Human trafficking epidemic 21st century slavery hits close to home, ‘A Culture of Silence’ speaks for Sierra Leone, Sexual Offences Bill to be published next week

Former journalist says human trafficking an epidemic
21st century slavery hits close to home By Maddy Lauria  Nov 13, 2014

Rehoboth Beach — The Sussex County Republican Women's Club received a harsh reality check when veteran journalist Christine Dolan described a human trafficking case that struck close to home.

“Listen up … you don't have a clue,” Dolan said as she began to discuss her more than decade-long experiences with human trafficking. “Just like the Industrial Revolution, just like the Victorian era, just like the African slave trade, you are living in the digital age of slavery in the 21st century. It is not just on the street. It is over the internet.”

Dolan, who worked for ABC and CNN in the 1980s, was commissioned by the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children to study child exploitation in 2000....

Dolan said Easton, Md., shows human trafficking occurs close to home. While many attendees raised their hands to say they were familiar with the town, most audience members voiced surprise that a brothel, operated a few doors down from a Mexican restaurant on Dover Street, was busted just a few years ago, leading to sex trafficking convictions in fall 2013....

Now Dolan is on a mission to spread the word that human trafficking crimes are proliferating throughout the world, which she outlined in her “Tots to Trafficking to Terrorism” presentation during the club's dinner meeting Oct. 22. She said globalization and increased internet access provide ways for everything from child pornography to trafficking for torture to make a mark on international markets.

“Terrorism is a transnational, transcriminal network. Trafficking is transcriminal, transnational network,” she said. Dolan said groups like al-Qaida and the group known as the Islamic State are trafficking organizations with a hand in sex and labor trafficking as well as torture rituals.

Dolan outlined the main branches of human trafficking to include sex and labor, sex tourism, child pornography, child soldiers, organ trafficking, skin trafficking and ritual abuse torture. Dolan cited an evidence comparison by Interpol that 89 percent of online incidents affect victims between the age of 6 and 12, while 10 percent include victims age 3 and younger. She said there have been great efforts made since 2000, but the demand for younger victims has increased, with a jump from 3 percent in 2005 to the recently reported 10 percent of young trafficking victims....
http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/former-journalist-says-human-trafficking-an-epidemic/1261490

‘A Culture of Silence’ speaks for Sierra Leone
By Peter Keough  Globe Correspondent   November 13, 2014

For most people, the sufferings of African countries such as Sierra Leone, which has endured a hellish civil war only to be confronted with the Ebola epidemic, are regarded as passing news items.

For the documentary filmmaker Raouf J. Jacob, however, Sierra Leone is his beloved homeland. Forced to emigrate to America with his family in 1999 in the midst of the internecine conflict, he returns in “A Culture of Silence” to the place of his birth to see how it has rebounded from its bloody past. He and his partner and fellow filmmaker Lara M. Moreno tour the country with their camera to see how it has confronted its intransigent problems. These include poverty, the exploitation of resources by foreign corporations, cultural misogyny epitomized by the practice of female genital mutilation, and the legacy of war embodied by its most tragic victims — child soldiers kidnapped by warlords and forced to kill....
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/11/13/movie-review-culture-silence-speaks-for-sierra-leone/ypwHqK9NW73pMBJsysudUK/story.html

Sexual Offences Bill to be published next week, says Minister for Justice
Legislation will strengthen laws on grooming, pornography and harassment
New legislation on sexual offences will strengthen laws on grooming, pornography and harassment, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has said.

Fiona Gartland
Thu, Nov 13, 2014,

....“It will include strengthened provisions on age of consent, grooming and harassment,” Ms Fitzgerald said. “And it will strengthen offences of acquiring pornography online.”

The department received approval from the Cabinet to draft the legislation last December. It had been described as “long overdue” by organisations working in the field and by politicians including Senator Jillian van Turnhout.

The Minister also said yesterday that she would bring forward legislation on victims’ rights and on domestic violence in the new year....

Victims’ rights The new victims’ rights legislation will be introduced in 2015 so that Ireland can comply with its obligations under the EU victims’ directive, which was adopted at European level in 2012.

The directive includes obligations to protect victims from harm and intimidation and provide access to information, services and compensation.

Ms Fitzgerald said the new legislation would be “a very important mark of a change of approach to victims” and would reposition victims so their needs are central to the criminal justice system....
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/sexual-offences-bill-to-be-published-next-week-says-minister-for-justice-1.1998434 

Satanic Craigslist Killers Dodge Death Penalty for Man's Vicious Murder, 'Culture of denial' leaving UK children at risk of serious abuse

Satanic Craigslist Killers Dodge Death Penalty for Man's Vicious Murder
By Dominic Gover  IB Times – Wed, Aug 27, 2014
A young married couple who killed a man who answered their Craigslist advert, and then claimed more victims, have dodged the death penalty for murder.

Miranda Barbour, 19 and Elytte Barbour, 22, admitted the murdered of Troy LaFerrara in Pennsylvania, United States, last year.

