Length With Family Violence and Disruption
Stacy S. Drury, MD, PhDa,
Emily Mabile, BAb,
Zoë H. Brett, PhDa,
Kyle Esteves, BAa,
Edward Jones, BAa,
Elizabeth A. Shirtcliff, PhDc, and
Katherine P. Theall, PhDb
....RESULTS: Cumulative exposure to interpersonal violence and family disruption was correlated with bTL. Controlling for other sociodemographic factors, bTL was significantly shorter in children with higher exposure to family violence and disruption. Witnessing family violence exerted a particularly potent impact. A significant gender interaction was found (ß = -0.0086, SE = 0.0031, z test= -2.79, P = .0053) and analysis revealed the effect only in girls.
CONCLUSIONS: bTL is a molecular biomarker of adversity and allostatic load that is detectable in childhood. The present results extend previous studies by demonstrating that telomeres are sensitive to adversity within the overarching family domain. These findings suggest that the family ecology may be an important target for interventions to reduce the biological impact of adversity in the lives of children.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/06/10/peds.2013-3415
Sunday 22 June 2014
A new study recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry has found an association between child abuse and the reduction of gray matter in the brain that is responsible for information processing.
Child abuse, also referred to as child maltreatment, describes all forms of physical and emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, negligence and any other exploitation that harms the health, development, dignity or survival of a child under the age of 18 years.
The World Health Organization (WHO) state that worldwide, around 20% of women and 5-10% of men report being sexually abused as children, while 23% of individuals report being physically abused during childhood....
The studies included 56 children or adolescents and 275 adults with a history of childhood abuse, as well as 56 children and 306 adults who had not been exposed to childhood maltreatment.
Using a 3D meta-analytical neuroimaging technique created by Radua - called "signed differential mapping" - the team was able to determine the volumes of gray matter in each individual.
They found that the individuals who had been exposed to childhood maltreatment had much smaller volumes of gray matter in certain brain areas, compared with those who had no history of child abuse....
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/278537.php
Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children
June 17, 2014 Tulane University
Summary:
Children in homes affected by violence, suicide, or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres -— a cellular marker of aging -- than those in stable households. The study suggests that the home environment is an important intervention target to reduce the biological impacts of adversity in the lives of young children.
Researchers discovered that children in homes affected by domestic violence, suicide or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres, which is a cellular marker of aging, than those in stable households. The findings are published online in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Telomeres are the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep them from shrinking when cells replicate. Shorter telomeres are linked to higher risks for heart disease, obesity, cognitive decline, diabetes, mental illness and poor health outcomes in adulthood. Researchers took genetic samples from 80 children ages 5 to 15 in New Orleans and interviewed parents about their home environments and exposures to adverse life events.
"Family-level stressors, such as witnessing a family member get hurt, created an environment that affected the DNA within the cells of the children," said lead author Dr. Stacy Drury, director of the Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Laboratory at Tulane. "The greater the number of exposures these kids had in life, the shorter their telomeres were -- and this was after controlling for many other factors, including socioeconomic status, maternal education, parental age and the child's age."
S. S. Drury, E. Mabile, Z. H. Brett, K. Esteves, E. Jones, E. A. Shirtcliff, K. P. Theall. The Association of Telomere Length With Family Violence and Disruption. PEDIATRICS, 2014; 134 (1): e128 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-3415
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140617102505.htm
The Association of Telomere Length With Family Violence and Disruption
Stacy S. Drury, MD, PhDa,
Emily Mabile, BAb,
Zoë H. Brett, PhDa,
Kyle Esteves, BAa,
Edward Jones, BAa,
Elizabeth A. Shirtcliff, PhDc, and
Katherine P. Theall, PhDb
....RESULTS: Cumulative exposure to interpersonal violence and family disruption was correlated with bTL. Controlling for other sociodemographic factors, bTL was significantly shorter in children with higher exposure to family violence and disruption. Witnessing family violence exerted a particularly potent impact. A significant gender interaction was found (ß = -0.0086, SE = 0.0031, z test= -2.79, P = .0053) and analysis revealed the effect only in girls.
CONCLUSIONS: bTL is a molecular biomarker of adversity and allostatic load that is detectable in childhood. The present results extend previous studies by demonstrating that telomeres are sensitive to adversity within the overarching family domain. These findings suggest that the family ecology may be an important target for interventions to reduce the biological impact of adversity in the lives of children.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/06/10/peds.2013-3415
Friday, June 20, 2014
Review of Penn State child-abuse probe. Dark net 'used by tens of thousands of paedophiles', Anti-paedophile police fight child porn 'epidemic', Pakistani woman raped, killed and hanged from tree: police, Indian Village Feels Aftershocks of Rape
- Review of Penn State child-abuse probe to be issued on Monday
- Dark net 'used by tens of thousands of paedophiles'
- Paedophile use of dark net increases for child abuse images
- Anti-paedophile police fight child porn 'epidemic'
- Pakistani woman raped, killed and hanged from tree: police
- Indian Village Feels Aftershocks of Rape
Review of Penn State child-abuse probe to be issued on Monday
Reuters 6/20/14
(Reuters) - A long-awaited probe into the investigation of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing children, will be released early next week, Pennsylvania authorities said on Friday.
Sandusky, the once-legendary assistant football coach, was convicted in 2012 of abusing 10 boys from 1994 to 2009, some in the Penn State showers, and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison. In 2013, the school agreed to pay $59.7 million to the victims.
The report, prepared by former federal prosecutor H. Geoffrey Moulton Jr. at the request of state Attorney General Kathleen Kane, will be released at a news conference on Monday, the attorney general's office said in a statement....
http://news.yahoo.com/review-penn-state-child-abuse-probe-issued-monday-171146715--spt.html
Dark net 'used by tens of thousands of paedophiles'
By Angus Crawford BBC News 19 June 2014
Tens of thousands of paedophiles are using the so-called dark net to trade images of sexual abuse, an investigation by BBC News indicates.
One site receives as many as 500 page views per second, its founder says.
Figures from another site suggest Brits are heavily involved in producing and distributing illegal obscene images.
Britain's National Crime Agency warned in its 2014 threat assessment that abusers were turning to anonymous sites and encryption technology.
The dark net is the term used to refer to parts of the internet that are hidden and can be hard to access without special software.
One of the most popular products used to access such areas is called the TorBrowser....
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27885502
Paedophile use of dark net increases for child abuse images
By Barclay Ballard 6/20/14
Tens of thousands of paedophiles are using the dark net to circulate images of sexual abuse, according to a report by the BBC.
The National Crime Agency said that abusers were increasingly turning to encryption software to maintain anonymity. The dark net is a hidden part of the Internet which can only be accessed by special software, one of the most popular of which is the TorBrowser.
This enables people to use Tor, an "onion-routing" system, which bounces encrypted data through several randomly selected servers on the network, making a PC's net address untraceable....
During the BBC investigation, the broadcaster contacted an active paedophile who ran one of the illegal chat rooms, until it closed in May 2014.
"We had over 40,000 user accounts on the site. We used to get sometimes 500 page views per second. My own collection is 12 gigabytes", he said....
http://betanews.com/2014/06/20/paedophile-use-of-dark-net-increases-for-child-abuse-images/
Anti-paedophile police fight child porn 'epidemic'
By Angus Crawford BBC News 18 June 2014
The internet trade in images that show child sex abuse is now "an epidemic", according to the head of the global initiative to combat the problem.
Police officers from around the world serve on the Virtual Global Taskforce.
Its chairman, Ian Quinn, tells the BBC there has been an "explosion" in cases handled by US authorities.
The US alone has 61 Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) units, each made up of state, local police and federal agents....
Online images accumulate
In 2002 the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reviewed and confirmed 45,055 examples of obscene images of children found online (some of these were duplicates)
In 2013 the figure had grown to 23,881,197
As of May 2014, the centre had reviewed 112 million files containing images of child sexual abuse....
Predator detentions
In 2003, 339 arrests were made worldwide in connection with Operation Predator
In 2013, the number had grown to 2,099
To date, the total number of arrests linked to the operation totals 10,608....
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27872401
Pakistani woman raped, killed and hanged from tree: police
Reuters 6/20/14
MULTAN Pakistan (Reuters) - A 20-year-old woman has been gang-raped, killed and hanged from a tree in Pakistan in a case with a chilling resemblance to a double rape and murder that caused outrage in neighbouring India last month.
Pakistani police said Muzammil Bibi, 20, was attacked by three men in a field in the impoverished Layyah area of densely populated Punjab province....
http://news.yahoo.com/pakistani-woman-raped-killed-hanged-tree-police-163615646.html
Indian Village Feels Aftershocks of Rape
Politicians Visit Hamlet of Two Girls Killed Last Week as Families Recall 'Best Friends,' Their Final Walk to the Chili Field
By Jesse Pesta and Krishna Pokharel June 1, 2014
KATARA SADATGANJ, India—VIPs swept into this isolated village over the weekend as outrage rippled through India and beyond over the country's latest case of violent sexual abuse.
Two girls were allegedly raped and then hanged from a mango tree here last week. After a photo of the dead girls circled the globe, some of India's most prominent politicians came to this hamlet of mud-and-brick huts, while the murders have reinvigorated calls for India to address the persistent problem of violence against women.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/indian-village-feels-aftershocks-of-rape-1401669669
- Dark net 'used by tens of thousands of paedophiles'
- Paedophile use of dark net increases for child abuse images
- Anti-paedophile police fight child porn 'epidemic'
- Pakistani woman raped, killed and hanged from tree: police
- Indian Village Feels Aftershocks of Rape
Review of Penn State child-abuse probe to be issued on Monday
Reuters 6/20/14
(Reuters) - A long-awaited probe into the investigation of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing children, will be released early next week, Pennsylvania authorities said on Friday.
Sandusky, the once-legendary assistant football coach, was convicted in 2012 of abusing 10 boys from 1994 to 2009, some in the Penn State showers, and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison. In 2013, the school agreed to pay $59.7 million to the victims.
The report, prepared by former federal prosecutor H. Geoffrey Moulton Jr. at the request of state Attorney General Kathleen Kane, will be released at a news conference on Monday, the attorney general's office said in a statement....
http://news.yahoo.com/review-penn-state-child-abuse-probe-issued-monday-171146715--spt.html
Dark net 'used by tens of thousands of paedophiles'
By Angus Crawford BBC News 19 June 2014
Tens of thousands of paedophiles are using the so-called dark net to trade images of sexual abuse, an investigation by BBC News indicates.
One site receives as many as 500 page views per second, its founder says.
Figures from another site suggest Brits are heavily involved in producing and distributing illegal obscene images.
Britain's National Crime Agency warned in its 2014 threat assessment that abusers were turning to anonymous sites and encryption technology.
