New York passes Child Victims Act, allowing child sex abuse survivors to sue their abusers, Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and the moral context of trauma science

 

New York passes Child Victims Act, allowing child sex abuse survivors to sue their abusers

By Augusta Anthony, CNN Mon January 28, 2019

 

New York (CNN)The New York State Legislature passed a bill on Monday that will increase the statute of limitations for cases of child sexual abuse.

The Child Victims Act will allow child victims to seek prosecution against their abuser until the age of 55 in civil cases, a significant increase from the previous limit of age 23. For criminal cases, victims can seek prosecution until they turn 28. The bill also includes a one-year window during which victims of any age or time limit can come forward to prosecute.

 

"New York has just gone from being one of the worst states in the country to being one of the best," in terms of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases, said Marci Hamilton, CEO of Child USA and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Hamilton said the bill "represents over 15 years of work by survivors and advocates trying to get around the stiff opposition from the Catholic bishops and the insurance industry" and is a step forward in the national conversation. There are eight other states considering similar legislation....

Catholic Church opposition

 

Monday's bill passage comes after more than a decade of opposition from the Catholic Church in New York. In a news conference on Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is a Roman Catholic, blamed the church directly for preventing the bill's passage.

 

Speaking about why the bill took years to pass, Cuomo said, "I believe it was the conservatives in the Senate who were threatened by the Catholic Church." The bill passed the Senate unanimously on Monday. In November 2018, Democrats took over the Republican-held Senate....

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/us/new-york-child-victims-act/index.html

 

Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and the moral context of trauma science
Michael Salter Published online: 24 Jan 2019

Download citation https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2019.1571858

 

The fraught process surrounding the recent nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court was a spectacular deployment of institutional power to suppress good faith allegations of sexual violence. Trauma survivors and their allies have been shaken by the public scorn and victim-blaming that occurred when a childhood acquaintance of Kavanaugh’s, Christine Blasey Ford, alleged she had been sexually assaulted by him while they were at high school. Kavanaugh denied the allegation and US President Donald Trump firmly supported him. The matter only became more heated when, after Ford agreed to testify publicly to the Senate Judiciary Committee, two other women come forward with allegations of sexual assault and improper conduct by Kavanaugh.

 

The response of Kavanaugh and his supporters was replete with the rhetoric of denial. Kavanaugh variously characterized the allegations as part of a “coordinated effort” and “conspiracy” to destroy his reputation and prevent his nomination. President Trump agreed that the three women describing abuse by Kavanaugh were politically motivated. He went on to suggest that one woman “has nothing” on Kavanaugh because she “admits she was drunk” at the time of the alleged assault. Conservative media commentators speculated that Ford was suffering from “false memories” of rape, or had mistaken her actual attacker for Kavanaugh. Such language, reverberating from the White House and its spokespeople and advocates, represents a sustained campaign of institutional betrayal that only compounds the trauma of sexual assault (Smith & Freyd, 2013 Smith, C. P., & Freyd, J. J. (2013). Dangerous safe havens: Institutional betrayal exacerbates sexual trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 26(1), 119–124. doi:10.1002/jts.21778[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], , [Google Scholar]), consonant with other policy positions that have profoundly traumatised the vulnerable (Smidt & Freyd, 2018 Smidt, A. M., & Freyd, J. J. (2018). Government-mandated institutional betrayal. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 26(5), 491–499.[Taylor & Francis Online], , [Google Scholar]).

 

The proposition that allegations of sexual violence are motivated by animus or the product of confabulation or “false memories” has a long and shameful history (Campbell, 2003 Campbell, S. (2003). Relational remembering: Rethinking the memory wars. Oxford, UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. [Google Scholar]). Movements against sexual assault and child abuse have routinely been accused of hiding an ideological agenda, or creating the conditions for false allegations by confused women and children. The conflicts surrounding Kavanaugh’s appointment have highlighted the persistence of a culture of disbelief.

