Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Psychiatric Impact of Organized and Ritual Child Sexual Abuse, Spain police bust 'Black magic' prostitution ring, North Korea: Sexual abuse of women 'common

 
- Psychiatric Impact of Organized and Ritual Child Sexual Abuse: Cross-Sectional Findings from Individuals Who Report Being Victimized
- Spain police bust 'black magic' prostitution ring in Murcia
- North Korea: Sexual abuse of women 'common', report claims
Article

Psychiatric Impact of Organized and Ritual Child Sexual Abuse: Cross-Sectional Findings from Individuals Who Report Being Victimized

Johanna Schröder, Susanne Nick, Hertha Richter-Appelt and Peer Briken
Institute for Sex Research and Forensic Psychiatry, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(11), 2417; doi: 10.3390/ijerph15112417
 
Abstract: Organized and ritual child sexual abuse (ORA) is often rooted in the child’s own family. Empirical evidence on possible associations between ORA and trauma-related symptoms in those who report this kind of extreme and prolonged violence is rare. The aim of our study was to explore socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the individuals reporting ORA experiences, and to investigate protective as well as promotive factors in the link between ORA and trauma-related symptom severity. Within the framework of a project of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in Germany, we recruited 165 adults who identified themselves as ORA victims via abuse- and trauma-specific networks and mailing lists, and they completed an anonymous online survey. We used variance analyses to examine correlations between several variables in the ORA context and PTSD symptoms (PCL-5) as well as somatoform dissociation (SDQ-5). Results revealed a high psychic strain combined with an adverse health care situation in individuals who report experiences with ORA. Ideological strategies used by perpetrators as well as Dissociative Identity Disorders experienced by those affected are associated with more severe symptoms (η2p = 0.11; η2p = 0.15), while an exit out of the ORA structures is associated with milder symptoms (η2p = 0.11). Efforts are needed to improve health care services for individuals who experience severe and complex psychiatric disorders due to ORA in their childhood.
 
1. Introduction
Child sexual abuse (CSA), once thought to be rare, is nowadays accepted as a frequent reality that occurs across a range of cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds worldwide and encompasses many types of sexually abusive acts towards children, including sexual assault, incest, the production and use of child pornography, as well as commercial sexual exploitation [1]. Sexual child abuse involving a network of perpetrators acting repeatedly and jointly on multiple victims is defined as ‘organized abuse’ [2]. Organized abuse that follows a (pseudo-) ideological strategy (e.g., symbols or group activities with religious, magical, or supernatural connotations) in order to frighten and intimidate the children or to force the victims to participate whilst simultaneously accomplishing the perpetrators’ exculpation is referred to as ‘ritual abuse’ [3,4]. Salter further describes ritual abuse as ideological framing in organized CSA contexts, functioning as strategical practices through which abusive groups indoctrinate the victims into a violently misogynistic worldview in order to control them [4]. In other words, ritual abuse occurs when a religious, political, or spiritual authority uses its position of power and the sovereignty to interpret the respective belief system to manipulate and dominate its followers. Since the 1980s, evidence of organized and ritual abuse (ORA) has been consolidated due to studies documenting psychological harm amongst children and adults disclosing such experiences [5]....
 
5. Conclusions
ORA, defined as organized child sexual abuse where a (pseudo-)ideological (i.e., ritual) content serves as legitimization for violence, is a complex and polarizing issue in mental health care contexts as well as in research. At present, the uncovering and reprocessing of ORA is a problem that remains to be solved in Germany, as well as internationally. Given the paucity of research in this field, we believe that this study contributes to closing this evidence gap, as it presents empirical data on reported practices of ORA and its impact on trauma-related symptom severity in self-identified victims, in which reported ideological/ritual strategies by the perpetrators and an exit out of the ORA structures play a major role. A key policy priority should therefore be to intensify efforts on the understanding of ORA-related structures, as well as the complex clinical presentation of those affected. Services like information websites and exit programs should be developed by experts in the field in order to contribute to generating appropriate treatment services for this group of clients. Mental health professionals and centers specialized in the treatment of severely traumatized clients with CPTSD and dissociative disorders would contribute to a better support of clients who report such trauma histories. The therapeutic process of detachment from perpetrator networks is intense, and supporters of individuals who experience ORA face special difficulties, like, for example, dissociative personality states. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that constant professional supervision is provided to them by professionals who understand the spectrum of possibilities and pitfalls in the treatment....

 

Spain police bust 'black magic' prostitution ring in Murcia
Spanish police say they have rescued 15 transgender Brazilians from forced prostitution in the city of Murcia.
 
The victims were beaten, forced to use and sell drugs, and often kept locked inside a flat, officials say.
 
They are also said to have been threatened with the use of black magic if they did not comply.
 
Objects related to the ritual-filled Santería religion were found in the flat. Thirteen suspects were detained for allegedly running the ring.
 
The authorities say the ring was headed by Brazilian who worked with associates to recruit vulnerable young people in Brazil....

 
North Korea: Sexual abuse of women 'common', report claims
North Korean officials commit sexual abuse against women with near total impunity, a report has claimed.
 
Human Rights Watch added that it is so common it has become part of ordinary life.
The report is based on interviews with 62 North Koreans who fled the country. They gave detailed accounts of rape and sexual abuse.
 
HRW said it revealed a culture of open, unaddressed abuse, particularly from men in positions of power.
 
Oh Jung-hee, a former trader in her 40s told Human Rights Watch (HRW): "They consider us [sex] toys. We are at the mercy of men."
"Sometimes, out of nowhere, you cry at night and don't know why."
 
Gathering information from inside the secretive state is extremely difficult and reports like this are rare.

'My life was in his hands'
According to HRW some women expressed that sexual abuse had become so normalised that they did not think it was "unusual" - with some saying it had become accepted as part of everyday life....
 
The perpetrators include high-ranking party officials, prison facility guards, police and soldiers.
 
Interviewees told HRW that when an official "picked" a woman, she would have little choice but to comply....
 
It added that forced abortion, rape and sexual violence had been carried out in prisons or in detention....
 