The dark net is the term used to refer to parts of the internet that are hidden and can be hard to access without special software.
One of the most popular products used to access such areas is called the TorBrowser....
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27885502
Paedophile use of dark net increases for child abuse images
By Barclay Ballard 6/20/14
Tens of thousands of paedophiles are using the dark net to circulate images of sexual abuse, according to a report by the BBC.
The National Crime Agency said that abusers were increasingly turning to encryption software to maintain anonymity. The dark net is a hidden part of the Internet which can only be accessed by special software, one of the most popular of which is the TorBrowser.
This enables people to use Tor, an "onion-routing" system, which bounces encrypted data through several randomly selected servers on the network, making a PC's net address untraceable....
During the BBC investigation, the broadcaster contacted an active paedophile who ran one of the illegal chat rooms, until it closed in May 2014.
"We had over 40,000 user accounts on the site. We used to get sometimes 500 page views per second. My own collection is 12 gigabytes", he said....
http://betanews.com/2014/06/20/paedophile-use-of-dark-net-increases-for-child-abuse-images/
Anti-paedophile police fight child porn 'epidemic'
By Angus Crawford BBC News 18 June 2014
The internet trade in images that show child sex abuse is now "an epidemic", according to the head of the global initiative to combat the problem.
Police officers from around the world serve on the Virtual Global Taskforce.
Its chairman, Ian Quinn, tells the BBC there has been an "explosion" in cases handled by US authorities.
The US alone has 61 Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) units, each made up of state, local police and federal agents....
Online images accumulate
In 2002 the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reviewed and confirmed 45,055 examples of obscene images of children found online (some of these were duplicates)
In 2013 the figure had grown to 23,881,197
As of May 2014, the centre had reviewed 112 million files containing images of child sexual abuse....
Predator detentions
In 2003, 339 arrests were made worldwide in connection with Operation Predator
In 2013, the number had grown to 2,099
To date, the total number of arrests linked to the operation totals 10,608....
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27872401
Pakistani woman raped, killed and hanged from tree: police
Reuters 6/20/14
MULTAN Pakistan (Reuters) - A 20-year-old woman has been gang-raped, killed and hanged from a tree in Pakistan in a case with a chilling resemblance to a double rape and murder that caused outrage in neighbouring India last month.
Pakistani police said Muzammil Bibi, 20, was attacked by three men in a field in the impoverished Layyah area of densely populated Punjab province....
http://news.yahoo.com/pakistani-woman-raped-killed-hanged-tree-police-163615646.html
Indian Village Feels Aftershocks of Rape
Politicians Visit Hamlet of Two Girls Killed Last Week as Families Recall 'Best Friends,' Their Final Walk to the Chili Field
By Jesse Pesta and Krishna Pokharel June 1, 2014
KATARA SADATGANJ, India—VIPs swept into this isolated village over the weekend as outrage rippled through India and beyond over the country's latest case of violent sexual abuse.
Two girls were allegedly raped and then hanged from a mango tree here last week. After a photo of the dead girls circled the globe, some of India's most prominent politicians came to this hamlet of mud-and-brick huts, while the murders have reinvigorated calls for India to address the persistent problem of violence against women.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/indian-village-feels-aftershocks-of-rape-1401669669
Thursday, June 19, 2014
UN warns Britain over child voodoo victims, sex tourists, DA's child abuse detectives, police conduct countywide child pornography sweep in Berks
UN warns Britain over child voodoo victims, sex tourists
Agence France-Presse June 19, 2014
Hundreds of children are believed to have been kidnapped in Africa and brought to Britain for brutal voodoo rituals, a UN watchdog said Thursday, urging London to step up its fight against the scourge.
"We're concerned about reports that hundreds of children have been abducted from their families in Africa and trafficked to the UK, especially London, for religious rituals," said Kristen Sandberg, head of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
"They are used in so-called voodoo rituals, and are also raped and sexually abused. The number of convictions is extremely low," said the former Norwegian supreme court judge.
British police are reported to have recorded scores of cases over the past decade of children who have faced torture and abuse as part of witchcraft rituals....
Sandberg said child trafficking for rituals was part of a wider problem, with thousands of minors brought into Britain every year for sexual exploitation and labour.
The UN committee is made of up 18 independent experts who monitor the implementation of international children's rights treaties.
It held a hearing with British officials last month.
In its conclusions on that session, released Thursday, it said Britain should "strengthen the capacity of law-enforcement authorities and judiciary to detect and prosecute trafficking of children for labour, sexual and other forms of exploitation, including for religious rituals"....
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140619/un-warns-britain-over-child-voodoo-victims-sex-tourists-0
DA's child abuse detectives, police conduct countywide child pornography sweep in Berks Liz Kilmer, Reporter Jun 19 2014
READING, Pa. - A respected brain surgeon was among the group of 12 men and one teenager arrested Thursday in a child pornography sweep across Berks County. "Possessing images of child sexual abuse is a heinous crime and will not be tolerated in Berks County," said District Attorney John Adams.
....All 13 individuals were charged with sexual abuse of children (dissemination of photographs, videotapes, computer depictions and films) and sexual abuse of children (possession of child pornography).
http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-berks/das-child-abuse-detectives-police-conduct-countywide-child-pornography-sweep-in-berks/26567598
Agence France-Presse June 19, 2014
Hundreds of children are believed to have been kidnapped in Africa and brought to Britain for brutal voodoo rituals, a UN watchdog said Thursday, urging London to step up its fight against the scourge.
"We're concerned about reports that hundreds of children have been abducted from their families in Africa and trafficked to the UK, especially London, for religious rituals," said Kristen Sandberg, head of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
"They are used in so-called voodoo rituals, and are also raped and sexually abused. The number of convictions is extremely low," said the former Norwegian supreme court judge.
British police are reported to have recorded scores of cases over the past decade of children who have faced torture and abuse as part of witchcraft rituals....
Sandberg said child trafficking for rituals was part of a wider problem, with thousands of minors brought into Britain every year for sexual exploitation and labour.
The UN committee is made of up 18 independent experts who monitor the implementation of international children's rights treaties.
It held a hearing with British officials last month.
In its conclusions on that session, released Thursday, it said Britain should "strengthen the capacity of law-enforcement authorities and judiciary to detect and prosecute trafficking of children for labour, sexual and other forms of exploitation, including for religious rituals"....
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140619/un-warns-britain-over-child-voodoo-victims-sex-tourists-0
DA's child abuse detectives, police conduct countywide child pornography sweep in Berks Liz Kilmer, Reporter Jun 19 2014
READING, Pa. - A respected brain surgeon was among the group of 12 men and one teenager arrested Thursday in a child pornography sweep across Berks County. "Possessing images of child sexual abuse is a heinous crime and will not be tolerated in Berks County," said District Attorney John Adams.
....All 13 individuals were charged with sexual abuse of children (dissemination of photographs, videotapes, computer depictions and films) and sexual abuse of children (possession of child pornography).
http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-berks/das-child-abuse-detectives-police-conduct-countywide-child-pornography-sweep-in-berks/26567598
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
'Satanic' murder teens back in court, Prosecutors Rarely Bring Charges In College Rape Cases, Long-forgotten rape evidence, The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
- 'Satanic' murder teens back in court
- Prosecutors Rarely Bring Charges In College Rape Cases
- The “Justice Gap” for Sexual Assault Cases
- Long-forgotten rape evidence finally reveals its clues in Northern Virginia lab
- Amy’s Letter Supporting The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
- The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act
- Text of the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
'Satanic' murder teens back in court
South Africa Wednesday 18 June 2014
SOWETO - Two teenage boys accused of murdering two Soweto schoolgirls will appear in the Protea magistrate's court on Wednesday.
....The girls were found dead in a field in Dobsonville, Soweto, in February.
They were both wearing George Khoza Secondary School uniforms and had cuts on their hands and necks.
Three black candles and two razor blades were found at the scene, leading to speculation that the murders were related to a satanic ritual.
-Sapa http://www.enca.com/satanic-murder-teens-back-court
Prosecutors Rarely Bring Charges In College Rape Cases
Tyler Kingkade 06/17/2014
....Amid recent accusations that colleges are mishandling reports of sexual assault on campuses, like Reed's case against the University of Southern California, observers have questioned why colleges are tasked with handling these cases in the first place. They often argue that felony crimes such as these should be left entirely to the criminal justice system -- but such arguments assume that the guilty are more likely to be punished under that system, which is rarely the case.
Although roughly 1 in 6 women nationwide are victims of sexual assault -- with the rate being higher for women in college, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey -- rapists often escape jail time. Only between 8 percent and 37 percent of rapes ever lead to prosecution, according to research funded by the Department of Justice, and just 3 percent to 18 percent of sexual assaults lead to a conviction.
Multiple self-identified sexual assault victims that HuffPost spoke with, in states like California, Colorado, Montana, Massachusetts and New York, said they attempted to press charges against their assailants, some claiming they had confessions, but local prosecutors declined.
....The reality is the criminal justice system often decides against prosecuting cases of acquaintance rape and date rape. Once a case reaches prosecutors, there's no guarantee of a conviction, let alone a trial or full prosecution. An analysis of the National Violence Against Women Survey by the group End Violence Against Women International concluded that roughly 5 percent of rapes are ever prosecuted. (The analysis sought to account for the underreporting of sexual assault, which resulted in numbers lower than the DOJ's estimates.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/college-rape-prosecutors-press-charges_n_5500432.html
The “Justice Gap” for Sexual Assault Cases: Future Directions for
Research and Reform Kimberly A. Lonsway and Joanne Archambault
Abstract
Media coverage often reports “good” news about the criminal justice system’s ability to effectively respond to sexual assault, concluding that the past two decades have seen an increase in rape reporting, prosecution, and conviction. The objective of this article is to examine the validity of such conclusions by critically reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of various data sources and comparing the statistics they produce. These statistics include estimates for sexual assault reporting rates and case outcomes in the criminal justice system. We conclude that such pronouncements are not currently supported by statistical evidence, and we outline some directions for future research
and reform efforts to make the “good news” a reality in the United States.
Violence Against Women 18(2) 145–168
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1077801212440017
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Justice-Gap-paper.pdf
Long-forgotten rape evidence finally reveals its clues in Northern Virginia lab
By Monica Hesse June 16
....The problem is a backlog of untested rape kits, tens of thousands of them, each representing an alleged assault. In every case, evidence was collected from victims after their attacks, but it was never analyzed. Instead it sat on shelves for years, even decades.
There is no federal law requiring rape kits to be tested or tracked, and only a handful of states have enacted their own legislation. Staffing and money shortages have contributed to the backlog; a single kit can cost more than $1,000 to process. Sometimes, if a victim had already identified her attacker, police might not have processed her kit — though it could have contained DNA linking the assailant to other unsolved crimes.