 

However, it is notable that the attempts by Kavanaugh’s supporters to invoke pseudo-scientific explanations for Ford’s allegation found considerably less purchase in the mass media than they might have in the past. Questions about the integrity of Ford’s memory were largely limited to right wing and conservative media, and were rejected in statements from the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and the American Psychological Association. Progress against the institutionalized mechanics of denial and unaccountability is substantive although clearly incomplete (Brand & McEwen, 2016 Brand, B. L., & McEwen, L. (2016). Ethical standards, truths, and lies. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 17(3), 259–266. doi:10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], , [Google Scholar])....

 

While I hesitate to argue that we can read life lessons directly from research findings, it does appear to me that the overall direction of trauma research and treatment trends in a particular moral direction. If we seek to find opportunities for trauma survivors to recover and live well, and if we want to promote the conditions in which people are not traumatised in the first place, then we are necessarily advancing moral propositions about human happiness and flourishing. Research on trauma, recovery and psychological wellbeing consistently finds that human beings thrive when we are embedded in emotionally rich, mutual and equitable relationships. This conclusion furnishes us with a powerful and, I think, very appealing image of a good life – one characterized by dignity, equality, accountability, and shared recognition – that the trauma field should not hesitate in articulating clearly. Political theorist Alford (2016 Alford, C. F. (2016). Trauma, culture, and PTSD. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.[Crossref], , [Google Scholar]) suggests that a key reason for the expanding public interest in trauma science is precisely because the concept of ‘trauma’ provides a rare acknowledgement of human relationality and vulnerability in a culture that is exhaustively individualistic and atomizing.

 

When a person like Christine Blasey Ford stands up to testify to a traumatic event, in opposition to incredibly powerful forces, we can recognize this as a courageous step in the fulfillment of a moral vision that we also have a stake in. The visceral and hate-filled response that has driven her, and her family, from their home is stark evidence of the cost paid by people who challenge the structures of traumatisation. Such costs have, of course, been visited in the past on trauma therapists and researchers whose ethical and scientific convictions have also bought them into conflict with vested interests. However the tremendous support that rallied around Christine Blasey Ford, and that recognised and celebrated her bravery in stepping forward with her story, indicates a growing consensus that opposes traumatizing social formations and seeks an alternative. Trauma research and theory, I would argue, is well placed to elaborate on what those alternatives might be.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299732.2019.1571858

 

 

A Culture of Secrecy Is Helping Propel Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, FBI “did not want to learn the truth” about Deborah Ramirez’s allegations against Kavanaugh

 

-  A Culture of Secrecy Is Helping Propel Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court

-  Alyssa Milano: We can't let Trump and Kavanaugh be America's face

-  FBI “did not want to learn the truth” about Deborah Ramirez’s allegations against Kavanaugh, Boulder woman’s attorney says

A Culture of Secrecy Is Helping Propel Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court
This is why we haven’t heard more from Kavanaugh’s high school peers.
Pema Levy October 4, 2018

 

When Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court in July, his high school social network had his back. Within 24 hours, more than 100 alumni of Georgetown Prep, the elite Jesuit high school outside Washington, DC, that Kavanaugh attended from 1979 to 1983, had signed a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to confirm him.

 

“The network itself starts when you’re in school,” Paul Murray, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s who organized the letter, explained the next day to WAMU, the Washington-area NPR affiliate. “It’s a close-knit school. We are tight classes. Friendships lead to business, and so you have a lot of people that have been successful.” Murray added, “Most people, if they had 150 of their high school friends when they’re 53 years old stand behind you, I think that says a lot.”

Murray’s comments were clearly meant as praise to both Kavanaugh and the school they attended.

 

But in light of the sexual assault claims now leveled against the Supreme Court nominee, they expose a dark reality of the elite prep-school world in which boys depend on each other to advance socially and economically and protect each other’s reputations. It helps explain why several women who went to sister schools in the 1980s have come forward to describe the rape culture that pervaded the prep-school scene in the Washington area, but exceedingly few men have gone on the record with similar recollections. It also helps explain why Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates have been willing to speak to the press (and presumably the FBI) when they believed Kavanaugh was whitewashing his past as a hard partier in college, while very few of his high school classmates have stepped forward to describe Kavanaugh as anything but a Boy Scout who had the occasional beer, the same image he presented to the public and the Senate.