 

Monday, October 29, 2018

Rotherham child sexual abuse: Gang of seven guilty, Church defectors reveal video of ritualistic violence


 - Rotherham child sexual abuse: Gang of seven guilty
"Seven men have been found guilty of grooming and exploiting young girls, including one who was sexually abused by "at least 100 Asian men" before the age of 16."
 
Defectors say former church pastor is a 'cult leader,' but her son fights back  "Church defectors reveal video of ritualistic violence"  Grace Road Church
 


Rotherham child sexual abuse: Gang of seven guilty
29 October 2018
 
Seven men have been found guilty of grooming and exploiting young girls, including one who was sexually abused by "at least 100 Asian men" before the age of 16.
 
Sheffield Crown Court heard how the men targeted and exploited the teenagers before subjecting them to acts of a "degrading and violent nature".
 
They abused five young girls over a seven year period in Rotherham.
The gang were convicted of offences including rape and indecent assault.
One girl described being bitten and raped by two of the men in Sherwood Forest while "high as a kite" on drugs....
 
The convictions are the latest to come out of Operation Stovewood, the National Crime Agency's (NCA) investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which has identified more than 1,500 victims....
 
During a trial lasting more than eight weeks the jury heard the men, who are all of British Pakistani heritage, preyed on the girls' vulnerability before they were sexually assaulted and passed on to other men.
 
Prosecutor Michelle Colborne QC said the girls had been "lured by the excitement of friendship with older Asian youths" but were then "targeted, sexualised and in some instances subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature".
 
She said: "None of them had the maturity to understand that they were being groomed and exploited, often believing that sex of some kind was a necessary price for friendship."....
 
Operation Stovewood is the largest law enforcement investigation into non-familial child sexual exploitation in the UK.
 
It began in 2014 after a report found at least 1,400 children in Rotherham were the victims of abuse between 1997 and 2013.
 
It is run by the NCA, which is working with 296 alleged victims, has identified 151 suspects and is running 22 ongoing investigations.
 
More than 150 officers work on the operation and there are plans to recruit another 100....
 
 
It has led to 14 convictions so far, and 24 more people have been charged with offences.
The court head the men used alcohol, drugs, threats and violence to control the girls....
 
 
Defectors say former church pastor is a 'cult leader,' but her son fights back
By Joshua Berlinger and Yoonjung Seo, CNN Mon October 29, 2018
 
Church defectors reveal video of ritualistic violence
 
Seoul, South Korea (CNN)Standing in front of her parish in a bright yellow jacket, Shin Ok-joo holds back tears. Her voice takes on a tone of both anger and sadness.

"How could you behave like this?" she asks her congregation in a video purportedly filmed in South Korea in April last year at the Grace Road Church, where Shin serves as pastor. Soft weeping from people seated in pews intensifies into a chorus of sobs. "Am I your toy? Did I tell you I was your toy? You crazy one!"

Shin leaves her pulpit but remains on the raised platform above her congregation as she approaches a group of people with their heads bowed. With her left hand, she grabs a worshiper in a brown coat by her hair and, with her free hand, slaps the person across the face. The slaps continue, and the crying from the audience grows louder. Shin's emotion is apparent on her face.
After four slaps, the congregant falls to the floor. Shin picks up the woman by the hair and shakes her head violently. By this point, the audience's screams are loud, raw and visceral. Shin yells at her, but what she says is inaudible due to the sobbing.
 
According to Grace Road, this is an example of what the church calls "threshing," a ritual involving church members being slapped and hit as a form of repentance in accordance with Shin's interpretation of the Bible. It symbolizes separating sin from the human body in the same way that grains are removed from crops by threshing.

The woman at the receiving end of Shin's blows had just returned from Fiji, where about 400 members of the church have moved to set up shop. Shin preaches that Fiji is the land chosen by God to be the center of the world and the ideal place to survive an impending great famine, and the church has made significant investments in the country.

Video of this incident was supplied to CNN by Daniel Kim, Shin's son, in an attempt to counter allegations from former congregants of violence against its members.

The footage from Kim was sent a day after three former members of the church revealed 20 minutes worth of footage of particularly violent threshing incidents at a news conference in Seoul Wednesday.

"Shin is a cult leader and the Grace Road Church is a cult," Lee Soon-deok, one of the former members, told the media Wednesday.

"She tells people that she is the only one to rely on, that people can only be saved by her. Shin is an evil woman."

Former church members contend that the threshing ritual is assault -- and South Korean prosecutors have moved to punish Shin for it. She was arrested in July and remains behind bars awaiting trial, charged with forced confinement and physical assault. At the time of Shin's arrest, South Korean authorities said many of congregants in Fiji appeared to have been stripped of their passports upon arrival by senior members of the church....
 
 

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Two Satan worshiping middle school girls plotted to kill fellow students, Dozens of clergy sex abuse victims waiting on answers about compensation


 
Two Satan worshiping middle school girls plotted to kill fellow students and drink their blood
Dozens of clergy sex abuse victims waiting on answers about compensation

Two Satan worshiping middle school girls plotted to kill fellow students and drink their blood
New York Daily News Brian Niemietz Oct 24th 2018
 
Two satanic knife-wielding school girls were arrested in central Florida, where cops say they were hiding in a bathroom waiting for smaller students to walk in so they could kill them and “leave body parts at the entrance” before taking their own lives. The goal was to murder 15 classmates.
 
Bartow Police Department thwarted the bizarre plot after a middle school resource office caught wind of the girls’ intentions, according to CBS.
A teachers at Bartow Middle School reportedly heard on Monday that one of the girls, an 11-year-old, had warned another student to avoid a certain area of the campus when she came to class Tuesday....
 
According to police, that’s when the girls confessed to the plan. Both were said to have been armed with cutlery including a butcher’s knife and a pizza cutter. They “were planning in attacking and killing as many students as possible.”
Hall said the girls wanted to kill “at least” 15 people.
 
“Both students stated they are practicing satanists,” Hall said. He added, “They made comments they were willing to drink blood and possibly eat flesh.”....
The girls’ cell phones corroborated the plan.
 