Whatever the reasons, the backlog kept growing as kits were overlooked, ignored and forgotten. Recently, as attention on the issue has increased, that has begun to change. Twelve hundred kits were uncovered in Colorado Springs. Four thousand in Dallas. Twelve thousand in Memphis. And 6,600 in Houston, 5,000 of which were processed last year by Bode, one of several private companies contracting with local jurisdictions in a kit-by-kit effort to bring the backlog down to zero.
....Testing in other jurisdictions has yielded results: New York’s arrest rate for sexual assaults went from 40 percent to 70 percent after its backlog was cleared. When Detroit tested 1,600 of its backlogged kits, the city came back with 127 potential serial rapists, according to the Joyful Heart Foundation, which advocates on issues related to the backlog.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/long-forgotten-rape-evidence-finally-reveals-its-clues-in-northern-virginia-lab/2014/06/16/e4aa1aea-d538-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html
Amy’s Letter Supporting The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
“I am writing today to give my support to the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014. It is very important that this law get passed as soon as possible.”
“The past eight years of my life have been filled with hope and horror. Life was pretty horrible when I realized that the pictures of my childhood sex abuse were on the Internet for anyone and everyone to see. Imagine the worst most humiliating moments of your life captured for everyone to see forever. Then imagine that as a child you didn’t even really know what was happening to you and you didn’t want it to happen but you couldn’t stop it. You were abused, raped, and hurt and this is something that other people want. They enjoy it. They can’t stop collecting it and asking for it and trading it with other people. And it’s you. It’s your life and your pain that they are enjoying. And it never stops and you are helpless to do anything ever to stop it. That’s horror.”
....“Then we started having problems with the restitution law. Judges sometimes gave me just $100 and sometimes nothing at all. A few judges really got it, like when I was at the Fifth Circuit oral argument two years ago and the judges agreed that the child sex abuse images of me really do cause ongoing and long-term harm. The article by Emily Bazelon in the New York Times also really helped to tell my story so that people can understand what it’s like to live with child pornography every day of your life. I was really happy to discover recently that her article received honorable mention in a contest recognizing excellence in journalism.”
....“My hope turned to horror when the (Supreme) Court decided two weeks ago that restitution was impossible for victims like me and Vicky and so many others. I couldn’t believe that something which is called mandatory restitution (twice) was so hard to figure out. It just seemed like something somewhere was missing. Why, if so many people are committing this serious crime, why are the victims of that crime, who are and were children after all, left out? The Court’s decision was even worse than getting no restitution at all. It was sort of like getting negative restitution. It was a horrible day.”
“This is why I am so happy, and hopeful, that Congress can fix this problem once and for all. Maybe if they put mandatory in the law for a third time judges will get it that restitution really really really must be given to victims! After all this time and all the hearings and appeals and the Supreme Court, I definitely agree that restitution needs improvement and hopefully this bill, the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Restitution Improvement Act of 2014, can finally make restitution happen for all victims of this horrible crime.”....
http://www.childlaw.us/amys-letter-supporting-the-amy-and-vicky-child-pornography-victim-restitution-improvement-act-of-2014/
The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act
....The Amy and Vicky Act creates an effective, balanced restitution process
for victims of child pornography that also responds to the Supreme Court’s decision in Paroline v. United States. It does three things that reflect the nature of these crimes. First, it considers the total harm to the victim, including from individuals who may not yet have been identified. Second, it requires real and timely restitution. Third, it allows defendants who have contributed to the same victim’s harm to spread the restitution cost among themselves....
http://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/457b1bfb-0c61-4325-ba97-119d07182904/Amy%20and%20Vicky%20Act%20one-pager.pdf
Text of the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
This bill was assigned to a congressional committee on May 7, 2014, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole. The text of the bill below is as of May 07, 2014 (Introduced).
S. 2301 Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2301/text
- Prosecutors Rarely Bring Charges In College Rape Cases
- The “Justice Gap” for Sexual Assault Cases
- Long-forgotten rape evidence finally reveals its clues in Northern Virginia lab
- Amy’s Letter Supporting The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
- The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act
- Text of the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
'Satanic' murder teens back in court
South Africa Wednesday 18 June 2014
SOWETO - Two teenage boys accused of murdering two Soweto schoolgirls will appear in the Protea magistrate's court on Wednesday.
....The girls were found dead in a field in Dobsonville, Soweto, in February.
They were both wearing George Khoza Secondary School uniforms and had cuts on their hands and necks.
Three black candles and two razor blades were found at the scene, leading to speculation that the murders were related to a satanic ritual.
-Sapa http://www.enca.com/satanic-murder-teens-back-court
Prosecutors Rarely Bring Charges In College Rape Cases
Tyler Kingkade 06/17/2014
....Amid recent accusations that colleges are mishandling reports of sexual assault on campuses, like Reed's case against the University of Southern California, observers have questioned why colleges are tasked with handling these cases in the first place. They often argue that felony crimes such as these should be left entirely to the criminal justice system -- but such arguments assume that the guilty are more likely to be punished under that system, which is rarely the case.
Although roughly 1 in 6 women nationwide are victims of sexual assault -- with the rate being higher for women in college, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey -- rapists often escape jail time. Only between 8 percent and 37 percent of rapes ever lead to prosecution, according to research funded by the Department of Justice, and just 3 percent to 18 percent of sexual assaults lead to a conviction.
Multiple self-identified sexual assault victims that HuffPost spoke with, in states like California, Colorado, Montana, Massachusetts and New York, said they attempted to press charges against their assailants, some claiming they had confessions, but local prosecutors declined.
....The reality is the criminal justice system often decides against prosecuting cases of acquaintance rape and date rape. Once a case reaches prosecutors, there's no guarantee of a conviction, let alone a trial or full prosecution. An analysis of the National Violence Against Women Survey by the group End Violence Against Women International concluded that roughly 5 percent of rapes are ever prosecuted. (The analysis sought to account for the underreporting of sexual assault, which resulted in numbers lower than the DOJ's estimates.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/college-rape-prosecutors-press-charges_n_5500432.html
The “Justice Gap” for Sexual Assault Cases: Future Directions for
Research and Reform Kimberly A. Lonsway and Joanne Archambault
Abstract
Media coverage often reports “good” news about the criminal justice system’s ability to effectively respond to sexual assault, concluding that the past two decades have seen an increase in rape reporting, prosecution, and conviction. The objective of this article is to examine the validity of such conclusions by critically reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of various data sources and comparing the statistics they produce. These statistics include estimates for sexual assault reporting rates and case outcomes in the criminal justice system. We conclude that such pronouncements are not currently supported by statistical evidence, and we outline some directions for future research
and reform efforts to make the “good news” a reality in the United States.
Violence Against Women 18(2) 145–168
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1077801212440017
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Justice-Gap-paper.pdf
Long-forgotten rape evidence finally reveals its clues in Northern Virginia lab
By Monica Hesse June 16
....The problem is a backlog of untested rape kits, tens of thousands of them, each representing an alleged assault. In every case, evidence was collected from victims after their attacks, but it was never analyzed. Instead it sat on shelves for years, even decades.
There is no federal law requiring rape kits to be tested or tracked, and only a handful of states have enacted their own legislation. Staffing and money shortages have contributed to the backlog; a single kit can cost more than $1,000 to process. Sometimes, if a victim had already identified her attacker, police might not have processed her kit — though it could have contained DNA linking the assailant to other unsolved crimes.
Whatever the reasons, the backlog kept growing as kits were overlooked, ignored and forgotten. Recently, as attention on the issue has increased, that has begun to change. Twelve hundred kits were uncovered in Colorado Springs. Four thousand in Dallas. Twelve thousand in Memphis. And 6,600 in Houston, 5,000 of which were processed last year by Bode, one of several private companies contracting with local jurisdictions in a kit-by-kit effort to bring the backlog down to zero.
....Testing in other jurisdictions has yielded results: New York’s arrest rate for sexual assaults went from 40 percent to 70 percent after its backlog was cleared. When Detroit tested 1,600 of its backlogged kits, the city came back with 127 potential serial rapists, according to the Joyful Heart Foundation, which advocates on issues related to the backlog.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/long-forgotten-rape-evidence-finally-reveals-its-clues-in-northern-virginia-lab/2014/06/16/e4aa1aea-d538-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html
Amy’s Letter Supporting The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
“I am writing today to give my support to the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014. It is very important that this law get passed as soon as possible.”
“The past eight years of my life have been filled with hope and horror. Life was pretty horrible when I realized that the pictures of my childhood sex abuse were on the Internet for anyone and everyone to see. Imagine the worst most humiliating moments of your life captured for everyone to see forever. Then imagine that as a child you didn’t even really know what was happening to you and you didn’t want it to happen but you couldn’t stop it. You were abused, raped, and hurt and this is something that other people want. They enjoy it. They can’t stop collecting it and asking for it and trading it with other people. And it’s you. It’s your life and your pain that they are enjoying. And it never stops and you are helpless to do anything ever to stop it. That’s horror.”
....“Then we started having problems with the restitution law. Judges sometimes gave me just $100 and sometimes nothing at all. A few judges really got it, like when I was at the Fifth Circuit oral argument two years ago and the judges agreed that the child sex abuse images of me really do cause ongoing and long-term harm. The article by Emily Bazelon in the New York Times also really helped to tell my story so that people can understand what it’s like to live with child pornography every day of your life. I was really happy to discover recently that her article received honorable mention in a contest recognizing excellence in journalism.”
....“My hope turned to horror when the (Supreme) Court decided two weeks ago that restitution was impossible for victims like me and Vicky and so many others. I couldn’t believe that something which is called mandatory restitution (twice) was so hard to figure out. It just seemed like something somewhere was missing. Why, if so many people are committing this serious crime, why are the victims of that crime, who are and were children after all, left out? The Court’s decision was even worse than getting no restitution at all. It was sort of like getting negative restitution. It was a horrible day.”
“This is why I am so happy, and hopeful, that Congress can fix this problem once and for all. Maybe if they put mandatory in the law for a third time judges will get it that restitution really really really must be given to victims! After all this time and all the hearings and appeals and the Supreme Court, I definitely agree that restitution needs improvement and hopefully this bill, the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Restitution Improvement Act of 2014, can finally make restitution happen for all victims of this horrible crime.”....
http://www.childlaw.us/amys-letter-supporting-the-amy-and-vicky-child-pornography-victim-restitution-improvement-act-of-2014/
The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act
....The Amy and Vicky Act creates an effective, balanced restitution process
for victims of child pornography that also responds to the Supreme Court’s decision in Paroline v. United States. It does three things that reflect the nature of these crimes. First, it considers the total harm to the victim, including from individuals who may not yet have been identified. Second, it requires real and timely restitution. Third, it allows defendants who have contributed to the same victim’s harm to spread the restitution cost among themselves....
http://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/457b1bfb-0c61-4325-ba97-119d07182904/Amy%20and%20Vicky%20Act%20one-pager.pdf
Text of the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
This bill was assigned to a congressional committee on May 7, 2014, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole. The text of the bill below is as of May 07, 2014 (Introduced).