Forty-two year-old LaFerrara was stabbed and strangled by the couple when he met them in a car, after making contact on the popular website Craigslist.

Both Barbours pleaded guilty to murder, meaning they will not face a death sentence for the crime. The case saw them labelled the 'Craigslist Killers'....

Police documents stated Elytte hid beneath a blanket in a car and then pounced upon LaFerrara when Miranda gave him a signal. She stabbed him repeatedly while Elytte strangled him from the back seat.

Following her arrest and charge for the murder of LaFerra, Miranda claimed to have killed 22 more victims and dumped their body parts in locations close to a venue where she previously worked as a go-go dancer.

Miranda said the alleged killing spree was motivated by her beliefs in Satanism. She also said her alleged victims were men who had "deserved it".
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/satanic-craigslist-killers-dodge-death-penalty-mans-vicious-142856708.html


Craigslist Killers: Satanic murder married couple lure man to death with sex ad on website
Aug 27, 2014 By Christopher Bucktin
Troy LaFerrara, 42, was stabbed and strangled to death by 19-year-old Miranda Barbour and her husband, Elytte Barbour, 22, in Pennsylvania 

A satanic teen killer and her husband have avoided the death penalty after they pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a married man whom she lured to his death using the Internet.

Miranda Barbour, 19, and Elytte Barbour, 22, had previously pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges that carried a possible death penalty upon conviction.

Following her arrest the 19-year-old boasted from her prison cell on Valentine's Day she had killed at least 22 other people over six years in a cross-country murder spree motivated by her satanic cult beliefs.

She said she dumped body parts in Big Lake, Alaska, and also in Mexico Beach, Florida where she worked as a 15-year-old lap dancer but police have failed to find any victims....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/craigslist-killers-satanic-murder-married-4114957


This culture of silence and denial around child abuse must end
I know from my own experience how difficult it is for victims to speak up, so when they do it is vital that we listen, believe and treat them with respect
James Rhodes         theguardian.com, Thursday 28 August 2014

Rotherham stands apart for many reasons: the sheer number of perpetrators; the sheer numbers involved (some survivors, some, sadly, inevitably victims) – 1,400 conservatively estimated – the contents of two state secondary schools or 127 school football teams. But there is a more devastating reason it stands alone: the resounding silence. The countless children who were brave enough to come forward at the time and afterwards, who were disbelieved, punished, mocked, accused and summarily dismissed.

We are told to keep quiet from the earliest, pre-verbal stages of life. Children should be seen, not heard. Don’t answer back. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Don’t speak until spoken to. Put up and shut up.

And then a child, doused with petrol and threatened to be set alight, gang-raped and forced to watch others suffer the same, digs deep down and somehow finds the extraordinary courage to stand up and say “this happened to me”. She risks the all-encompassing shame, the reliving and recounting of unimaginable horrors, the video evidence, diagrams of who did what and where, being questioned repeatedly by adults trying to pick holes in her story, the blame, recrimination, taunts, insults; the final, ghastly ripping of the child out of a child. She does it anyway.

I didn’t. I wasn’t that brave. I waited 25 years before going through all that. I was finally heard and believed, and the police tracked down and charged the teacher who raped me. But pick any one of those 1,400 children and look at their experience of the aftermath of abuse and hang your heads in shame.

There is a large section of society for whom talking about child abuse is in itself as bad as child abuse. We are complicit in the shaming, silencing, blaming and castigating of those who are our most defenceless and vulnerable, and it must not, can not, should not stand any longer....

Abuse thrives on silence. It exists because those who have endured it believe at a cellular level that they are in the wrong. They believe they are inherently evil. They believe it is their fault. Is that any surprise given the monstrosity of the Rotherham case?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/28/silence-denial-chld-abuse-rotherham 


'Culture of denial' leaving UK children at risk of serious abuse
Deputy children's commissioner Sue Berelowitz says, despite Rotherham and gang violence cases elsewhere, police and authorities are practising 'wilful blindness'
Randeep Ramesh The Guardian, Wednesday 27 August 2014

Children are at risk of serious abuse across England because of a culture of "wilful blindness" about the scale and prevalence of sexual exploitation across swaths of local government and in police forces, the deputy children's commissioner warns.

In a highly critical interview given in the aftermath of the Rotherham abuse inquiry, which concluded that hundreds of children may have been abused there over a 16-year period, Sue Berelowitz said she had been "aghast" at the examples of obvious errors and poor practice she found.

Berelowitz told the Guardian she had discovered that police and council officers were in some cases still either looking the other way, not asking questions or claiming abuse was confined to a certain ethnic group – such as Asian men – or a particular social class....