“Today is health lessons. Thank Satan we are doing this in a bit,” one girl texted the other.
 
The girls are charged with conspiracy to commit murder, weapon possession and disruption of a school function....
 
 

Dozens of clergy sex abuse victims waiting on answers about compensation
Jenn Schanz Oct 24, 2018
 
News 4 has learned that at least 54 local clergy sex abuse victims are still waiting on a substantive response from the Buffalo Diocese regarding their claims for compensation through the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, or IRCP.
 
The program was announced several months ago, after the Buffalo Diocese released the names of 42 priests accused of child sexual abuse.
 
The list was published after a South Buffalo man, Michael Whalen, went public with his story of alleged abuse as a child at the hands of Fr. Norbert F. Orsolits.
Since then, several other victims have come forward and News 4 has reported on at least a dozen additional priests being put on administrative leave following accusations of abuse.
 
The Diocese has said a new, updated list will be released in the near future, but has not said when exactly it will be released, or how many names will be on it....
 
We were referred back to the Diocese's website on the program. We asked the Diocese how many victims they have responded to; we are still waiting on a response.
 
"They have in all likelihood, hundreds of survivors who are waiting and have been waiting for months and months since the deadline to even know if they're eligible for the program. And that's something that's really hard when this is an institution that already failed them," Reck told News 4....
 
 
 

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Lawyers release the names of 212 alleged priest sex offenders in Bay Area, Kenyan widows are fighting against sexual 'cleansing', Memoir ‘The Burn Zone’ former cult member tells all


-  Lawyers release the names of 212 alleged priest sex offenders in Bay Area

-  These Kenyan widows are fighting against sexual 'cleansing'

-  In memoir ‘The Burn Zone,’ former cult member tells all 



Lawyers release the names of 212 alleged priest sex offenders in Bay Area
By: Lisa Fernandez , Cristina Rendon Oct 23 2018

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - As dioceses around the country are disclosing names of priests accused of misconduct, a law firm on Tuesday released a report containing the names of 212 Catholic Clergy members accused of sexual misconduct in the Bay Area.
The report, compiled by lawyers from Jeff Anderson and Associates based in St. Paul, Minn., accuses 135 offenders from the Archdiocese of San Francisco, 95 from the Diocese of Oakland and 33 from the Diocese of San Jose. A total of 130 of these priests are dead....

Anderson and his team are seeking to compel Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in San Francisco, Bishop Patrick McGrath in San Jose and Bishop Michael Barber in Oakland to release the names of all clergy accused of sexual misconduct in all three dioceses and request the federal court to release files that show the participation and complicity of top church officials in the handling of clergy sexual abuse cases. There are at least 133 priests who are alive, but whose whereabouts are not immediately known to the public, the lawyers said.

KTVU reached out to all the dioceses on Tuesday. Oakland Diocese spokeswoman Helen Osman said in an email that Barber announced earlier this month that he would release a full list of credibly accused clergy within 45 days. "We have nothing to hide," Barber said at the time....

Dioceses across California and the U.S. have been disclosing names as part of an effort by church leaders to reassure parishioners following a stunning August report by Pennsylvania authorities.
The report detailed extensive efforts to cover up decades of abuse involving clergy and children.
These Kenyan widows are fighting against sexual 'cleansing'
Across Women's Lives GlobalPost October 23, 2018 

By Louise Donovan and Hannah O'Neill

When Esther Atema’s husband died, she was treated like dirt. People suddenly looked at her funny — villagers shouted, "Witch!" as she walked past. The local boys in Siaya County, southwest Kenya, would get drunk and chase her down the road. If they caught her, they’d beat her to a pulp.



At 35 years old, she had become a widow. And, in some rural parts of Kenya, widowhood means you’re of little value. Culturally, widows are considered impure, and tradition dictates that they must be cleaned — or “cleansed” — of their partners’ death. The aim is to chase away the demons; the ritual requires women to have sex — either with a relative or stranger.
Sure enough, one year after his death, Atema’s late husband’s family forced her to go through the cleansing process....

The order can vary slightly but the ceremony typically goes like this: You begin by having sex on the floor. In the morning, you burn your clothes and the sack you slept on, and the man shaves the widow’s hair. Sometimes, it happens outside, in front of the house — where the whole neighborhood can see. Together, you slaughter a chicken (a staple in the diet here), which you cook and eat. The ceremony lasts three days but can be drawn out for up to seven.
“I felt humiliated,” said Atema. “But I was told my children would die if I didn’t go through with it.”

If you refuse to be cleansed, you’re shunned from society. Women, like Atema, believe their children will be harmed, and that going uncleansed will block any chance of future marriage. But in a society rife with HIV and AIDS, despite improvements, accepting means you run the risk of disease — using a condom doesn’t complete the ritual properly so people go without.
After the cleansing, the widow is traditionally inherited, whereby she marries another man (usually a brother-in-law). Yet, she still has no rights — and millions of widows across Africa are kicked out of their homes by their in-laws, robbed of their property and made vulnerable to rape.

“Why don’t women have a choice?” said Atema, now 40. “You don’t know who this person is; they could hurt or kill you. No one checks if they’re HIV-free.”....

Ritual cleansing has been reported in 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The stigma stems, says Karen Brewer of Widows Rights International, from the notion that men are stronger than women.
“If a man dies, it can’t just be because he’s old,” she said. “The woman must have done witchcraft against him. It’s superstition but people who are educated in these communities realize things can be done differently.”

One of those people is Roseline Orwa. She’s among a growing number of widows’ rights activists in Kenya pushing for change. In the fishing village where she grew up, on the windy shores of Lake Victoria, she heads up a women’s group that is fighting the practice.
By 32, Orwa had been divorced and widowed. Educated in Nairobi and economically independent with her own textiles business, she refused to be cleansed or inherited and escaped the usual stigma that stalks widows’ lives....