S. 2301 Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act of 2014
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2301/text
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
'Satanist' arrested for ritual murder in square, Death records for 796 children at Tuam home published in full
Death records for 796 children at Tuam home published in full
Sheila Langan June 17,2014
The names, ages, and causes of death of all 796 children who died at St. Mary’s Home, in Tuam, Co. Galway from 1925 to 1960 have been published in full, below.
The list is long, and reading it is a horrifying, heartbreaking experience – though nowhere near as horrifying as the short lives of the children who died, or as heartbreaking as the sheer number of lost little lives.
When she began her research, Catherine Corless, the local historian who set out to uncover the truth about the bones buried at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home, had no idea the number of deaths would be that high....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Death-records-for-796-children-at-Tuam-home-published-in-full.html
'Satanist' arrested for ritual murder in square
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Associated Press
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek police say they have arrested a self-described Satanist suspected of ritually killing a homeless woman in an Athens public square and planning a second murder for this weekend's summer solstice.
A police statement Tuesday said the 22-year-old Greek suspect confessed to killing the woman with a heavy stone during a pre-dawn "ritual Satanist ceremony" in the seaside Glyfada suburb.
The 41-year-old woman was found dead on April 20, Orthodox Easter Sunday, with severe head injuries. A nearby bench had been daubed in blood with Satanist insignia.
The statement said the suspect was arrested Monday, also in Glyfada. It said police identified him by references to the killing on social media, DNA analysis and a fingerprint on a plastic bag containing the murder weapon, found in a nearby bin.
http://www.moultonadvertiser.com/news/national/article_f42fe80d-681d-52ab-91fb-43408e47e294.html
‘Satanist’ arrested for ritual murder in square
By Associated Press June 17
ATHENS, Greece — A self-described Satanist has been arrested in Greece on suspicion of ritually killing a homeless woman in an Athens public square and planning a second murder for this weekend’s summer solstice, police said Tuesday.
A police statement said the 22-year-old Greek suspect confessed to killing the woman with a heavy stone during a pre-dawn “ritual Satanist ceremony” in the seaside Glyfada suburb.
Police said the suspect had been working alone, and did not appear to be linked with any organized group....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/satanist-arrested-for-ritual-murder-in-square/2014/06/17/b422e15c-f62d-11e3-afdf-f7ffea8c744a_story.html
S.M.A.R.T. Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today Child Abuse Newsletter
S.M.A.R.T. (Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today) child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter was founded in 1995. The purpose of S.M.A.R.T. is to help stop ritual abuse and child abuse and to help those who have been ritually abused. We work toward this goal by disseminating information on the connections between secretive organizations, ritual abuse, and mind control, by encouraging healing from the damage done by child abuse, ritual abuse and mind control. We have a web site, a bimonthly newsletter, an e-mail discussion list and annual conferences. Our webpage contains a large amount of data and evidence about child abuse and ritual abuse. We respond to skeptics and those that attack our work at our website https://ritualabuse.us .
Proof That Ritual Abuse Exists
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/
Large List of Ritual Abuse References
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/studies/satanic-ritual-abuse-evidence-with-information-on-the-mcmartin-preschool-case/
Monday, June 16, 2014
Celebrities Join the Fight to Stop Rape as a Weapon of War, Despite tougher laws, India can’t shake rape culture
Celebrities Join the Fight to Stop Rape as a Weapon of War
By Janine di Giovanni 6/16/14
....“War zone rape thrives on silence,” Jolie said in her opening remarks, and Hague agrees: Sexual crimes should not be shameful. “It’s about waking people up,” he told Newsweek. “Despite all the communications within the modern age, these crimes have taken place on a vast scale without the world noticing. And that now is changing.”
....Five years after the Sri Lankan government defeated the Tamil Tigers, human rights groups report continued abductions, torture, rapes and other sexual violence against both men and women of the Tamil minority.
“For all intents and purposes, the war has not finished,” insists Frances Harrison, author of Still Counting the Dead, a brutal account of the Sri Lankan conflict. “Especially for young men and women who had association with the rebels, they are still being abducted, hunted down. It’s a mopping up operation five years on.”
Harrison says the Sri Lankan government—which is not considered a pariah state, despite its persistent human rights violations—“are using very sophisticated intelligence methods like facial-recognition software, as well as hooded informers who nod when they identify somebody.” ....
http://www.newsweek.com/celebrities-join-fight-stop-rape-weapon-war-255054
Despite tougher laws, India can’t shake rape culture
Mandakini Gahlot USA Today Jun 16, 2014
NEW DELHI (RNS) Despite tougher laws against sexual violence, the grisly rape and murder of two teenage girls found hanging from a tree shows India has a long way to go to safeguard women in its male-dominated, socially stratified culture, critics say.
Protestors rally outside Sufdarjung Hospital in 2012 while seeking justice for a gang rape victim. Despite recent reform to toughen India's sexual violence laws, India's male-dominated and socially stratified culture isn't helping solve the problem, critics say.
Protestors rally outside Sufdarjung Hospital in 2012 while seeking justice for a gang rape victim. Despite recent reform to toughen India’s sexual violence laws, India’s male-dominated and socially stratified culture isn’t helping solve the problem, critics say.
“Even though the laws are there, many people feel they can get away with anything, an attitude that some of our politicians have gone out their way to encourage,” said Ranjana Kumari, a prominent women’s rights activist and director of the Centre for Social Research in New Delhi.
The incident in Katra Sadatganj, an impoverished village in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is just the latest in a string of attacks. At least two other rape cases were reported in the past two weeks in the same state. The incidents are igniting debate about sexual violence against women and triggering outrage over lax attitudes about it, despite the strengthening of laws against rape last year....
More than 240,000 sexual offenses against women were reported in 2012, according to Indian government statistics. But human rights experts believe that number is vastly underestimated because many women don’t report the crimes.
India’s government enacted measures last year to address concerns after nationwide protests seeking more security for women followed Singh’s death. The new laws mandate strict guidelines for reporting rapes, shorter trials, less onerous hurdles for victims making accusations and requirements that female officers process victims.
However, high-profile rapes continue to occur, suggesting men’s behavior isn’t changing and marring the country’s image abroad. Last year, the number of female tourists dropped 10 percent, according to industry experts, in a country where tourism makes up 6 percent of GDP....
http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/16/despite-tougher-laws-india-cant-shake-rape-culture/
By Janine di Giovanni 6/16/14
....“War zone rape thrives on silence,” Jolie said in her opening remarks, and Hague agrees: Sexual crimes should not be shameful. “It’s about waking people up,” he told Newsweek. “Despite all the communications within the modern age, these crimes have taken place on a vast scale without the world noticing. And that now is changing.”
....Five years after the Sri Lankan government defeated the Tamil Tigers, human rights groups report continued abductions, torture, rapes and other sexual violence against both men and women of the Tamil minority.
“For all intents and purposes, the war has not finished,” insists Frances Harrison, author of Still Counting the Dead, a brutal account of the Sri Lankan conflict. “Especially for young men and women who had association with the rebels, they are still being abducted, hunted down. It’s a mopping up operation five years on.”
Harrison says the Sri Lankan government—which is not considered a pariah state, despite its persistent human rights violations—“are using very sophisticated intelligence methods like facial-recognition software, as well as hooded informers who nod when they identify somebody.” ....
http://www.newsweek.com/celebrities-join-fight-stop-rape-weapon-war-255054
Despite tougher laws, India can’t shake rape culture
Mandakini Gahlot USA Today Jun 16, 2014
NEW DELHI (RNS) Despite tougher laws against sexual violence, the grisly rape and murder of two teenage girls found hanging from a tree shows India has a long way to go to safeguard women in its male-dominated, socially stratified culture, critics say.
Protestors rally outside Sufdarjung Hospital in 2012 while seeking justice for a gang rape victim. Despite recent reform to toughen India's sexual violence laws, India's male-dominated and socially stratified culture isn't helping solve the problem, critics say.
Protestors rally outside Sufdarjung Hospital in 2012 while seeking justice for a gang rape victim. Despite recent reform to toughen India’s sexual violence laws, India’s male-dominated and socially stratified culture isn’t helping solve the problem, critics say.
“Even though the laws are there, many people feel they can get away with anything, an attitude that some of our politicians have gone out their way to encourage,” said Ranjana Kumari, a prominent women’s rights activist and director of the Centre for Social Research in New Delhi.
The incident in Katra Sadatganj, an impoverished village in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is just the latest in a string of attacks. At least two other rape cases were reported in the past two weeks in the same state. The incidents are igniting debate about sexual violence against women and triggering outrage over lax attitudes about it, despite the strengthening of laws against rape last year....
More than 240,000 sexual offenses against women were reported in 2012, according to Indian government statistics. But human rights experts believe that number is vastly underestimated because many women don’t report the crimes.
India’s government enacted measures last year to address concerns after nationwide protests seeking more security for women followed Singh’s death. The new laws mandate strict guidelines for reporting rapes, shorter trials, less onerous hurdles for victims making accusations and requirements that female officers process victims.
However, high-profile rapes continue to occur, suggesting men’s behavior isn’t changing and marring the country’s image abroad. Last year, the number of female tourists dropped 10 percent, according to industry experts, in a country where tourism makes up 6 percent of GDP....
http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/16/despite-tougher-laws-india-cant-shake-rape-culture/
Sunday, June 15, 2014
18 children died of hunger at Tuam mother and baby home
18 children died of hunger at Tuam mother and baby home
PATRICK COUNIHAN June 15,2014
Details are emerging of the horrific stories behind some of the 796 deaths at the Tuam mother and baby home – where 18 children died of hunger. 12 of the 18 who starved were girls and there is a suspicion that some were mentally retarded. One child wasn’t even given a name by the Bons Secours nuns who ran the Tuam home. The youngest child to die was recorded as just ‘10 minutes old’ while the oldest was eight, a girl who had lived all her life in the home until measles killed her. Bridget Agatha Kenny was two months old when she died as a result of marasmus, child malnutrition, on August 23, 1947. She is described as having been ‘mentally defective.' She was one of 18 children whose cause of death was listed as child malnutrition or the official term “marasmus.” Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition characterized by energy deficiency. A child with marasmus looks utterly emaciated with ribs protruding. Body weight is reduced to less than 60% of the normal body weight for the age....