 

“I think we can legitimately ask why more men aren’t coming forward, especially on behalf of the women they knew,” says Alexandra Lescaze, a 1988 graduate of the all-girls National Cathedral School in a wealthy neighborhood of Washington, DC. “I think that many men are afraid. I think they are all considering their past actions and wondering whether they ever could be accused of something. I think they want to stay on the down low and not put themselves out there.”

 

After Julie Swetnick accused Kavanaugh of hanging around boys who spiked punch at parties and gang raped inebriated girls, some of his classmates and alumni of other local high schools sent a second letter to the Judiciary Committee calling her accusations nonsense. “We never witnessed any behavior that even approaches what is described in this allegation,” they wrote.

Swetnick’s allegations remain unconfirmed, but it’s unlikely none of those signatories saw behavior similar to what she described. Two days before Swetnick’s allegations were made public, Lescaze, now the executive director of the Hillman Foundation and a documentary filmmaker, recalled similar behavior in an article in Slate:

 

I distinctly remember being at a Beach Week party with my then-boyfriend when it dawned on us that there was a drunk girl in a room down the hall, and boys were “lining up” to go in there and, presumably, have their way with her. We didn’t know for sure, but my boyfriend and my friend’s boyfriend went to interrupt it and sent her on her way down the stairs. All I remember about her is that she was in the class above us and had dark hair. My friend has told me she remembers boys saying, “I’m next,” which was why our boyfriends went to stop it. That was the only time I can clearly remember a situation that was so obviously a “lineup,” as it was referred to by some at school. My friend remembers witnessing another, and though there weren’t lineups of this nature at every party, they happened often enough that we had a term. We didn’t call it rape.

 

It was not always so formal a queue. I remember another time when boys were sitting in kind of a campfire circle that could have started as a game of spin the bottle. But by the time I walked through the room there was a girl who was drunk and in the center of the circle, and the boys were taking turns putting their hands up her skirt instead of kissing her.

 

Women who endured this 1980s prep-school scene recall a specific power structure to explain how the boys got away with aggressive sexual behavior and why the women stayed silent about it. Today, the women are increasingly coming forward to share their memories, including personal stories of assault. “I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve heard from,” says Lescaze of the notes she received following her Slate article. “It makes me shaky. I just can’t believe how many people have been holding this for so long. It’s just like another collective #MeToo scream that’s happening in unison here.” She’s heard from a few men as well, she says, but far fewer. “They know these things happened,” she says, “but we are not seeing enough men stand up and speak.”

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh’s high school friends are sticking with him. A few have defended him publicly, though most have remained out of the press. One spoke anonymously to the New Yorker, after the FBI declined to interview him, and described Kavanaugh as a member of group that preyed on Georgetown Prep classmates and girls at other schools.

 

The paucity of male voices from the prep-school world is “a key indicator of the culture of secrecy and the code of what it means to go to that prep school,” says Deirdre Bowen, a law professor at Seattle University School of Law who attended Georgetown Prep’s sister school, Academy of the Holy Cross, while Kavanaugh was at Georgetown Prep.* “You count on everybody to keep your secrets, and you also know that if you were not to keep someone’s secrets, there’s retribution.”

In the elite prep-school world, boys depend on each other to advance socially and economically and protect each other’s reputations.

 

Bowen didn’t know Kavanaugh in high school, but she knew some of his friends, and she knew the culture of their elite world. (Bowen did note there were a number of students receiving financial aid who did not have an upper-class background.) The boys would band together, promote each other, and protect each other. “In the 1980s, males all knew that they were going to go to college and that the doors were open for them in a predictable future,” she recalls. “Who you knew and what your reputation was was the most crucial part.” The crew that Kavanaugh was part of, a group that included jocks, knew their futures were guaranteed if they stuck together. The more they showed off their masculinity to each other, she says, the closer the group was—and the more need for secrecy about what went on.