In 2015, she helped outlaw widow cleansing in the country under a domestic offenses bill, though few in rural areas know it exists (or they do and adhere to the tradition anyway, out of fear of being ostracized). So, today, the practice still persists in rural Kenya. Having firsthand experience of widowhood puts Orwa in a unique position — she’s able to understand the challenges that many women around her face. At the same time, she’s powerful enough to do something about it.

“I will not allow you to come into my house at night and rape me in the name of cleansing,” she said. “Why do we tell women: Don’t do anything, sit pretty and wait until we molest you, until we make you lose your dignity and value?”.....

In memoir ‘The Burn Zone,’ former cult member tells all
Andrew Travers October 8, 2018


Snowmass Village resident Renee Linnell’s new memoir “The Burn Zone” recounts her experience being brainwashed and joining a cult.

Late in her new memoir, "The Burn Zone," Renee Linnell recounts a night out where she dances on a bar, meets a guy and tells him immediately that she had been in a cult for the past seven years.
He responds, "You are the most interesting person I've ever met!"....
But after attending what she thought was a meditation seminar in 2006 in California, led by a charismatic guru in a business suit, Linnell was slowly brainwashed and sucked into a Tantric Buddhist cult. Seven years later — suffering under the emotional, financial and sexual abuse of the University of Mysticism cult's two leaders — she'd lost her money, burned everything she owned, cut herself off from her family and friends and found herself in a form of domestic slavery in New York.


As she woke up to the fact that she was a cult member, Linnell broke free and began a long process of healing. That process brought her to Colorado, where she settled in Snowmass Village and began writing what would become "The Burn Zone."....
The book's roots were in Linnell's journals, where she sought catharsis by writing out her story and purging her emotions.
"I felt I had to get it out of me," she recalled. "There was a lot of shame around the fact that I had let myself get brainwashed and let myself get in such a bad business relationship and lose so much money. And when I was healing, I got fat for the first time in my life. So I was just this fat, broken, lost, confused and broken person who had totally ruined her life."
But as she started opening up to new friends about what had happened to her, they encouraged her to write a book. She realized then that she'd already begun writing it.

As a culture, we don't afford people who have been brainwashed and joined cults the same compassion that we offer victims of other forms of abuse. Linnell, too, had such prejudices until it happened to her. She hopes that her book can help de-stigmatize victims and also help readers see warning signs themselves.

"I had this belief that people who join cults are crazy," she said. "And when you've never been in one, you think, 'The signs are obvious and why would you do that?' You read these things about people committing mass suicide or whatever. I know from experience that it happens so slowly, so insidiously."

She compares the brainwashing process in a cult to being in any toxic relationship, where a partner builds another up and makes them feel loved and cherished, then dismantles their support system and introduces increasingly abusive behavior.
Linnell hopes other victims will follow her and open up about their pasts....

Monday, October 22, 2018

Scott Morrison's National apology to Australian survivors, Colonia Dignidad former Nazis hiding sexual abuse and torture, Corey Feldman Title of Documentary About Child Abuse in Movie Industry


- Scott Morrison's national apology to Australian survivors and victims of child sexual abuse – full speech  institutional child sexual abuse 
" When a child spoke up, they weren’t believed and the crimes continued with impunity."
" The crimes of ritual sexual abuse happened in schools, churches, youth groups, scout troops, orphanages, foster homes, sporting clubs, group homes, charities, and in family homes as well."
" 17,000 survivors coming forward and nearly 8,000 of them recounting their abuse in private sessions of the commission."
 
 
German court refuses to imprison cult leader linked to child abuse
Colonia Dignidad was founded in Chile by a former Nazi in 1961. For years, the cult was cut off, hiding sexual abuse and torture. Now its German doctor has avoided prison despite convictions for aiding child abuse.
" For decades after World War II, hundreds of people, many of them German and former Nazis, lived in a secluded enclave in Chile called Colonia Dignidad. The colony’s peaceful facade hid much darker things, a totalitarian religious cult fueled by fear. Longtime leader and ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer was convicted of the sexual abuse of children in 2006, and the group is believed to have carried out torture for the secret police of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Many people were killed at the hillside location."
 
 
Corey Feldman Reveals Title of His Long-Awaited Documentary About Child Abuse in Movie Industry
 
 
 
Scott Morrison's national apology to Australian survivors and victims of child sexual abuse – full speech
 
Full text of the apology speech for institutional child sexual abuse as delivered in parliament on Monday
 
....Today, Australia confronts a trauma – an abomination – hiding in plain sight for far too long.
 
Today, we confront a question too horrible to ask, let alone answer.
Why weren’t the children of our nation loved, nurtured and protected?
Why was their trust betrayed?
Why did those who know cover it up?
Why were the cries of children and parents ignored?
Why was our system of justice blind to injustice?
Why has it taken so long to act?
 
Why were other things more important than this, the care of innocent children?
Why didn’t we believe?
 
Today we dare to ask these questions, and finally acknowledge and confront the lost screams of our children.
While we can’t be so vain to pretend to answers, we must be so humble to fall before those who were forsaken and beg to them our apology....
 
Look up at the galleries, look at the Great Hall, look outside this place and you will see men and women from every walk of life, from every generation, and every part of our land.
Crushed, abused, discarded and forgotten.
 
The crimes of ritual sexual abuse happened in schools, churches, youth groups, scout troops, orphanages, foster homes, sporting clubs, group homes, charities, and in family homes as well.
 
It happened anywhere a predator thought they could get away with it, and the systems within these organisations allowed it to happen and turned a blind eye.
It happened day after day, week after week, month after month, and decade after decade. Unrelenting torment.
 
When a child spoke up, they weren’t believed and the crimes continued with impunity.
One survivor told me that when he told a teacher of his abuse, that teacher then became his next abuser.
 
Trust broken.
Innocence betrayed.
Power and position exploited for evil dark crimes.
A survivor named Faye told the royal commission: “Nothing takes the memories away. It happened 53 years ago and it’s still affecting me.”
One survivor named Ann said: “My mother believed them rather than me.”....
 
The foundations of our actions are the findings and recommendations of the royal commission, initiated by Prime Minister Gillard.
 