The children were crammed into communal nurseries where contagious diseases ran unchecked according to the report.... http://www.irishcentral.com/news/-18-children-died-of-hunger-at-Tuam-mother-and-baby-home.html
PATRICK COUNIHAN June 15,2014
Details are emerging of the horrific stories behind some of the 796 deaths at the Tuam mother and baby home – where 18 children died of hunger. 12 of the 18 who starved were girls and there is a suspicion that some were mentally retarded. One child wasn’t even given a name by the Bons Secours nuns who ran the Tuam home. The youngest child to die was recorded as just ‘10 minutes old’ while the oldest was eight, a girl who had lived all her life in the home until measles killed her. Bridget Agatha Kenny was two months old when she died as a result of marasmus, child malnutrition, on August 23, 1947. She is described as having been ‘mentally defective.' She was one of 18 children whose cause of death was listed as child malnutrition or the official term “marasmus.” Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition characterized by energy deficiency. A child with marasmus looks utterly emaciated with ribs protruding. Body weight is reduced to less than 60% of the normal body weight for the age....
The children were crammed into communal nurseries where contagious diseases ran unchecked according to the report.... http://www.irishcentral.com/news/-18-children-died-of-hunger-at-Tuam-mother-and-baby-home.html
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Horrific truths of treatment emerge from Catholic mother and baby homes, Norwich child abuse inquiry police charge woman with rapes, The Witch-Hunt Narrative By Ross E. Cheit
Horrific truths of treatment emerge from Catholic mother and baby homes
Niall O'Dowd June 14,2014
There are some undeniable facts about the unmarried mother’s homes in Ireland from the time they were established in the 1920s until they were closed sometime in the 1960s.
Children died needlessly by the thousands in them. Many, possibly 800 in Galway, were buried without coffins, thrown in the earth, some in a septic tank....
Here is what happened there. A conscientious health official, Dr .James Deeny, visited, and here are his exact words written in 1951:
“Shortly afterwards, when in Cork, I went to Bessborough. It was a beautiful institution, built on to a lovely old house just before the war, and seemed to be well-run and spotlessly clean. I marched up and down and around about and could not make out what was wrong; at last I took a notion and stripped all the babies and, unusually for a Chief Medical Adviser, examined them.
“Every baby had some purulent infection of the skin and all had green diarrhea, carefully covered up. There was obviously a staphylococcus infection about.
“Without any legal authority I closed the place down and sacked the matron, a nun, and also got rid of the medical officer.
“The deaths had been going on for years. They had done nothing.”
One year later under a new regime, less than one percent of babies perished from a high of over 60 percent....
It was all a part of the punishment ritual for the poor unloved unmarried mothers who suffered horrifically. Even if their children survived they were ripped away from them and sent abroad for adoption.
They were made to cut grass with scissors, forced to endure child birth without any painkilling drugs, denied stitches when wounds were opened – all testified to by local nurses and doctors who seemed helpless to stop the horrific suffering....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Horrific-truths-of-treatment-emerge-from-Catholic-mother-and-baby-homes.html
Norwich child abuse inquiry police charge woman with rapes 14 June 2014
A woman has appeared in court accused of raping and abusing children.
Marie Black, 33, of Atkinson Close in Norwich, was charged with 24 offences on Friday night and appeared before the city's magistrates.
The charges relate to five victims under the age of 13 and are alleged to have happened between 2004 and 2010.
She faces five counts of child cruelty, four rapes and related offences. She was released on bail and is due before Norwich Crown Court on 27 June.
Ms Black is the ninth person to be charged in connection with the child abuse investigation.
Eight men and women were charged in connection with the case in February 2014. They are all on conditional bail to appear at Norwich Crown Court at a future date....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-27850220
The Witch-Hunt Narrative By Ross E. Cheit
Based on a comprehensive examination of primary sources, The Witch-Hunt Narrative challenges the conventional wisdom about these cases. Ross Cheit uses trial transcripts and related court documents to demonstrate that many of the cases at the core of the witch-hunt narrative involved compelling evidence of abuse. He focuses on three major cases while also surveying dozens more, including some that involved injustice to the defendants. He finds that in many cases the conventional wisdom is significantly overdrawn.
Cheit’s years of research also revealed a history of minimizing and denying abuse, and a surprisingly lenient response to many child molesters. Those trends continue into the present, where there are pockets of overreaction to sexual abuse in a sea of under-reaction....
This powerful book shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the grim reality of sexual abuse. The Witch-Hunt Narrative is a magisterial account of the social dynamics that led to the denial of widespread human tragedy.
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/sample-page-2/
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/
Niall O'Dowd June 14,2014
There are some undeniable facts about the unmarried mother’s homes in Ireland from the time they were established in the 1920s until they were closed sometime in the 1960s.
Children died needlessly by the thousands in them. Many, possibly 800 in Galway, were buried without coffins, thrown in the earth, some in a septic tank....
Here is what happened there. A conscientious health official, Dr .James Deeny, visited, and here are his exact words written in 1951:
“Shortly afterwards, when in Cork, I went to Bessborough. It was a beautiful institution, built on to a lovely old house just before the war, and seemed to be well-run and spotlessly clean. I marched up and down and around about and could not make out what was wrong; at last I took a notion and stripped all the babies and, unusually for a Chief Medical Adviser, examined them.
“Every baby had some purulent infection of the skin and all had green diarrhea, carefully covered up. There was obviously a staphylococcus infection about.
“Without any legal authority I closed the place down and sacked the matron, a nun, and also got rid of the medical officer.
“The deaths had been going on for years. They had done nothing.”
One year later under a new regime, less than one percent of babies perished from a high of over 60 percent....
It was all a part of the punishment ritual for the poor unloved unmarried mothers who suffered horrifically. Even if their children survived they were ripped away from them and sent abroad for adoption.
They were made to cut grass with scissors, forced to endure child birth without any painkilling drugs, denied stitches when wounds were opened – all testified to by local nurses and doctors who seemed helpless to stop the horrific suffering....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Horrific-truths-of-treatment-emerge-from-Catholic-mother-and-baby-homes.html
Norwich child abuse inquiry police charge woman with rapes 14 June 2014
A woman has appeared in court accused of raping and abusing children.
Marie Black, 33, of Atkinson Close in Norwich, was charged with 24 offences on Friday night and appeared before the city's magistrates.
The charges relate to five victims under the age of 13 and are alleged to have happened between 2004 and 2010.
She faces five counts of child cruelty, four rapes and related offences. She was released on bail and is due before Norwich Crown Court on 27 June.
Ms Black is the ninth person to be charged in connection with the child abuse investigation.
Eight men and women were charged in connection with the case in February 2014. They are all on conditional bail to appear at Norwich Crown Court at a future date....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-27850220
The Witch-Hunt Narrative By Ross E. Cheit
Based on a comprehensive examination of primary sources, The Witch-Hunt Narrative challenges the conventional wisdom about these cases. Ross Cheit uses trial transcripts and related court documents to demonstrate that many of the cases at the core of the witch-hunt narrative involved compelling evidence of abuse. He focuses on three major cases while also surveying dozens more, including some that involved injustice to the defendants. He finds that in many cases the conventional wisdom is significantly overdrawn.
Cheit’s years of research also revealed a history of minimizing and denying abuse, and a surprisingly lenient response to many child molesters. Those trends continue into the present, where there are pockets of overreaction to sexual abuse in a sea of under-reaction....
This powerful book shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the grim reality of sexual abuse. The Witch-Hunt Narrative is a magisterial account of the social dynamics that led to the denial of widespread human tragedy.
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/sample-page-2/
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/
Friday, June 13, 2014
100 complaints alleging mistreatment of migrant children by border agents, Prestigious Indonesian School Fights to Regain Trust After Child-Abuse Charges
US response to border children crisis now includes abuse probe (+video)
Advocates for immigrants this week filed at least 100 complaints alleging mistreatment of migrant children by border agents. DHS chief says an investigation will ensue, as border patrol commissioner defends agents.
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer June 13, 2014
Hundreds of undocumented children who crossed the border into the United States on their own are being sent to Southern California.
The recent crush of migrant children trying to cross the US border has now led the Department of Homeland Security to open a probe into long-running complaints of poor treatment of innocents at the hands of US border patrol agents.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson’s announcement that his department will investigate claims of abuse comes amid an unprecedented surge of "unaccompanied alien children" streaming across the Rio Grande Valley sector and into south Texas.
Children fleeing violence and drawn by vague promises of asylum in the US, now being apprehended at the rate of more than 250 a week, has overwhelmed both the border patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services, which manages guardian-less child refugees....
Allegations include children becoming ill from eating moldy food and having to drink water from toilet tanks, and being called liars for begging for medications....
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2014/0613/US-response-to-border-children-crisis-now-includes-abuse-probe-video
Prestigious Indonesian School Fights to Regain Trust After Child-Abuse Charges
Jakarta International School Administrators Move After Arrests of Outside Contractors
By Richard C. Paddock June 13, 2014
JAKARTA—One of Asia's leading international schools has become embroiled in a child-abuse scandal that has resulted in the arrest of six janitors provided by an outside contractor, one apparent suicide and a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the school.
Police investigations have spread to some teachers and staff at the Jakarta International School, who deny any wrongdoing. School administrators, who say they were caught off guard when an allegation first surfaced two months ago, are now trying to restore the school's reputation....
http://online.wsj.com/articles/prestigious-indonesian-school-fights-to-regain-trust-after-child-abuse-charges-1402685384
Advocates for immigrants this week filed at least 100 complaints alleging mistreatment of migrant children by border agents. DHS chief says an investigation will ensue, as border patrol commissioner defends agents.
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer June 13, 2014
Hundreds of undocumented children who crossed the border into the United States on their own are being sent to Southern California.
The recent crush of migrant children trying to cross the US border has now led the Department of Homeland Security to open a probe into long-running complaints of poor treatment of innocents at the hands of US border patrol agents.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson’s announcement that his department will investigate claims of abuse comes amid an unprecedented surge of "unaccompanied alien children" streaming across the Rio Grande Valley sector and into south Texas.
Children fleeing violence and drawn by vague promises of asylum in the US, now being apprehended at the rate of more than 250 a week, has overwhelmed both the border patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services, which manages guardian-less child refugees....
Allegations include children becoming ill from eating moldy food and having to drink water from toilet tanks, and being called liars for begging for medications....
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2014/0613/US-response-to-border-children-crisis-now-includes-abuse-probe-video
Prestigious Indonesian School Fights to Regain Trust After Child-Abuse Charges
Jakarta International School Administrators Move After Arrests of Outside Contractors
By Richard C. Paddock June 13, 2014
JAKARTA—One of Asia's leading international schools has become embroiled in a child-abuse scandal that has resulted in the arrest of six janitors provided by an outside contractor, one apparent suicide and a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the school.