 

 

For women, there was an entirely different reason to stay silent about the culture of assault: Their reputations would depend on not falling prey to the boys. “Our concern was not about engaging in bad behavior and making sure that everybody kept our secret,” Bowen says. “It was protecting ourselves and our reputation because those secrets wouldn’t be kept by the boys. They would be made fun of by the boys, or information would be spread about us as to who is easy access and who is not.”

 

One example is the well-known Renate Alumnius entries by multiple boys in Georgetown Prep’s 1983 yearbook, including Kavanaugh, who appeared to be bragging about their alleged sexual exploits with a girl they sometimes mocked as easy. Girls who were assaulted were also objects of scorn. “The girls that this did happen to were called sluts, absolutely,” says Lescaze, referring to victims of rape and abuse. “And they made up nicknames for them that sort of everybody knew. And they were not nice nicknames. And often, those are the ones that those boys put in their yearbook pages.” She recalls one nickname in particular that made reference to a girl’s genitals....

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/10/a-culture-of-secrecy-is-helping-propel-kavanaugh-to-the-supreme-court/

 

 

Alyssa Milano: We can't let Trump and Kavanaugh be America's face
By Alyssa Milano Tue October 2, 2018

 

(CNN)  If professor Christine Blasey Ford is to be believed, and I believe she is, Brett Kavanaugh is a sexual predator.
If any number of women are to be believed, and I believe they are, Donald Trump is a sexual predator.

Both Kavanaugh and Trump have denied allegations against them. I wish so deeply that the alleged sexual violence -- and overall cruelty toward those who are vulnerable -- committed by those who wear the mantle of our nation's government began and ended with these two men. It does not. It exists at every level of our national institutions, and even at agencies working on behalf of our government who are tasked with the sacred duty of caring for children.
Until we root out the institutionalization of sexual violence and child abuse in our government, too many will continue to be victims -- some in our name, under the false premise of protecting our borders.

 

Hidden behind the glare of the cameras pointed at Judge Kavanaugh is the ongoing plight of immigrant children in the United States. A New York Times article recently told the tale of hundreds of immigrant children from around the country being moved to a government-run tent city in Texas under the cover of darkness. There are no schools. There is limited access to legal services, and the children are frequently forced to represent themselves in immigration court....

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/opinions/migrant-children-separated-brett-kavanaugh-alyssa-milano/index.html 

 

FBI “did not want to learn the truth” about Deborah Ramirez’s allegations against Kavanaugh, Boulder woman’s attorney says
Attorney forwards sworn statement to FBI of Kavanaugh suitemate who volunteered to be interviewed
By The Denver Post October 4, 2018

The FBI, or those overseeing its investigation, “did not want to learn the truth” behind Deborah Ramirez’s allegations of sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the Boulder woman’s attorney alleged in a letter to the bureau’s director.

Washington, D.C.-based attorney William Pittard wrote in a two-page letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray released Thursday morning that the bureau ended its probe of the allegations against Kavanaugh in four days “without permitting its agents to investigate.”

Following the FBI’s interview of Ramirez in Boulder last weekend, her attorneys provided a list of 20 witnesses believed to have additional information that could corroborate her account. Ramirez’s attorneys previously have said they don’t believe the FBI contacted any of those people.

 

“We are deeply disappointed by this failure,” Pittard wrote. “We can only conclude that the FBI — or those controlling its investigation — did not want to learn the truth behind Ms. Ramirez’s allegations.”

 

Kavanaugh repeatedly has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.

Pittard attached a sworn statement by Richard Oh, a California emergency room doctor who was one of Kavanaugh’s suitemates at Yale University. Oh, who said he told the FBI he was willing to be interviewed, recalled a female student who “emotionally reported” an incident similar to the one described by Ramirez.

Later Thursday, Pittard sent a second letter to Wray with another statement from a witnesses Ramirez named who wasn’t interviewed by the FBI. That person, whose name is redacted, said Ramirez in 1991 or 1992 recounted an incident that occurred at Yale involving “a male classmate (who) exposed his penis to her without her consent.”