The steady compassionate hand of the commissioners and staff resulted in 17,000 survivors coming forward and nearly 8,000 of them recounting their abuse in private sessions of the commission.
 
We are all grateful to the survivors who gave evidence to the commission. It is because of your strength and your courage that we are gathered here today.
Many of the commissioners and staff are also with us today and I thank them also.
Mr Speaker, acting on the recommendations of the royal commission with concrete action gives practical meaning to today’s apology....
 
These survivors also need to be heard, and believed, and responded to with services to address their needs. So today, I commit to fund the establishment of a national centre of excellence, and I call on the states and territories to work as partners in this venture. This centre will be the place to raise awareness and understanding of the impacts of child sexual abuse, to deal with the stigma, to support help seeking and guide best practice for training and other services.
All of this is just the start.
 
The Australian government has not rejected a single recommendation of the royal commission....
 

German court refuses to imprison cult leader linked to child abuse
Colonia Dignidad was founded in Chile by a former Nazi in 1961. For years, the cult was cut off, hiding sexual abuse and torture. Now its German doctor has avoided prison despite convictions for aiding child abuse.
By Grace Dobush September 27, 2018
 
For decades after World War II, hundreds of people, many of them German and former Nazis, lived in a secluded enclave in Chile called Colonia Dignidad. The colony’s peaceful facade hid much darker things, a totalitarian religious cult fueled by fear. Longtime leader and ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer was convicted of the sexual abuse of children in 2006, and the group is believed to have carried out torture for the secret police of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Many people were killed at the hillside location.
 
Hartmut Hopp was a close associate of Mr. Schäfer’s, working as a doctor in the colony and sometimes acting as its spokesman. In 2011, he was sentenced to five years in prison for 16 counts of aiding the sexual abuse of children over several decades. But he fled to Germany shortly thereafter, where he was protected from extradition as a German citizen. Unperturbed, Chile pushed for German courts to enforce his sentence, and a case was launched.
 
This week, it came to an end at a regional court in Düsseldorf. It decided not to enforce the Chilean verdict, finding that it had failed to prove Mr. Hopp had commited any offences punishable under German law. The ruling means the 74-year-old will not serve any prison time. German prosecutors are now considering filing new charges, not only accusing him of aiding child abuse but of complicity in the 1973 murder of three opposition activists in Chile and the forced administration of psychoactive drugs.
 
Colonia Dignidad was rotten from the start. Mr. Schäfer, a lay preacher who was accused of sexual abuse of children in Germany, founded the colony with utopian ideals in 1961 after seeking refuge in Chile at the end of World War II. It looked like a quaint Bavarian village and offered local people essential services with its hospital and schools.
 
Accusations of sexual abuse, imprisonment, hard labor and forced medication arose early on but were swept under the rug. After Pinochet’s junta took control of Chile in 1973, Colonia Dignidad enjoyed special protections for providing the regime with weapons and the location for a torture center.
 
The commune was under Mr. Schäfer’s strict control, with men separated from women, children separated from parents. People living in Colonia Dignidad adopted Chilean children from poor families, continually providing new victims for Mr. Schäfer, nicknamed the “permanent uncle.” Victims estimate he abused more than 30,000 boys over 30 years.
 
In 1997, Chilean prosecutors filed charges against Mr. Schäfer, who then fled to Argentina. He was arrested in 2005 and convicted in 2006 of sexually abusing 25 children. He died in a Chilean prison four years later aged 88....
https://global.handelsblatt.com/politics/colonia-dignidad-german-cult-chile-nazi-colony-hartmut-hopp-paul-schaefer-schafer-chile-colonia-dignidad-967032
 
 
 
 
Corey Feldman Reveals Title of His Long-Awaited Documentary About Child Abuse in Movie Industry
By Us Weekly Staff
October 22, 2018
 
Ready to tell his story. Corey Feldman revealed exclusively to Us Weekly that the title of his upcoming documentary is Truth: the Rape of 2 Coreys.
Hollywood’s Sexual Misconduct Scandals
 
“I believe this title represents the truth I have been promising to tell and it also represents the Truth of what happened,” Feldman, 47, said in a statement to Us Weekly. “He (Corey Haim) was physically raped, I was physically assaulted and as a result of those actions, and the fact that I had to carry that burden all those years, really it was a raping of not only our emotional lives, but also our collective work and career as The Two Corey’s.”
 
Feldman was a child actor who starred in a series of ‘80s movies including The Goonies, Stand By Me and The Lost Boys. The actor has alleged in the past that he and Haim, his former costar and best friend who died in 2010 at the age of 38 after struggling with drug addiction, were sexually abused throughout their careers by Hollywood pedophiles.
 
Celebs Fight Back on Social Media
After The New York Times published an exposé detailing decades of sexual harassment and assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein in October 2017, the former Two Coreys star urged others to speak out and launched an Indiegogo Opens a New Window. campaign Opens a New Window. titled “Corey Feldman’s Truth Campaign” to raise money for a film about his experiences in Hollywood....
https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/corey-feldman-reveals-title-of-his-long-awaited-documentary-about-child-abuse/
 
 

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Feds subpoena Pennsylvania dioceses in Catholic clergy sex abuse investigation, Child Sexual Abuse Accusations Against a Doctor and Hospital Says It Knew

 
Feds subpoena Pennsylvania dioceses in Catholic clergy sex abuse investigation
A Wave of Child Sexual Abuse Accusations Against a Doctor, and Hospital Says It Knew

Feds subpoena Pennsylvania dioceses in Catholic clergy sex abuse investigation
CBS/AP October 18, 2018
 
PHILADELPHIA — The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least seven of the eight dioceses in Pennsylvania as part of a federal probe into child sexual abuse inside the Roman Catholic Church. The Associated Press, citing two people familiar with the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly, reports the subpoenas are seeking a trove of sensitive files and testimony from church leaders.
 
The intervention by the federal government opens a new front of legal peril for the Catholic Church, given that investigations into sexual abuse by clergy members have historically been handled exclusively by state and local authorities.
 