Police investigations have spread to some teachers and staff at the Jakarta International School, who deny any wrongdoing. School administrators, who say they were caught off guard when an allegation first surfaced two months ago, are now trying to restore the school's reputation....
http://online.wsj.com/articles/prestigious-indonesian-school-fights-to-regain-trust-after-child-abuse-charges-1402685384
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Research Ethics and Private Harms (Taus v. Loftus), Satanic worshipper killed, dismembered and ate woman, Life in India for women and gender imbalance
- Research Ethics and Private Harms (Taus v. Loftus)
- Tennessee man killed, dismembered and ate woman before burying leftover body parts: police
- Astha Rajvanshi on life in India for women and what is being done to address the gender imbalance
Research Ethics and Private Harms
Gerald P. Koocher
DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA
J Interpers Violence May 28, 2014 0886260514534986
Abstract
This commentary addresses the emotionally powerful account of Nicole Taus Kluemper from the perspective of a psychologist familiar with the administrative operation of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the ethics of the profession. The application of the APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct to the case is discussed, and alternative methods of response that researchers who have concerns about case studies might use are offered. The author concludes that existing ethical principles—the aspirational standards in particular—do bear upon the matter in question. However, the enforceable code of conduct is not sufficiently clear about obligations to those whom psychologists publicly discuss when the psychologist does not have a specific duty of care to an individual.
Keywords: case studies ethics Taus v. Loftus
http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/05/28/0886260514534986
Tennessee man killed, dismembered and ate woman before burying leftover body parts: police
Gregory Hale, 37, admitted to police that he cut off Lisa Marie Hyder's head, feet and hands before burying the 36-year-old's torso in a burn pile. The alleged 'devil worshipper' also ate some of the woman and asked a neighbor in Summitville for help disposing of a body, police said.
BY Sasha Goldstein
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
A Satanic worshipper in Tennessee killed, dismembered and ate a woman he had just met in a disturbing ritualistic murder, police said.
Cops learned of Gregory Hale’s gruesome secret when the 37-year-old asked a friend for help in disposing of a body, The Tullahoma News reported.
By that point, Hale had already allegedly killed and beheaded Lisa Marie Hyder, 36, then cut off her hands and placed them in a plastic bucket. He also allegedly cut of her feet and other body parts and placed them in another bucket before burying the woman’s torso under a burn pile behind his home.
When cops caught up to and arrested Hale on Sunday, he admitted to the gruesome crime, cops said. Hale also told cops he ate part of the woman, whom he had met the day she died, which prosecutors believe was on Friday, WSMV-TV reported.....
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/tenn-man-killed-dismembered-ate-woman-police-article-1.1824786
Astha Rajvanshi on life in India for women and what is being done to address the gender imbalance June 10, 2014
AS A girl born in India, it was normally expected that I only ever step out on the street when accompanied by a male relative. For many Indian women, sexual harassment, catcalling and whistling are pervasive but regular parts of their lives. And every day, somewhere, this interaction crosses the line into something more fatal.
Reports coming out of India over the last few weeks on the abduction, gang rape and lynching of two teenage girls in Badaun were distressing, but not new. Neither was the honour killing of a pregnant woman in Lahore, who was stoned to death by her family for marrying the man she loved....
There are certain expectations of a woman in Indian society. Girls should be shy, not loud. They should learn how to cook and clean, not play sports. They should be modest; they shouldn’t wear clothes that are too short or revealing. They should keep to themselves; too much interaction with boys is no good....
The loud aftermath of the gang rape in Delhi has seen some progress. Over 1,300 rape cases and thousands of molestation cases have been reported, and anti-rape laws and better enforcement have been stressed, with the Indian Parliament passing a bill containing harsher punishments for rapists.
Under the Bill, stalking, acid violence, disrobing are all specific crimes attracting increased jail terms. And any protections afforded to police officers, allowing them to let complaints slide, have been removed. These changes have made women more willing to speak out and report the crimes against them.
On the other hand, a large number of honour killings because of caste divisions are still inherent in Indian society, leading to inter-caste violence and social oppression between marginalised groups. One in five cases of honour killings reported internationally comes from India....
Changing mindsets is perhaps the biggest challenge for India, which has ranked as the world’s fourth most dangerous country for women, behind Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan.
Dr Manjula O’Connor, who has worked on various Indian campaigns and projects for gender-based violence, comments that a large reason behind such crimes is “the male patriarchal system, which is still going on in huge parts on the country”....
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/astha-rajvanshi-on-life-in-india-for-women-and-what-is-being-done-to-address-the-gender-imbalance/story-fnixwvgh-1226950548741
- Tennessee man killed, dismembered and ate woman before burying leftover body parts: police
- Astha Rajvanshi on life in India for women and what is being done to address the gender imbalance
Research Ethics and Private Harms
Gerald P. Koocher
DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA
J Interpers Violence May 28, 2014 0886260514534986
Abstract
This commentary addresses the emotionally powerful account of Nicole Taus Kluemper from the perspective of a psychologist familiar with the administrative operation of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the ethics of the profession. The application of the APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct to the case is discussed, and alternative methods of response that researchers who have concerns about case studies might use are offered. The author concludes that existing ethical principles—the aspirational standards in particular—do bear upon the matter in question. However, the enforceable code of conduct is not sufficiently clear about obligations to those whom psychologists publicly discuss when the psychologist does not have a specific duty of care to an individual.
Keywords: case studies ethics Taus v. Loftus
http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/05/28/0886260514534986
Tennessee man killed, dismembered and ate woman before burying leftover body parts: police
Gregory Hale, 37, admitted to police that he cut off Lisa Marie Hyder's head, feet and hands before burying the 36-year-old's torso in a burn pile. The alleged 'devil worshipper' also ate some of the woman and asked a neighbor in Summitville for help disposing of a body, police said.
BY Sasha Goldstein
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
A Satanic worshipper in Tennessee killed, dismembered and ate a woman he had just met in a disturbing ritualistic murder, police said.
Cops learned of Gregory Hale’s gruesome secret when the 37-year-old asked a friend for help in disposing of a body, The Tullahoma News reported.
By that point, Hale had already allegedly killed and beheaded Lisa Marie Hyder, 36, then cut off her hands and placed them in a plastic bucket. He also allegedly cut of her feet and other body parts and placed them in another bucket before burying the woman’s torso under a burn pile behind his home.
When cops caught up to and arrested Hale on Sunday, he admitted to the gruesome crime, cops said. Hale also told cops he ate part of the woman, whom he had met the day she died, which prosecutors believe was on Friday, WSMV-TV reported.....
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/tenn-man-killed-dismembered-ate-woman-police-article-1.1824786
Astha Rajvanshi on life in India for women and what is being done to address the gender imbalance June 10, 2014
AS A girl born in India, it was normally expected that I only ever step out on the street when accompanied by a male relative. For many Indian women, sexual harassment, catcalling and whistling are pervasive but regular parts of their lives. And every day, somewhere, this interaction crosses the line into something more fatal.
Reports coming out of India over the last few weeks on the abduction, gang rape and lynching of two teenage girls in Badaun were distressing, but not new. Neither was the honour killing of a pregnant woman in Lahore, who was stoned to death by her family for marrying the man she loved....
There are certain expectations of a woman in Indian society. Girls should be shy, not loud. They should learn how to cook and clean, not play sports. They should be modest; they shouldn’t wear clothes that are too short or revealing. They should keep to themselves; too much interaction with boys is no good....
The loud aftermath of the gang rape in Delhi has seen some progress. Over 1,300 rape cases and thousands of molestation cases have been reported, and anti-rape laws and better enforcement have been stressed, with the Indian Parliament passing a bill containing harsher punishments for rapists.
Under the Bill, stalking, acid violence, disrobing are all specific crimes attracting increased jail terms. And any protections afforded to police officers, allowing them to let complaints slide, have been removed. These changes have made women more willing to speak out and report the crimes against them.
On the other hand, a large number of honour killings because of caste divisions are still inherent in Indian society, leading to inter-caste violence and social oppression between marginalised groups. One in five cases of honour killings reported internationally comes from India....
Changing mindsets is perhaps the biggest challenge for India, which has ranked as the world’s fourth most dangerous country for women, behind Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan.
Dr Manjula O’Connor, who has worked on various Indian campaigns and projects for gender-based violence, comments that a large reason behind such crimes is “the male patriarchal system, which is still going on in huge parts on the country”....
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/astha-rajvanshi-on-life-in-india-for-women-and-what-is-being-done-to-address-the-gender-imbalance/story-fnixwvgh-1226950548741
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
‘The Witch-Hunt Narrative’: Are We Dismissing Real Victims?, Suspected devil worshipper accused of killing woman, Survivorship Movie
- ‘The Witch-Hunt Narrative’: Are We Dismissing Real Victims?
"the continued treatment of these cases as a modern-day episode of mass hysteria does disservice to children and even puts them in danger"
- Survivorship Movie (the Survivorship edit)
- Suspected devil worshipper accused of killing woman
"owner caught him using animal parts to perform a satanic ritual"
Abuse Cases, and a Legacy of Skepticism
‘The Witch-Hunt Narrative’: Are We Dismissing Real Victims?
JUNE 9, 2014
....McMartin was the first of a series of prosecutions in the 1980s that have come to be seen as a collective witch hunt, in which panicked parents and incompetent investigators led children to make up stories of abuse by adults at day care centers and preschools.
At first, the news media ran with the lurid accounts of abuse, but then some skeptical reporters questioned the prevailing narrative and discredited the snowballing allegations. The pendulum swung from credulity to doubt.
But what if the skeptics went too far? What if some of the children were really abused? And what if the legacy of these cases is a disturbing tendency to disbelieve children who say they are being molested?
Those are the questions that frame this new book by Ross E. Cheit, a political scientist at Brown University who spent nearly 15 years on research, poring over old trial transcripts and interview tapes.
His conclusion about the McMartin case is that the outcome was “doubly unjust.” While he acknowledges that some defendants were falsely accused, he argues that Mr. Buckey was probably guilty, meaning that some of the children were not only sexually abused but “have been demeaned by the witch-hunt narrative’s assertion that the entire case was a ‘hoax.’ ”
It’s a provocative notion, that the debunkers deserve a debunking. Professor Cheit, who himself suffered sexual abuse as a child, criticizes the skepticism that helped bring down the prosecutions of McMartin and other day-care providers, calling it a “crusade to promote the witch-hunt narrative.”
He thinks the continued treatment of these cases as a modern-day episode of mass hysteria does disservice to children and even puts them in danger....
Most children who are sexually abused do not tell anyone. “Perpetrators often choose children on the basis of the likelihood that they will comply and keep the secret,” Dr. Lyon writes.
It’s a pattern that played out in the years of hidden sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and at Penn State by the coach Jerry Sandusky.
Professor Cheit is rightly haunted by the cover-up at Penn State. “We often minimize and deny so as to allow us to avoid seeing things we would rather not see,” he writes....
