Mormon Church accused of turning blind eye to child abuse in foster care program, Ex-prosecutor slams critics of Child Victims Act, urges New York to stop protecting abusers

- Mormon Church accused of turning blind eye to child abuse in foster care program
- Another Navajo Member Sues LDS Church over Childhood Sexual Abuse
- Author, ex-prosecutor slams critics of Child Victims Act, urges New York to stop protecting abusers

Mormon Church accused of turning blind eye to child abuse in foster care program
The Mormon Church has been hit with another lawsuit saying that it did nothing to protect children in a church-run foster program from sexual abuse.

Two Navajo siblings sued The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Navajo Nation court earlier this year. A second lawsuit made public Tuesday outlines similar allegations.

A Navajo woman identified as B.N. says she was sexually molested and raped multiple times while in foster care and by health care providers in Utah, from 1965 to 1972. She was among thousands of American Indians who participated in the church's Indian Student Placement Program.

Attorneys representing the three plaintiffs say church leaders did not report the abuse to law enforcement and failed to protect the children who, as adults, suffer from emotional and physical distress....
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/01/mormon-church-accused-turning-blind-eye-to-child-abuse-in-foster-care-program.html

Another Navajo Member Sues LDS Church over Childhood Sexual Abuse By Andrea Smardon June 1, 2016
A Navajo woman is suing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, saying she was sexually assaulted while participating in the church’s Lamanite Indian Student Placement Program. This is now the third claim of sexual abuse that has been brought against the Mormon Church by members of the Navajo Nation since March.

The plaintiff identified as B.N. says she was sexually molested and raped between 1965 and 1972 while in church-run foster care in Utah. She decided to file suit after hearing of two Navajo siblings who sued the church earlier this year with similar allegations.

“I just said, you know what, I’ve shut my mouth long enough, and it was just time,” B.N. says. The complaint filed in Navajo Nation District Court outlines sexual abuse by a foster father, a foster brother, and a medical examiner in a church facility. B.N., a member of the LDS Church, says she has been afraid to come forward. That’s what she hopes to change with the lawsuit. “Being able to speak up and have people trust their leaders, that they’re able to come forth with atrocious situations without fear and without being black-balled in any way.”

Criag Vernon is an attorney representing the three plaintiffs. He says church leaders did not report the abuse to law enforcement and failed to protect children in their care....
http://kuer.org/post/another-navajo-member-sues-lds-church-over-childhood-sexual-abuse 

Author, ex-prosecutor slams critics of Child Victims Act, urges New York to stop protecting abusers
BY Linda Fairstein SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, June 1, 2016

There is no class of people more vulnerable to sexual predators than children. In the overwhelming number of cases, the perpetrators are people who have betrayed the trust of children in their care — relatives, foster families, educators, coaches, clergy and health care professionals — who are far more likely to commit the traumatizing acts than strangers our children are brought up to fear.

The greatest damage has been done to child victims whose voices have long been silenced — first, by their abusers, and then by the senseless laws that have placed arbitrary limits on the time they have to seek justice. We cannot save many who have come before this, but we can change the outlook, the possibility of justice — both in criminal and civil court — for the thousands more who have suffered at the hands of predators and those whom we know will come next. The time to pass the Child Victims Act is now.

There is no reasonable opposition to this argument. What is it opponents fear? Some have raised the concern of false reporting, but the statistics are abundantly clear that this problem represents a small fractional proportion — less than 2% of all claims. For example, California saw about five false claims out of 850 against the Catholic Church. False reporting occurs in every category of crime and it is certainly an issue in cases which fall within the statute of limitations. It is part of the job of every prosecutor to identify those complaints and get them out of the system. They are rare, and they should never be a barrier to the overwhelming number of valid complaints that deserve to be investigated....
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ex-prosecutor-urges-n-y-approve-child-victims-act-article-1.2657762 

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