Because the subject matter is uncomfortable and scrutiny damaging, Berelowitz added that there was a "culture of denial" that had been exposed by Prof Alexis Jay's inquiry into the handling of child abuse in Rotherham. It found at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited by predominantly Asian criminal gangs between 1997 and 2013....
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/27/culture-denial-rotherham-sexual-abuse-berelowitz-police

Australia cardinal apologises over clergy child sex abuse, I took blame, ritual murder accused says, Court orders release of additional priest files

- I took blame, ritual murder accused says
- Ritual killing application fails
- Sixth Circuit - Dissent Criticizes Limited Restitution Options (child pornography restitution decision)
- Australia cardinal apologises over clergy child sex abuse 
- Court orders release of additional priest files

I took blame, ritual murder accused says
2013-05-20
Johannesburg - Murder-accused Harvey Isha had to take the blame for an apparent satanic ritual in which teenager Kirsty Theologo died, a Johannesburg court heard on Monday.

Isha told the South Gauteng High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court he had been fingered by Theologo's mother.

"Kirsty's mom had already mentioned that 'Harvey and his friends did this to Kirsty' and so Jeremy [King] said, from what I understood, that because my name was mentioned by Kirsty's mom, I had to take the blame."

Isha, 24, is on trial with Robin Harwood, Lindon Wagner, and Courtney Daniels for the murder of Theologo, the attempted murder of her 14-year-old friend, and for assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

They have all pleaded not guilty.

Two other accused, Jeremy King and Lester Moody, confessed to the crime and were each sentenced to 17 years' imprisonment, five of them suspended.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/I-took-blame-ritual-murder-accused-says-20130520

Ritual killing application fails 2013-05-20
Johannesburg - Moves to have charges dropped against two of the people accused of killing Kirsty Theologo in an apparent satanic ritual, were dismissed on Monday.

Their lawyers argued in the South Gauteng High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court, that the quality of evidence against their clients was suspect.

Judge Geraldine Borchers ruled that the credibility of witnesses was not an issue at this stage of the trial.

"At least 90% of what the witnesses said in court is in their respective statements," she said.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Ritual-killing-application-fails-20130520


Sixth Circuit - Dissent Criticizes Limited Restitution Options
By James R. Marsh on May 24, 2013
In a forceful dissent, a judge in the latest child pornography restitution decision proclaimed that "to accomplish the difficult task of assigning financial responsibility to possessors of child pornography for the harm caused by their conduct, district judges should have all the tools provided by law at their disposal and should be permitted broad discretion to fashion an appropriate remedy."

The case before the Sixth Circuit, United States v. Hargrove, was decided under controlling Circuit precedent which requires "proximate cause" before a district court can award restitution to a victim of child pornography possession.
http://www.childlaw.us/2013/05/sixth-circuit---dissent-critic.html


Australia cardinal apologises over clergy child sex abuse  27 May 2013

Australia's most senior Catholic official has apologised for decades of child sex abuse by priests. During questioning at a state parliamentary inquiry, Cardinal George Pell said a culture of silence within the church was partly responsible.

The Catholic church in Victoria state confirmed more than 600 cases of child abuse by its clergy since the 1930s. The hearings in Victoria are running alongside a national inquiry into abuse in state and religious institutions.

"I am fully apologetic and absolutely sorry," Cardinal Pell said during the final day of the hearings, which lasted for several hours. He denied being personally involved in the cover-up of paedophile priests, but acknowledged it happened.

"I don't think many of any persons in the leadership of the Catholic church knew what a horrendous widespread  mess we were sitting on," he said. He has been accused of wilful blindness and what one parent called a sociopathic lack of empathy towards the victims and their families.

Maximum compensation
He added that church leaders have previously been reluctant to share information about accused priests.
But he said the number of child abuse cases have significantly dropped since the church started taking stronger action, like better background checks.

He acknowledged, however, that his predecessor as Melbourne archbishop, Frank Little - who died in 2008 - "did cover up" child sex abuse cases. "Archbishop Little did cover up but he inherited a situation where there were no protocols, no procedures. And for some strange reason he never spoke to anybody about it," he said....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22679770

Court orders release of additional priest files
Sharon McNary | May 28th, 2013'

A Superior Court judge on Tuesday set September 10 as the deadline for Catholic religious orders to release confidential personnel files of members who were accused of sexually abusing children.  The files are related to lawsuits that have already been settled.  Attorney Raymond Boucher said the deadline affects more than 50 religious orders that operate independently from the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which has already  made public thousands of pages of files.

The order is part of litigation against the Los Angeles Archdiocese that resulted in a $660 million settlement.  The archdiocese released personnel files about its priests within the past year, but files of the independent orders that report to the Vatican through a different authority structure had not been released.

The religious orders were defendants in the original lawsuits that alleged victims brought against the archdiocese in 2002 and 2003. The orders agreed to the same 2007 settlement that required the files to be released, but the logistics of the document release were litigated first with the archdiocese,  said Raymond Boucher, attorney for the plaintiffs.

With Tuesday's order, the new files for as many as 100 priests and brothers will be made public as they are provided to the court, but no later than the Sept. 10 deadline, Boucher said....
http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/05/28/37454/court-orders-release-of-additional-priest-files/