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 

Stephen Collins 3rd Sex Abuse Victim, Cuts off friend’s fingers with ax as sacrifice to Satan, Child porn database to speed up police investigations into abuse of minors, Brazil: 55 arrested in child abuse crackdown

- Stephen Collins  Cops Looking to Find 3rd Sexual Abuse Victim
- Czech girl, 15, cuts off friend’s fingers with ax as sacrifice to Satan: cops
- Teenage girl cuts off her playmate’s fingers with an axe for sacrifice to Satan
- Home Office creates child porn database to speed up police investigations into abuse of minors
- Brazil: 55 arrested in child abuse crackdown

Stephen Collins
Cops Looking to Find 3rd Sexual Abuse Victim
10/16/2014 PDT BY TMZ STAFF
The mystery girl who Stephen Collins admitted he sexually abused was a babysitter for the actor's daughter ... and we know cops are on the hunt for her.

TMZ broke the story ... Collins confessed on audio that he molested or exposed himself to 3 girls. Two of them have come forward ... one has gone to the NYPD and another to the L.A. County Sheriff. NYPD detectives know the 3rd victim was sexually abused in NYC and they now know who she is and are trying to track her down.

TMZ has learned ... the woman was around 13 when she babysat Collins' daughter 18 years ago. Collins' wife, Faye Grant, told cops Collins admitted to her he would repeatedly drive with the babysitter in the front seat with their 6-year-old daughter in the back seat and expose....
http://www.tmz.com/2014/10/16/stephen-collins-victim-babysitter-molested-sexual-abuse/


Czech girl, 15, cuts off friend’s fingers with ax as sacrifice to Satan: cops
Alena Skrivankova allegedly took Jitka Svehlova, 10, into a wooded area, tied her up and chopped off her digits. She reportedly told the younger girl’s parents they were going out to play.
BY Lee Moran
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, October 13, 2014

A Czech teen sliced off her friend's fingers with an ax so she could make a sacrifice to Satan, according to reports.

Alena Skrivankova, 15, allegedly took 10-year-old Jitka Svehlova into a wooded area outside the southern city of Brno last week. She told the younger girl's parents that they were going out to play.

However, once inside the thicket, she allegedly tied her victim to a tree before hacking off her digits with a cleaver that she had hidden in her backpack....
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/czech-girl-15-cuts-friend-fingers-ax-cops-article-1.1972274 


Teenage girl cuts off her playmate’s fingers with an axe for sacrifice to Satan
Oct 13, 2014    By Gavin Allen
Alena Skrivankova, 15, from the Czech Republic, took Jitka Svehlova, 10, to a nearby wood after telling the girl's parents they were going out to play.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/teenage-girl-cuts-playmates-fingers-4428942 


Home Office creates child porn database to speed up police investigations into abuse of minors
Oct 16, 2014     By Olivia Solon
The Child Abuse Image Database will help speed up investigations into child sexual exploitation

The UK Home Office has launched a national Child Abuse Image Database to help police share information and speed up the identification of both child victims of sexual abuse and their abusers....

New material is usually of particular concern as it suggest new abuse - and police need to focus their attentions on those cases....

The launch comes after reports have revealed that individuals with a sexual interest in children who produce and distribute child abuse material are becoming more entrepreneurial - using hidden services like Tor, private peer-to-peer networks and digital currencies that are difficult to track, such as Bitcoin.

There is also a trend for abuse being carried out remotely on demand and then livestreamed back to paying customer.

These webcam sessions usually allow a paedophile to make requests for certain types of abuse to be carried out on their behalf - the victim can often be thousands of miles away in parts of the world where the law doesn’t protect children as well....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/home-office-creates-child-porn-4449565 


Brazil: 55 arrested in child abuse crackdown
i24news
Published October 16th 2014

Police managed to tap into the 'Darknet', following on methods developed by the FBI, Scotland Yard

55 people were arrested for possession and distribution of child pornography in Brazil and 100 further arrest warrants were issued following a year-long operation.

The operation, in which police cyber operatives managed to crack into the "Darknet" – a vast private network isolated from the "regular" Internet, often associated with illegal activities or dissent, followed on methods developed by the United States' FBI and United Kingdom's Scotland Yard.

The operation found child pornography produced in Brazil being shared in five other countries and six children were rescued from "abusive situations" across the country.

Earlier this week twelve adults and five children suspected of child sex crimes and human trafficking have been arrested in Colombia.

The suspects are accused of pimping, sex tourism, human trafficking and drug crimes, the Colombian prosecutor's office said in a statement....
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/americas/47474-141016-brazil-55-arrested-in-child-abuse-crackdown