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/science/the-witch-hunt-narrative-are-we-dismissing-real-victims.html
Survivorship Movie (the Survivorship edit) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BONGdkCuSiw
Survivorship - For survivors of ritual abuse, mind control and torture and pro-survivors https://www.survivorship.org
Suspected devil worshipper accused of killing woman and eating part of her corpse
Jun 10, 2014 By Christopher Bucktin
Gregory Hale, has been arrested at his home in Coffee County, Tennessee, and is charged with premeditated first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse
A suspected devil worshipper has been accused of killing a woman, dismembering her body and eating part of her corpse, authorities said.
Gregory Hale, has been arrested at his home in Coffee County, Tennessee, and is charged with premeditated first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse....
He is reported to have admitted killing Hyder and then disposing of the body by chopping it up.
Hale buried the victim's body but ate part of the corpse, court documentation stated.
A friend of Hale’s said he a self-described devil worshipper who was fired from a slaughterhouse after the owner caught him performing a satanic ritual with animal parts....
http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/suspected-devil-worshipper-accused-killing-3672033
Tennessee man kills woman, eats corpse: US officials
Wednesday Jun 11, 2014
A man in Tennessee has been arrested after local police discovered a woman's partially-eaten corpse in his rural home.
37-year-old Gregory Scott Hale is charged with first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse in connection with the death of Lisa Marie Hyder....
Local NBC affiliate WSMV reports that neighbors say Dale described himself as a devil worshipper, and he was fired from his job at a slaughterhouse when the owner caught him using animal parts to perform a satanic ritual.
His is being held on $1.5 million bond and will next appear in court June 23.UPI
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/10/366414/tennessee-man-kills-woman-eats-corpse/
"the continued treatment of these cases as a modern-day episode of mass hysteria does disservice to children and even puts them in danger"
- Survivorship Movie (the Survivorship edit)
- Suspected devil worshipper accused of killing woman
"owner caught him using animal parts to perform a satanic ritual"
Abuse Cases, and a Legacy of Skepticism
‘The Witch-Hunt Narrative’: Are We Dismissing Real Victims?
JUNE 9, 2014
....McMartin was the first of a series of prosecutions in the 1980s that have come to be seen as a collective witch hunt, in which panicked parents and incompetent investigators led children to make up stories of abuse by adults at day care centers and preschools.
At first, the news media ran with the lurid accounts of abuse, but then some skeptical reporters questioned the prevailing narrative and discredited the snowballing allegations. The pendulum swung from credulity to doubt.
But what if the skeptics went too far? What if some of the children were really abused? And what if the legacy of these cases is a disturbing tendency to disbelieve children who say they are being molested?
Those are the questions that frame this new book by Ross E. Cheit, a political scientist at Brown University who spent nearly 15 years on research, poring over old trial transcripts and interview tapes.
His conclusion about the McMartin case is that the outcome was “doubly unjust.” While he acknowledges that some defendants were falsely accused, he argues that Mr. Buckey was probably guilty, meaning that some of the children were not only sexually abused but “have been demeaned by the witch-hunt narrative’s assertion that the entire case was a ‘hoax.’ ”
It’s a provocative notion, that the debunkers deserve a debunking. Professor Cheit, who himself suffered sexual abuse as a child, criticizes the skepticism that helped bring down the prosecutions of McMartin and other day-care providers, calling it a “crusade to promote the witch-hunt narrative.”
He thinks the continued treatment of these cases as a modern-day episode of mass hysteria does disservice to children and even puts them in danger....
Most children who are sexually abused do not tell anyone. “Perpetrators often choose children on the basis of the likelihood that they will comply and keep the secret,” Dr. Lyon writes.
It’s a pattern that played out in the years of hidden sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and at Penn State by the coach Jerry Sandusky.
Professor Cheit is rightly haunted by the cover-up at Penn State. “We often minimize and deny so as to allow us to avoid seeing things we would rather not see,” he writes....
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/science/the-witch-hunt-narrative-are-we-dismissing-real-victims.html
Survivorship Movie (the Survivorship edit) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BONGdkCuSiw
Survivorship - For survivors of ritual abuse, mind control and torture and pro-survivors https://www.survivorship.org
Suspected devil worshipper accused of killing woman and eating part of her corpse
Jun 10, 2014 By Christopher Bucktin
Gregory Hale, has been arrested at his home in Coffee County, Tennessee, and is charged with premeditated first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse
A suspected devil worshipper has been accused of killing a woman, dismembering her body and eating part of her corpse, authorities said.
Gregory Hale, has been arrested at his home in Coffee County, Tennessee, and is charged with premeditated first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse....
He is reported to have admitted killing Hyder and then disposing of the body by chopping it up.
Hale buried the victim's body but ate part of the corpse, court documentation stated.
A friend of Hale’s said he a self-described devil worshipper who was fired from a slaughterhouse after the owner caught him performing a satanic ritual with animal parts....
http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/suspected-devil-worshipper-accused-killing-3672033
Tennessee man kills woman, eats corpse: US officials
Wednesday Jun 11, 2014
A man in Tennessee has been arrested after local police discovered a woman's partially-eaten corpse in his rural home.
37-year-old Gregory Scott Hale is charged with first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse in connection with the death of Lisa Marie Hyder....
Local NBC affiliate WSMV reports that neighbors say Dale described himself as a devil worshipper, and he was fired from his job at a slaughterhouse when the owner caught him using animal parts to perform a satanic ritual.
His is being held on $1.5 million bond and will next appear in court June 23.UPI
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/10/366414/tennessee-man-kills-woman-eats-corpse/
Monday, June 9, 2014
ICE seeks 'John Doe' in largest-ever child porn investigation, Claims ADF abuse victims ignored by specialist taskforce
ICE seeks 'John Doe' in largest-ever child porn investigation
Jun 09, 2014 By Rob Polansky and Tina Martin
NEW HAVEN, CT (WFSB) -
Federal officials sought the public's help Monday to find a suspected child pornography distributor.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations said "John Doe" helped facilitate one of the largest underground networks ever encountered by law enforcement.
ICE said the man was the only remaining suspected administrator of the website. They believed the suspect's name was Shaun and that he may be between the ages of 40 and 50....
The search was part of Operation Round Table, one of the largest child exploitation investigations in history. It involved victims in 39 states, including Connecticut, and five additional countries.
As a result of the operation, investigators said they identified 251 victims. Eight of the victims were female while 243 were male. The majority of the victims were between 13 and 15 years old. A handful of victims were 6 years old and younger....
http://www.wfsb.com/story/25729030/feds-seek-help-in-finding-child-porn-suspect
Claims ADF abuse victims ignored by specialist taskforce
June 10, 2014 Timna Jacks
Victims of rape and sexual abuse at the Defence Force were never told about a Government taskforce set up to investigate instances of abuse in the military and provide compensation to those affected.
The ABC TV's Four Corners program has broadcast four case studies of former cadets who report being sexually assaulted and raped at the Australian Defence Force Academy in the 1990s and 2009 but have not had their cases investigated by a specialist taskforce, the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART).
DART was established to assess complaints of abuse, particularly of the ADFA 24 cases - a group of about two dozen cadets who were sexually abused at the military college between 1994 and 1998. It would also determine whether any ADFA 24 victims or perpetrators are still serving members of the ADF.
However, the Four Corners investigation revealed only seven of the ADFA 24 have lodged submissions, and the deadline for submissions was in May last year....
DART has already assessed more than 2,400 complaints of abuse, paid $28 million in compensation and referred 63 matters to police....
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/claims-adf-abuse-victims-ignored-by-specialist-taskforce-20140609-39thv.html
Jun 09, 2014 By Rob Polansky and Tina Martin
NEW HAVEN, CT (WFSB) -
Federal officials sought the public's help Monday to find a suspected child pornography distributor.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations said "John Doe" helped facilitate one of the largest underground networks ever encountered by law enforcement.
ICE said the man was the only remaining suspected administrator of the website. They believed the suspect's name was Shaun and that he may be between the ages of 40 and 50....
The search was part of Operation Round Table, one of the largest child exploitation investigations in history. It involved victims in 39 states, including Connecticut, and five additional countries.
As a result of the operation, investigators said they identified 251 victims. Eight of the victims were female while 243 were male. The majority of the victims were between 13 and 15 years old. A handful of victims were 6 years old and younger....
http://www.wfsb.com/story/25729030/feds-seek-help-in-finding-child-porn-suspect
Claims ADF abuse victims ignored by specialist taskforce
June 10, 2014 Timna Jacks
Victims of rape and sexual abuse at the Defence Force were never told about a Government taskforce set up to investigate instances of abuse in the military and provide compensation to those affected.
The ABC TV's Four Corners program has broadcast four case studies of former cadets who report being sexually assaulted and raped at the Australian Defence Force Academy in the 1990s and 2009 but have not had their cases investigated by a specialist taskforce, the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART).
DART was established to assess complaints of abuse, particularly of the ADFA 24 cases - a group of about two dozen cadets who were sexually abused at the military college between 1994 and 1998. It would also determine whether any ADFA 24 victims or perpetrators are still serving members of the ADF.
However, the Four Corners investigation revealed only seven of the ADFA 24 have lodged submissions, and the deadline for submissions was in May last year....
DART has already assessed more than 2,400 complaints of abuse, paid $28 million in compensation and referred 63 matters to police....
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/claims-adf-abuse-victims-ignored-by-specialist-taskforce-20140609-39thv.html
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Aboriginal affairs ministers ask premiers to look at reparations for Sixties Scoop adoptions
Aboriginal affairs ministers ask premiers to look at reparations for Sixties Scoop adoptions
CHINTA PUXLEY WINNIPEG — The Canadian Press Monday, May. 19 2014
Canada’s aboriginal affairs ministers are asking the country’s premiers to look at compensation, counselling and repatriation for thousands of aboriginal children adopted into white families during the so-called Sixties Scoop....
It’s estimated that up to 20,000 aboriginal children were taken from their homes by child welfare services and placed with non-aboriginal families. Many consider the adoptions an extension of residential schools, which aimed to “take the Indian out of the child.”
Adoptees from the Sixties Scoop have said their time for reconciliation has come and they want an apology from the federal government....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/aboriginal-affairs-ministers-ask-premiers-to-look-into-sixties-scoop-adoptions/article18752180/
CHINTA PUXLEY WINNIPEG — The Canadian Press Monday, May. 19 2014
Canada’s aboriginal affairs ministers are asking the country’s premiers to look at compensation, counselling and repatriation for thousands of aboriginal children adopted into white families during the so-called Sixties Scoop....
It’s estimated that up to 20,000 aboriginal children were taken from their homes by child welfare services and placed with non-aboriginal families. Many consider the adoptions an extension of residential schools, which aimed to “take the Indian out of the child.”
