Smithsonian To Post Sign At Exhibition Featuring Bill Cosby-Owned Art, Alexis Jay on child sex abuse: ‘Politicians wanted to keep a lid on it’, Rotherham victims

Smithsonian To Post Sign At Exhibition Featuring Bill Cosby-Owned Art
July 14, 2015 Krishnadev Calamur

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington will post a sign Wednesday telling visitors an exhibition that includes art owned by Bill Cosby and his wife, Camille, is "fundamentally about the artworks and the artists who created them, not Mr. Cosby," representatives for the Smithsonian Institution say.

The sign, which will be posted at 10 a.m., comes amid allegations of sexual misconduct directed against Cosby by more than two dozen women. Some of them say he drugged and raped them. Cosby has not been charged in any of the alleged assaults.

Last week it emerged that the comedian testified in 2005 he obtained the sedative Quaalude with the intent of giving the drug to women with whom he wanted to have sex, and he acknowledged giving it to at least one woman. The Los Angeles Police Department says it is conducting at least one current criminal investigation into allegations of sexual assault against Cosby....
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/14/423001343/smithsonian-to-post-sign-at-exhibition-featuring-bill-cosby-owned-art

Alexis Jay on child sex abuse: ‘Politicians wanted to keep a lid on it’
Her devastating Rotherham report blew open the national debate on child sex abuse. Now the ‘retired’ social worker is investigating historic claims on an unprecedented scale, taking on Westminster, the BBC and NHS
Helen Pidd  Monday 13 July 2015

Alexis Jay officially retired two years ago – not that you’d notice. In 2013 she stepped down from her role as Scotland’s chief social work adviser, shortly after being awarded an OBE. But rather than tending to her garden she ended up digging up horrific claims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. That job done, the scalps of many officials taken, she moved on to sort out Northern Ireland’s safeguarding children boards.

But last week the 66-year-old began her biggest task yet, when she joined the panel of what has been described as Britain’s most complicated and wide-reaching statutory inquiry ever. The independent inquiry into child sex abuse (IICSA) is expected to take five years investigating claims of abuse in faith and religious organisations, the criminal justice system, local authorities and national institutions such as the BBC, NHS and Ministry of Defence....

“By victims we are not talking about children who were at risk of sexual exploitation, who were friendly with victims or who moved in the same circle,” she told the journalists. “The 1,400 victims are those who had actually experienced sexual exploitation.” Determined that no one could bat away her findings, she had produced a 153-page report that spelled out in plain language the appalling abuse suffered by children aged 10-16 in the South Yorkshire town (Rotherham) between 1997 and 2013....
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/13/alexis-jay-politicians-rotherham-report-child-sex-abuse-social-worker-claims-westminster-bbc-nhs