 

“The information provided by Ms. Ramirez is corroborated, and your agents should have been permitted to develop that information,” Pittard wrote in the second letter. “Both Ms. Ramirez and the search for the truth have been ill-served.”

Ramirez, who works for Boulder County, told the The New Yorker in an article published Sept. 23, that Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his genitalia in her face during a party in a dorm room at Yale University when they were both students in the early ’80s. Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, has denied the alleged incident ever happened....
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/10/04/deborah-ramirez-fbi-investigation-kavanaugh/

 

 

 

New Baylor lawsuit alleges 52 acts of rape by 31 football players

New Baylor lawsuit alleges 52 acts of rape by 31 football players, ‘show 'em a good time' culture
By Davis Potter Friday, January 27, 2017

The sexual assault scandal within Baylor's football program had another repulsive layer added to it Friday.

A Baylor graduate has sued the school, alleging in the lawsuit that she was raped in 2013 and that more than 50 acts of rape were committed by 31 football players from 2011-14, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.

The suit, according to the report, sheds further light on a culture of sexual violence under former Baylor coach Art Briles, stating the school implemented a "show 'em a good time" policy in reference to the football program's use of sex to attract recruits. Briles coached the Bears from 2008-15 before being fired after an investigation into the program's handling of sexual assault allegations found that it largely ignored rape claims and discouraged other victims from reporting rape.

The suit states an investigation carried out by lawyers uncovered at least 52 rape acts, including five gang rapes with two of those committed by at least 10 players at once. The woman, a 2014 Baylor graduate identified in the suit as Elizabeth Doe, alleges she was gang raped in the spring of 2013 and is suing the school for Title IX violations and negligence, according to the report....
http://www.oxfordeagle.com/2017/01/27/new-baylor-lawsuit-alleges-52-acts-of-rape-by-31-football-players-show-em-a-good-time-culture/


Child and Ritual Abuse Research  https://ritualabuse.us

Research and Articles by Neil Brick  http://neilbrick.com

Child abuse: Documenting Australia's shame, The Impact of Child Abuse Can Last a Lifetime

Child abuse: Documenting Australia's shame
By Phil Mercer BBC News, Sydney  December 19, 2016

In Australia, a boy of 10 is raped by an Anglican clergyman, who cuts his victim with a small knife and smears blood over his back in a twisted ritual to symbolise the suffering of Christ.

This happened in the 1960s in Cessnock, a former mining town in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, but only now has this and other decades-old stories of sexual violence and degradation been heard, catalogued and, crucially for many victims, believed.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is an unprecedented investigation into an epidemic of depravity across Australia.

The far-reaching inquiry began in 2013 and has heard from thousands of survivors of paedophiles who worked, or volunteered, in sporting clubs, schools, churches, charities, childcare centres and the military....

For four days earlier this year, the senior Vatican official was quizzed, denying any personal wrongdoing but conceding the organisation had made grave errors.

"I am not here to defend the indefensible," said Cardinal Pell. "The Church has made enormous mistakes, is working to remedy those, but the Church has in many places - certainly in Australia - mucked things up."

When he was 13, John Ellis, a former altar boy, was molested by an Australian monk who was also implicated in a suspected paedophile ring at a former Catholic boarding school in the Scottish Highlands....

"The most important thing for people in being invited to give their own stories and having their stories valued is that somebody cares," Mr Ellis told the BBC news website.

"For many, many years people have been silenced, people have been fearful of what reaction they will get if they were to tell their truth. The overwhelming emotion people have when they have had that opportunity is empowerment."

When it hands down its final report at the end of 2017, this painstaking inquiry will have lasted for almost five years. Already, more than 1,700 cases have been referred to the authorities, including the police....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38301488


The Impact of Child Abuse Can Last a Lifetime
Dec. 19, 2016 By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Dec. 19, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- The traumatic effects of child abuse and neglect can persist for decades, often with substantial economic consequences, researchers report.

"We found associations of child neglect and abuse with adult socioeconomic circumstances at age 50," said lead author Snehal Pinto Pereira.

Physical, social or emotional abuse in childhood was linked at midlife to a greater risk of time off from work due to long-term sickness, said Pereira, a research associate at University College London's Institute of Child Health.