According to the people who spoke to the AP, U.S. Attorney William McSwain of Philadelphia, who issued the federal subpoenas last week, wants to know if priests, bishops, seminarians or others committed any federal crimes. McSwain was appointed by President Trump earlier this year.
 
He has asked for certain church leaders to testify before a federal grand jury in Philadelphia, though it could be months before that happens because of the time it takes to review the requested documents.
 
McSwain has also demanded the bishops turn over any evidence that anyone in their ranks took children across state lines for illicit purposes; sent sexual images or messages via phone or computer; instructed anyone not to contact police; reassigned suspected predators; or used money or other assets as part of the scandal.
 
The grand jury subpoenas also seek documents stored in "Secret Archives," ''Historical Archives" or "Confidential Files," and records related to the dioceses' organizational charts, finances, insurance coverage, clergy assignments and treatment of priests, according to the AP's sources.
 
While the subpoenas hint at possible charges of sexual exploitation of minors and fraud, legal experts said that if federal prosecutors can show that church leaders systematically covered up for child-molesting priests in the past five years, dioceses could also be charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, the law originally passed to bring down the Mafia.
 
A representative for McSwain declined to comment to the AP, as did a Justice Department spokeswoman. The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
 
There was no indication the Justice Department is planning a nationwide investigation.
 
"This is the first time I have ever heard of a federal investigation into child sexual abuse in a Catholic diocese or church. This is a monumental moment for clergy sexual victims everywhere," Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston-based plaintiffs' lawyer who played a major role in uncovering the scandal in the Boston Archdiocese over a decade ago....

 

A Wave of Child Sexual Abuse Accusations Against a Doctor, and Hospital Says It Knew By Christina Goldbaum Oct. 18, 2018

For almost 30 years, parents sought out Dr. Reginald Archibald when their children would not grow. They came to his clinic at The Rockefeller University Hospital, a prominent New York research institution, where he treated and studied children who were small for their age.
 
He also may have sexually abused many of them.
 
The hospital sent a letter last month to former patients of Dr. Archibald asking about their contact with him. Ten days later, on Oct. 5, it posted a statement online saying it had evidence of the doctor’s “inappropriate” behavior with some patients and that it first had learned of credible allegations against him in 2004. The letter went out to as many as 1,000 people, said a former patient who spoke with a hospital administrator....
 
The New York Times spoke with 17 people, most of them men, who said they were abused by Dr. Archibald when they were young boys or adolescents. Most of them learned of the possibility of other victims for the first time when they received the letter. A few, however, said they had filed complaints with the hospital or authorities in the past, but their allegations were not investigated....
 
 
Articles by Neil Brick  http://neilbrick.com 
Child and Ritual Abuse Research  https://ritualabuse.us
Child Abuse Wiki  http://childabusewiki.org  

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Nevada's famous pimp expected to win election despite death - multiple allegations of sexual assault, Casa Isla abuse case

 
Nevada's famous pimp expected to win election despite death
"stunts that included helping several women "auction" their virginity...multiple allegations of sexual assault against him...If Hof wins on Nov. 6, county officials will nominate another Republican to fill the vacancy"
 
After delays, trial set for November in Casa Isla abuse case
"eight staff members at a Department of Youth Services facility were arrested for allegedly beating adolescent boys who were detained there....where boys were allegedly beaten, sexually assaulted and given alcohol and pornography "
 
Nevada's famous pimp expected to win election despite death
The Associated Press MICHELLE L. PRICE Oct 17th 2018

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada's most famous pimp tried to bring the state's legal brothel industry into the mainstream by mingling with celebrities, showcasing his business on HBO and staging outlandish publicity stunts.
 
Dennis Hof's fame made him an attention-grabbing figure in an otherwise quiet industry. And, despite being found dead on Tuesday, he's poised to win an election to the state Legislature in less than three weeks.
 
Hof, who starred in the HBO reality series "Cathouse," marketed himself as a Donald Trump-style Republican in his race for a heavily GOP Assembly district that includes wide stretches of desert where nuclear bombs were once tested.
His body was found at his Love Ranch brothel outside Las Vegas following a weekend of parties celebrating his 72nd birthday. Guests included porn actor Ron Jeremy, "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss, former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and a mix of local politicians and friends....
 
While waging a no-holds-barred campaign, Hof's incendiary style drew fans and well-known supporters such as Trump adviser Roger Stone and Arpaio. But it also brought scrutiny to Hof's businesses and alienated him from the state's GOP establishment.
 
Nevada is the only state to allow legal prostitution, which occurs at about 20 licensed brothels in mostly rural areas.
 
Most brothel owners keep a low profile, offering few interviews and buying only subtle advertising. But Hof had a penchant for splashy billboards and stunts that included helping several women "auction" their virginity....
 
If Hof wins on Nov. 6, county officials will nominate another Republican to fill the vacancy....
 
Billing himself as "the Trump of Pahrump," Hof wrote a memoir in 2015 titled "The Art of the Pimp," akin to Trump's book "The Art of the Deal." After winning the primary, he credited the president with paving the way by proving a candidate could upend establishment politics and win.
 
Trump "was the Christopher Columbus for me," Hof told The Associated Press. "He found the way and I jumped on it."
 
Hof, who was born in Phoenix in 1946, owned several gas stations and other small businesses before moving to Nevada in the 1970s.
 
He had two daughters, who are both adults and were estranged from him for years, Muth said. Hof also had an ex-wife, but Muth did not know her whereabouts or details about her.
 
In 1992, Hof bought his first brothel and eventually grew his empire to six, including an Area 51-themed brothel. He began selling some of the properties this year as he faced regulatory problems in southern Nevada and a push to outlaw licensed bordellos in the two counties where he operated.
 
Hof said he was downsizing to focus on politics, which he called "a dirty business." He said the anti-brothel push, the regulatory problems and multiple allegations of sexual assault against him were politically motivated.
 
Three of the allegations from prostitutes never resulted in charges. Few details have been released about a fourth allegation that the Nevada Department of Public Safety was investigating. It was made in September by a woman who reported at a hospital that Hof had raped her.
Hof denied all of the accusations....
 