Adoptees from the Sixties Scoop have said their time for reconciliation has come and they want an apology from the federal government....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/aboriginal-affairs-ministers-ask-premiers-to-look-into-sixties-scoop-adoptions/article18752180/
Saturday, June 7, 2014
800 dead babies are probably just the beginning The corpses found in an Irish septic pit resulted from a larger problem
800 dead babies are probably just the beginning
The corpses found in an Irish septic pit resulted from a larger problem.
By Martin Sixsmith June 6
Martin Sixsmith’s book, Philomena, published by Penguin Books, was adapted for the screen last year.
The discovery of a grave containing the remains of as many as 800 babies at a former home for unmarried mothers in Ireland is yet another problem for the Irish Catholic Church. The mother and baby home at Tuam in County Galway was run by the nuns of the Sisters of Bon Secours and operated between 1925 and 1961. It took in thousands of women who had committed the “mortal sin” of unwed pregnancy, delivered their babies and was charged with caring for them. But unsanitary conditions, poor food and a lack of medical care led to shockingly high rates of infant mortality. Babies’ bodies were deposited in a former sewage tank....
During 10 years of research into the Catholic Church’s treatment of “fallen women” — I wrote about one of them in my book, Philomena, later turned into a feature film starring Dame Judi Dench — I discovered that the girls were refused medical attention, including painkillers, during even the most difficult births; the nuns told them the pain was the penance they must pay for their sin. In the home where Philomena gave birth, an unkempt plot bears the names of babies and mothers, some as young as 15. There are undoubtedly many more there who have no memorial.
For those who survived, the psychological trauma has endured. Philomena and thousands like her were forced to look after their babies for up to four years, bonding with them before they were taken away to be adopted. Many went to families in the United States in return for substantial “donations”; lack of proper vetting meant some were handed over to abusive parents. The mothers were told they were moral degenerates, too sullied to keep their babies. The nuns said they would burn in hell if they spoke to anyone about their children or what had been done with them....
The warped code of honour behind the decades of silence had been inculcated by an all-powerful Catholic Church. For much of the late 20th century, the Irish civil authorities were in thrall to the hierarchy; Archbishop John Charles McQuaid threatened pulpit denunciations if the government contradicted his policies. So the state connived in the mother and baby homes, paying the nuns at Tuam and all the other homes a per capita rate for every inmate....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/06/800-dead-babies-are-probably-just-the-beginning/
The corpses found in an Irish septic pit resulted from a larger problem.
By Martin Sixsmith June 6
Martin Sixsmith’s book, Philomena, published by Penguin Books, was adapted for the screen last year.
The discovery of a grave containing the remains of as many as 800 babies at a former home for unmarried mothers in Ireland is yet another problem for the Irish Catholic Church. The mother and baby home at Tuam in County Galway was run by the nuns of the Sisters of Bon Secours and operated between 1925 and 1961. It took in thousands of women who had committed the “mortal sin” of unwed pregnancy, delivered their babies and was charged with caring for them. But unsanitary conditions, poor food and a lack of medical care led to shockingly high rates of infant mortality. Babies’ bodies were deposited in a former sewage tank....
During 10 years of research into the Catholic Church’s treatment of “fallen women” — I wrote about one of them in my book, Philomena, later turned into a feature film starring Dame Judi Dench — I discovered that the girls were refused medical attention, including painkillers, during even the most difficult births; the nuns told them the pain was the penance they must pay for their sin. In the home where Philomena gave birth, an unkempt plot bears the names of babies and mothers, some as young as 15. There are undoubtedly many more there who have no memorial.
For those who survived, the psychological trauma has endured. Philomena and thousands like her were forced to look after their babies for up to four years, bonding with them before they were taken away to be adopted. Many went to families in the United States in return for substantial “donations”; lack of proper vetting meant some were handed over to abusive parents. The mothers were told they were moral degenerates, too sullied to keep their babies. The nuns said they would burn in hell if they spoke to anyone about their children or what had been done with them....
The warped code of honour behind the decades of silence had been inculcated by an all-powerful Catholic Church. For much of the late 20th century, the Irish civil authorities were in thrall to the hierarchy; Archbishop John Charles McQuaid threatened pulpit denunciations if the government contradicted his policies. So the state connived in the mother and baby homes, paying the nuns at Tuam and all the other homes a per capita rate for every inmate....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/06/800-dead-babies-are-probably-just-the-beginning/
Friday, June 6, 2014
Mass grave at Galway home not the only one, 800 babies 'in septic tank'
Mass grave at Galway home not the only one, says Irish leader Kenny
Sheila Langan June 06,2014
The mass grave of 796 children at a former home for unwed mothers and children in Tuam, Co. Galway is likely not the only one of its kind in Ireland, Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said.
A government investigation launched in wake of the shocking discovery will focus on all of the former so-called ‘mother and baby homes’ in Ireland, it was announced yesterday.
Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan is organizing a group of senior officials who will advise the government on the scope of investigation required and the best course of action at the end of the month.
Speaking from the US, where he is currently on a trade mission, Kenny said that Flanagan and his committee would determine “whether this is an isolated [incident] or whether there are others around the country that need to be looked at” and to “decide what is the best thing to do in the interests of dealing with another element of our country's past.”....
Many other homes for unwed mothers, their “illegitimate” children and other orphans operated in Ireland throughout the 1900s. There was Bessborough in Co. Cork, Sean Ross in Tipperary (where Philomena Lee had her son), and Castlepollard in Westmeath – all run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The mortality rates at these homes were far higher than the national average, the Irish Examiner recently reported, ranging from 30% - 50% between 1930 and 1945.
There were Protestant mother and baby homes too, such as the Bethany Home in Dublin, where a similar scandal took place. Between 1922 and 1949, close to 220 children died and were buried in an unmarked grave at Dublin’s Mount Jerome Cemetery. They were memorialized in 2010.....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Mass-grave-at-Tuam-Childrens-Home-not-the-only-one-says-Kenny.html
Ireland shock over 800 babies 'in septic tank'
Friday 06 June 2014
Ireland has been rocked this week as another horrific scandal linked to the Catholic church emerges in Galway, where a mass grave with the bodies of 800 children was uncovered.
....This week it was revealed that the site contained the remains of hundreds of children who died in the care of Bon Secours nuns between 1925 and 1961 and was not a famine grave as originally claims in the 70s.
The babies are believed to have been secretly buried at the home for unwed mothers, dubbed "fallen women", which had an extraordinarily high infant mortality rates - with children dying of TB, pneumonia, measles and gastorenteritis.
A report from the institution in 1944 revealed emaciated childen, mothers suffering with mental health issues and overcrowding.
The Bon Secours sisters, a Roman Catholic organisation, began providing healthcare in Ireland in the 19th century and is now the country's largest private healthcare provider.
The sisters said they were shocked and saddened by the reports, they ran 10 similar homes across Ireland and three of the others are believed to have plots with the remains of 3,200 babies and infants....
The case follows a series of scandals over abuse at institutions entrusted to the Catholic church in Ireland.
The Artane Industrial school case revealed how Christian brothers systematically neglected and abused orphans and boys from single parent families put into "state care" for decades.
Magdalen asylums, known as Magdalene laundries, ran in Ireland until 1996 with as many as 30,000 "fallen women" incarcerated, stripped of their identities and forced to carry out forced labour.
Women were locked up in abusive laundries for being sexually active outside marriage, having "illegitimate children" and some simply to safeguard their "moral purity"....
It found the entire system had treated children as prisoners and slaves, ignoring their rights and noted that some religious officials had encouraged ritual beatings - while protecting their own with a culture of secrecy.
http://www.channel4.com/news/bon-secour-galway-catholic-church-ireland-septic-tank
Sheila Langan June 06,2014
The mass grave of 796 children at a former home for unwed mothers and children in Tuam, Co. Galway is likely not the only one of its kind in Ireland, Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said.
A government investigation launched in wake of the shocking discovery will focus on all of the former so-called ‘mother and baby homes’ in Ireland, it was announced yesterday.
Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan is organizing a group of senior officials who will advise the government on the scope of investigation required and the best course of action at the end of the month.
Speaking from the US, where he is currently on a trade mission, Kenny said that Flanagan and his committee would determine “whether this is an isolated [incident] or whether there are others around the country that need to be looked at” and to “decide what is the best thing to do in the interests of dealing with another element of our country's past.”....
Many other homes for unwed mothers, their “illegitimate” children and other orphans operated in Ireland throughout the 1900s. There was Bessborough in Co. Cork, Sean Ross in Tipperary (where Philomena Lee had her son), and Castlepollard in Westmeath – all run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The mortality rates at these homes were far higher than the national average, the Irish Examiner recently reported, ranging from 30% - 50% between 1930 and 1945.
There were Protestant mother and baby homes too, such as the Bethany Home in Dublin, where a similar scandal took place. Between 1922 and 1949, close to 220 children died and were buried in an unmarked grave at Dublin’s Mount Jerome Cemetery. They were memorialized in 2010.....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Mass-grave-at-Tuam-Childrens-Home-not-the-only-one-says-Kenny.html
Ireland shock over 800 babies 'in septic tank'
Friday 06 June 2014
Ireland has been rocked this week as another horrific scandal linked to the Catholic church emerges in Galway, where a mass grave with the bodies of 800 children was uncovered.
....This week it was revealed that the site contained the remains of hundreds of children who died in the care of Bon Secours nuns between 1925 and 1961 and was not a famine grave as originally claims in the 70s.
The babies are believed to have been secretly buried at the home for unwed mothers, dubbed "fallen women", which had an extraordinarily high infant mortality rates - with children dying of TB, pneumonia, measles and gastorenteritis.
A report from the institution in 1944 revealed emaciated childen, mothers suffering with mental health issues and overcrowding.
The Bon Secours sisters, a Roman Catholic organisation, began providing healthcare in Ireland in the 19th century and is now the country's largest private healthcare provider.
The sisters said they were shocked and saddened by the reports, they ran 10 similar homes across Ireland and three of the others are believed to have plots with the remains of 3,200 babies and infants....
The case follows a series of scandals over abuse at institutions entrusted to the Catholic church in Ireland.
The Artane Industrial school case revealed how Christian brothers systematically neglected and abused orphans and boys from single parent families put into "state care" for decades.
Magdalen asylums, known as Magdalene laundries, ran in Ireland until 1996 with as many as 30,000 "fallen women" incarcerated, stripped of their identities and forced to carry out forced labour.
Women were locked up in abusive laundries for being sexually active outside marriage, having "illegitimate children" and some simply to safeguard their "moral purity"....
It found the entire system had treated children as prisoners and slaves, ignoring their rights and noted that some religious officials had encouraged ritual beatings - while protecting their own with a culture of secrecy.
http://www.channel4.com/news/bon-secour-galway-catholic-church-ireland-septic-tank
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