Mistreatment in childhood also lowered the odds of owning a home, she said.

"The associations for child neglect were linked to their poor reading and mathematics skills in adolescence, which in turn could hamper their ability to find work and progress in the job market," she explained.

The research is only observational and doesn't establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship. Still, it appears that children who suffered more than one type of abuse were most likely to be thwarted economically....

The study was published online Dec. 19 in the journal Pediatrics.

Child abuse and neglect are major public health problems in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2014, around 700,000 American kids suffered from abuse or neglect. More than 1,500 died from it, the CDC said.

Toddlers younger than 3 account for more than one-quarter of victims, the agency said.

One study estimated that 1 in 4 children experiences some form of child abuse or neglect in their lifetime, according to the CDC....
http://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2016-12-19/the-impact-of-child-abuse-can-last-a-lifetime



Child Abuse Research  https://ritualabuse.us

Articles and Research  by Neil Brick  http://neilbrick.com

Turkey should reject child abuse law shielding men who marry from punishment: U.N., Turkey child rape protests, Growing up with The Family "sinister cult"

- Turkey should reject child abuse law shielding men who marry from punishment: U.N.
- Turkey child rape protests: Thousands take to streets against law that would let men off if they marry victim
- Growing up with The Family: inside Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s sinister cult

Turkey should reject child abuse law shielding men who marry from punishment: U.N.
By Umberto Bacchi  Mon Nov 21, 2016

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A bill that could allow men accused of sexually abusing girls in Turkey to avoid punishment if they marry their victim would create a climate of impunity for child abuse in the country, U.N. agencies warned on Monday.

The Turkish parliament gave preliminary backing to the controversial proposal put forward by the ruling AK Party last week.

MPs are due resume the debate on Tuesday before a second and final vote.

Several U.N. agencies criticized the legislation, which they said was akin to an amnesty for child abusers and could expose victims to further suffering at the hands of their abusers.

"Any forms of sexual violence against children are crimes which should be punished as such," the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, U.N. Women and the U.N. Development Programme in Turkey said in a joint statement on Monday.

"We call on all Members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly to do their utmost in ensuring that all girls and boys in Turkey are better protected from all forms of sexual abuse."...
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-politics-law-sexcrimes-idUSKBN13G22K


Turkey child rape protests: Thousands take to streets against law that would let men off if they marry victim
‘We will not shut up. We will not obey. Withdraw the bill immediately,’ chant protesters
Harriet Agerholm     Sunday 20 November 2016

Thousands have taken to the streets of Istanbul and other cities in Turkey to protest against a bill that would allow child rapists to walk free if they marry their victims.

The country’s government insists the law would help resolve legal challenges caused by widespread child marriage in the country, yet critics argue the bill legitimises rape.

In Istanbul, protesters clapped and chanted: “We will not shut up. We will not obey. Withdraw the bill immediately.”

About 3,000 people gathered in Istanbul’s Kadikoy square, many waving placards that said: “Rape cannot be legitimised,” and “AKP, take your hands off my body” – in reference to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that proposed the bill.

Similar demonstrations were held in other cities, including Ankara, Izmir and Trabzon.

If the law passes, men who sexually abuse girls under 18 without “force, threat or any restriction on consent” and marry them could have their convictions quashed or avoid prosecution....

The proposed change would apply to cases between 2005 and 16 November 2016.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-child-rape-protest-thousands-law-men-freed-marry-victim-istanbul-ankara-izmir-akp-erdogan-a7428166.html


Growing up with The Family: inside Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s sinister cult
Cruel and charismatic, Anne Hamilton-Byrne was the Australian leader of a doomsday cult who thought she was the Messiah. Abigail Haworth on the woman behind The Family
Abigail Haworth Sunday 20 November 2016

Anne Hamilton-Byrne...leader of The Family, the Australian doomsday cult she founded in the 1960s, she claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman.