 
 
After delays, trial set for November in Casa Isla abuse case
By Shira Schoenberg
BOSTON -- More than three years ago, eight staff members at a Department of Youth Services facility were arrested for allegedly beating adolescent boys who were detained there.
 
The criminal case is expected to go to trial in Suffolk Superior Court in November.
 
Attorneys involved in the case say the delays were mostly a matter of logistics, a huge amount of evidence and dealing with motions. The trial is expected to shed light on the environment at the Casa Isla detention facility in Boston, where boys were allegedly beaten, sexually assaulted and given alcohol and pornography, according to court documents.
 
"The defendants, staff members who were responsible for taking care of and protecting the residents in their care, instilled a culture of fear at the Casa Isla program in order to make the residents comply with the program's rules and not cause more work for the defendants," wrote Assistant District Attorney Sarah Stancato McEvoy in a filing asking for permission to introduce evidence not tied directly to specific assault allegations.
 
Victims of the abuse and their family members have separately filed three lawsuits against the state; Volunteers of America of Massachusetts, which had a state contract to run Casa Isla; and individual staff members.
 
Casa Isla was a youth detention facility for boys committed by the courts to the custody of the state Department of Youth Services. It housed approximately 100 adolescent boys each year until it was closed in 2014 amid an investigation into the alleged abuse....
 
 

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Ex-Jehovah’s Witness abuse survivor, Woman who escaped a polygamous cult - Warren Jeffs Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


 
Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, abuse survivor launches nonprofit
A woman who said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted throughout her childhood by a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Fortuna
 
 
The woman who escaped a polygamous cult – and turned its HQ into a refuge
Briell Decker was 18 when she became the 65th wife of US cult leader Warren Jeffs.
 
Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, abuse survivor launches nonprofit
By Shomik Mukherjee October 11, 2018
 
A woman who said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted throughout her childhood by a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Fortuna, an experience she recounted in a televised documentary in May, has now launched a nonprofit organization to help fellow survivors of sexual abuse.
 
Romy Maple has registered SAFE 707 — which stands for Sexual Assault Fighters Elite — as an official nonprofit. She hopes to become a certified life coach in order to aid fellow survivors, especially those who have left behind religious organizations and are at risk, she said, of simply joining another one upon leaving.
 
“Once you leave a cult, you might walk away but you’re still not free,” she said. Leaving everything behind often leaves individuals without spiritual independence, she said, which further leads some to give into the same type of emotional blackmail elsewhere.
 
In May, Maple appeared prominently in an A&E documentary series, “Cults and Extreme Belief,” hosted by journalist Elizabeth Vargas.
 
A&E stated it contacted Jehovah’s Witnesses, which declined to comment on the allegations, but provided producers a copy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ position on child protection.
 
“Jehovah’s Witnesses abhor child abuse and view it as a crime. We recognize that the authorities are responsible for addressing such crimes,” the policy states. “The elders do not shield any perpetrator of child abuse from the authorities.”....
 
Shortly after the documentary episode focusing on Jehovah’s Witnesses aired on A&E, Maple shared her story with the Times-Standard.
 
She said she was drugged and raped for much of her childhood by an individual who, like her, was a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation in Fortuna. At the age of 11, she said, she tried alerting elders in the congregation to the repeated abuse, but all ignored her. For years afterward, she said, she struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings of loneliness.
 
The alleged incidents happened far longer ago than the statute of limitations for rape. A few weeks ago, Maple said, she confronted her alleged abuser, offering him forgiveness and asking for an apology. She said she didn’t receive one.
Maple currently lives in Fortuna. The town still carries a culture of silence, she said. She often drives by the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she said, and wonders if children in there are still being abused....
 
Maple will soon embark on a days-long retreat, which she hopes will further help in her healing. Her ultimate goal, she said, is to help those who are in danger of “cult-hopping.”
 
“If you don’t have the training or education, you’re going to fall back into the same type of vibration,” she said. “That’s what you’re primed for.”....

 

The woman who escaped a polygamous cult – and turned its HQ into a refuge
Briell Decker was 18 when she became the 65th wife of US cult leader Warren Jeffs. Can she help heal the town his FLDS sect ruled for generations?
Alex Hannaford Sat 13 Oct 2018
 
Briell Decker carefully removed the screws from the corners of the window and began pounding on the glass until it started to come loose. Hearing the noise, her sister-in-law, who had been in the lounge area of their trailer home, came in and took the screwdriver away. But it was too late: Decker had already unscrewed one side of the pane; as soon as she was alone again, she opened the window, climbed out into the street and ran away. She was escaping her brother, his wife, and the fundamentalist Mormon cult they all belonged to. Decker had been forced to marry its leader, Warren Jeffs, aged 18.
 
Six years later, Decker sits on the back porch of the $1.2m mansion where she once lived with Jeffs. “I knew I wasn’t going to give up, whether I made it out or not,” she says of her escape. “Nothing was going to stop me.”
 
Everything has changed since then. Jeffs is seven years into a life sentence for sexual assault. Decker has made a life for herself, and recently remarried. The town in which she lives has started to open itself up to people outside the cult for the first time in 90 years, and to welcome back excommunicated members.
For three generations, the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona – collectively known as Short Creek – have been home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as FLDS, a religious sect that split from the Mormon church in 1930; its members wanted to continue to practise polygamy. The church teaches that having multiple wives (each of whom is assigned to a man) is ordained by God. Women wear long-sleeved prairie dresses that stretch down to the ankles, and pin their hair in a bun.
 
Now the walls around Short Creek’s houses, real and figurative, are coming down. Decker has turned the 44-room mansion where Jeffs and his wives lived into a refuge for other women fleeing the same church. “Even though it was his house, it feels good,” she says.
 
Jeffs, a tall, slim man with dark eyes, has been president and prophet of FLDS since 2002, continuing to run the cult from his prison cell. Soon after he assumed the leadership, he began splitting families apart, taking young girls as his own brides, and excommunicating members, mainly young men, from the church. He banned socialising, as well as contact with the outside world. In 2011, he began a life sentence for sexually assaulting two girls aged 12 and 14, whom he described as his “spiritual wives”. Jeffs, now 62, has wed around 80 women and children over the years, though the state doesn’t recognise these marriages. Decker was wife number 65.
 
