Increase in Sexual Violence, Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Child abused in care of Presbyterian Church in Australia - 131 NI children sent to Australia, Caged until 'broken': life for Mumbai's prostitutes

- ‘Disturbing’ increase in sexual violence
- Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Child abused in care of Presbyterian Church in Australia
- Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: 131 NI children sent to Australia
- Caged until 'broken': life for Mumbai's prostitutes

‘Disturbing’ increase in sexual violence
Dublin Rape Crisis Centre says social media being used as a form of abuse
Kitty Holland

Wed, Sep 3, 2014

Increasing levels of violence are accompanying rape, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has said, and “particularly concerning” was the way social media is being used to film and distribute some assaults.

Angela McCarthy, DRCC’s head of clinical services, speaking at the publication of the centre’s annual report yesterday, said there had been a “disturbing increase in sexual violence” reported last year.

She said 27 per cent of all incidents of adult rape or sexual assault disclosed in therapy sessions included additional violence, predominantly physical abuse, psychological abuse and harassment or intimidation.

Some 21 per cent of all incidents of childhood sexual abuse were accompanied by additional violence, mainly psychological and physical abuse....

“Experienced therapists and counsellors have been very shocked at some of the violence. Age seems to be an issue, with younger people being raped by gangs while others are watching and sometimes filming the assaults.”....

Some 44 per cent of calls related to child sexual abuse and 42 per cent to adult rape. Nine per cent related to adult sexual assault – representing an increase of 21 per cent on the previous year, 2 per cent to ritual abuse, 0.9 per cent to sexual harassment, 0.5 per cent to suspected abuse, 0.3 per cent to trafficking, and, 0.1 per cent to under-13 sexualised behaviour.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/disturbing-increase-in-sexual-violence-1.1917012


Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Child abused in care of Presbyterian Church in Australia
3 September 2014 

A pensioner has told an inquiry examining child abuse that he was physically and sexually abused as a young boy while in the care of the Presbyterian Church in Australia.

His migration was part of a scheme between the Presbyterian Church in the UK and Australia.

Speaking to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry via video link, he outlined his childhood.

He is one of about 50 witnesses giving evidence from Australia.

The man said he was born into the Church of Ireland in west Tyrone in the 1940s to an unmarried mother.

When his mother died of TB, he was taken into a number of foster and care homes before being separated from his brother and sister and sent to Australia in 1950.

The witness said he wanted his brother to join him in Australia, but after being abused, he sent a letter home telling his brother not to come.
"I couldn't put him through that," he told the inquiry....

On Monday, the inquiry heard that 131 children from Northern Ireland, some as young as five, were sent to Australia as child migrants.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29048447  


Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: 131 NI children sent to Australia 1 September 2014
One hundred and thirty-one children from Northern Ireland, some as young as five, were sent to Australia as child migrants, an inquiry has heard.

The experiences of 50 of them will be heard by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) either by oral or written evidence.

It is examining the extent of child abuse in religious and state-run institutions in NI from 1922 to 1995....

The chairman said it would become clear during their evidence that many had suffered severe hardship and "grave" sexual and physical abuse in the institutions to which they were sent in Australia....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29006251 


Caged until 'broken': life for Mumbai's prostitutes
02 September 2014
Channel 4 News gains exclusive access to brothels in Mumbai, where trafficked girls are kept in cages like slaves to stop them running away - and only allowed out to have sex with customers.

....I was taken into the reception area of the brothel, the space where the customers are taken to select a girl. On the ceiling I could see a small, open trap door. The madam disappeared, and I climbed up a wooden ladder and pushed through the small gap.

Suddenly I was face to face with a "box cage". I knew what I was looking at. The prostitutes I had met over years of investigating the sex industry in Mumbai had told me of the caged rooms and boxes they had been held in for months, even years. They told me they were held in the cages when they were first trafficked to the red-light district.

The madams would keep the girls like slaves in the cages until they were "broken" - the aim being to stop them running away. The girls told me they never knew if it was night or day when they were in the cages. They were only taken out to eat or to be given to a customer for sex. For years I had wanted to photograph these cages, to prove that these places actually exist....

Over those years, I have watched and photographed thousands of men visiting Kamathipura - they say they are looking for pleasure. But a red-light district is not a place of pleasure. It is a place of pain.

I have often wondered if men would come and have sex with these women if they knew their true stories, like Guddi's, if they knew how the girls have been trafficked, and that actually they are paying to rape a girl who is a sex slave. http://www.channel4.com/news/prostitution-mumbai-india-caged-trafficked-brothels