 
It has taken a long time for change to come to Short Creek, as the community starts to reckon with its leader’s legacy. There are still about 10,000 active members of the church in the region, most of them in Short Creek. But there are signs that others have moved on: last November, Hildale elected its first ever female, non-FLDS, mayor. A few months ago, a new police chief – an outsider with no ties to the community – was sworn in after a jury ruled that the previous force, made up entirely of church members, was guilty of religious discrimination.....
 

Monday, October 15, 2018

Pope defrocks two Chilean bishops over child abuse claims

Pope defrocks two Chilean bishops over child abuse claims
13 October 2018

Pope Francis has stripped two Chilean bishops of their duties as priests amid claims that they are linked to the sexual abuse of minors.
 
They are Francisco José Cox Huneeus, archbishop emeritus of La Serena, and Marco Antonio Órdenes Fernández, archbishop emeritus of Iquique.
 
The Vatican issued a statement on their defrocking after a meeting between the pontiff and the president of Chile.
The decision could not be appealed against, it said on Saturday.
 
It was announced as Pope Francis met Chile's President Sebastian Piñera in the Vatican, where the two spoke particularly about "the painful scourge of abuse of minors".
 
More than 100 Catholic clergy are being investigated in Chile over alleged sex crimes and attempts to cover them up.
All 34 of Chile's bishops offered their resignations to the Pope in May over the scandal. The pontiff accepted three resignations in June.
 
Police have raided offices and seized Church documents in the capital Santiago and the city of Rancagua as part of their investigation.
In September Pope Francis defrocked former priest Fernando Karadima, 88, for having sexually abused minors....
 
A leaked Church report in September revealed more than 3,600 children in Germany were assaulted by Catholic priests between 1946 and 2014.
 
Most of the victims were boys, and more than half were aged 13 or younger.
And in July, Australian Catholic archbishop Philip Wilson was sentenced to 12 months in detention for concealing historic child sexual abuse - the most senior Catholic globally to be convicted of the crime....
 
 
Child and Ritual Abuse Research https://ritualabuse.us
 
Child Abuse Wiki   http://childabusewiki.org
 
Articles by Neil Brick   http://neilbrick.com 

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Child abuse inquiry says orphanages were places of 'threat and abuse', Spiritual Leader Raped 2 Women During Ceremonies

 
Child abuse inquiry says orphanages were places of 'threat and abuse'
11 October 2018
 
Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry
Children at Smyllum Park orphanage were sexually abused and beaten with leather straps, hairbrushes and crucifixes, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has found.
 
Nuns belonging to the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul ran the Catholic Children's home near Lanark, as well as Bellevue House, Rutherglen.
Lady Smith, who is chairing the inquiry, has published a report on evidence heard during the case study.
 
She said the homes were places of fear, threat, and excessive discipline.
The judge said emotional, physical and sexual abuse took place.
The children found "no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort," she said.
 
A total of 54 witnesses told of their experiences at Smyllum Park, which closed in 1981, and Bellevue House, which closed in 1961, and 21 written statements were submitted.
 
What did the inquiry report say?
Lady Smith's interim report into the Smyllum and BelleVue case studies concluded:
 
Children were abused while in the care of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul
They were sexually abused in Smyllum by priests, a trainee priest, nuns, members of staff and a volunteer. The abuse was, in some cases, prolonged.
There was also problematic sexual behaviour by other children.

Children were hit with implements, the punishment being either excessive or for reasons which the child could not fathom.
The implements used included leather straps, the "Lochgelly Tawse," hairbrushes, sticks, footwear, rosary beads, wooden crucifixes and a dog's lead.

For some children, being hit was a normal aspect of daily life.
The physical punishments meted out to children went beyond what was acceptable at the time whether as punishment in schools or in the home.
Children who were bed-wetters were abused physically and emotionally.
They were beaten, put in cold baths and humiliated in ways that included "wearing" their wet sheets and being subjected to hurtful name-calling by Sisters and by other children.

Many children were force-fed.
Children were used as unpaid labour.

Many children were forced to queue in a state of undress for a bath and shared bathwater that was too hot or cold and dirty.

There was no system for marking children's birthdays. Some children didn't know when their birthday was.
Children were abused for being left-handed and forced to use their right hands instead.

Some were abused for being Protestants and one child was told the Jewishness would be knocked out of him....
 
121 - Number of complaints of alleged historical abuse at Smyllum made to the Order between 1998 and 2002 That's 37 complaints against individual sisters, 23 complaints against lay staff, four complaints against priests and two complaints against scout leaders)
 
26 - Number of complaints of alleged abuse at Bellevue made to the Order between 1998 and 2002 (That includes 18 complaints against individual sisters and five complaints against lay staff)
 
99 - Number of civil actions raised against the Order in relation to Smyllum
18 - Number of civil actions raised against the Order in relation to Bellevue....
 

 
Spiritual Leader Raped 2 Women During Ceremonies, Prosecutors Say
By Michael Gold Oct. 10, 2018

A 42-year-old woman went to a Brooklyn apartment in August 2016 to meet a self-described spiritual leader for what she thought was a “church ceremony.” She had met him at a religious goods store.
 
During the ceremony, the man, Nigel Kennedy, started chanting and poured a drink that tasted like alcohol into the woman’s mouth, prosecutors said. She passed out briefly, then regained consciousness and felt someone on top of her. The next morning she awoke naked on an unfamiliar bed, feeling nauseous and dizzy, and realized she had been raped, prosecutors said.
 
Mr. Kennedy, 51, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn to charges of rape and sexual abuse. He is accused of drugging and raping two women in Brooklyn during separate religious ceremonies two years apart....
 
 
 
 
Child Abuse Wiki   http://childabusewiki.org
Ritual Abuse Research  https://ritualabuse.us 
Articles by Neil Brick   http://neilbrick.com