....One of the few female cult leaders in history – and apparently one of the cruellest – Hamilton-Byrne operated in almost total secrecy over two decades. Hidden away in the countryside outside Melbourne, The Family’s motto was “Unseen, unknown, unheard”. The police, acting on information from two child escapees, raided the cult in 1987. It emerged that over the years Hamilton-Byrne had collected 28 children through bogus adoptions and “gifts” from followers, dressing them in identical clothes and bleaching their hair platinum. To keep her eerie brood under her control, they say she subjected them to vicious beatings, starvation and emotional torture.

“Anne wasn’t giving love,” says Parker, whose young son was one of Hamilton-Byrne’s victims. “She was offering it and then taking it back. She broke people’s spirit.”

The glamorous guru used the same tactic on her adult followers, handpicking them from Melbourne’s wealthy professional elite with promises of spiritual fulfilment in the 1960s and 70s when new age seeking was all the rage. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she’d say on first meeting a potential recruit. “You are special

Preaching a mishmash of Christianity, eastern mysticism and apocalyptic prophecy, she allegedly forced followers, including children, to take dangerous amounts of LSD and other hallucinogenics as part of prolonged initiation rites. Once they had submitted, she’d dictate every aspect of their lives. “There was only one rule: do absolutely everything she said,” says David Whitaker, a former child survivor. “That included what to think, what to wear, what to eat, who to marry, who not to marry. Total obedience.” 
    The children were initiated with ‘huge, relentless doses of LSD’ in trips that lasted for days...

By the time of the police raid, Hamilton-Byrne had broken up families, destroyed marriages and left her child victims with lifelong psychological scars. A number of followers tried to kill themselves, either during their time in The Family or after they escaped. Tragically, some succeeded. The cult leader amassed an estimated AU$150m (£90m) through property, land and cash donated by followers. She hid overseas and was eventually arrested in 1993 on relatively minor fraud charges....
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/20/growing-up-with-the-family-inside-anne-hamilton-byrnes-sinister-cult


Child Abuse Research
https://ritualabuse.us

Articles by Neil Brick
http://neilbrick.com  

Rabbi Barry Freundel Taped Sex Encounters With 'Several' Women, The Definition of ‘Rape’ Cannot Change with a Marriage Certificate - India

Rabbi Barry Freundel Taped Sex Encounters With 'Several' Women
Uriel Heilman (JTA)May 12, 2015

In addition to secretly recording women undressing for the mikvah ritual bath, Rabbi Barry Freundel engaged in sexual encounters with several women, according to prosecutors.

That’s one of several new details about the mikvah-peeping rabbi to emerge from two documents filed in D.C. Superior Court on May 8 — one each by the prosecution and defense — ahead of Freundel’s sentencing on Friday. The documents, which attempt to sway the judge’s sentencing, shed new light on Freundel’s behavior and offer some particulars about the rabbi’s life since his arrest on October 14, 2014 — including that he has resumed some rabbinic teaching.

Freundel pleaded guilty in February to 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism for installing secret cameras in the shower room of the mikvah adjacent to Kesher Israel, the prominent Washington Orthodox synagogue he led for some 25 years.

He used one to three cameras, hiding the devices in a digital clock radio, a tissue box holder and a small tabletop fan, and aiming them at the toilet and shower in the mikvah dressing room, according to the prosecution’s memo. In addition to the 52 women he filmed while they were completely naked between March 4, 2012 and Sept. 19, 2014, Freundel recorded an additional 100 women since April 2009 who were not part of the criminal complaint due to the statute of limitations.

In addition to his crimes, Freundel videotaped himself engaged in “sexual situations” with “several women” who were not his wife, according to the memo....

The prosecution memo notes that in addition to the hidden cameras at the mikvah, Freundel surreptitiously videotaped a domestic violence abuse victim in the bathroom and bedroom of a safe house that he had established for her so she could escape her husband’s violence....
http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/308069/rabbi-barry-freundel-taped-sex-encounters-with-several-women/


The Definition of ‘Rape’ Cannot Change with a Marriage Certificate
By Neeta Lal

NEW DELHI, May 12 2015 (IPS) - “I was brutally raped thrice by my husband. He kept me under surveillance in his Dubai house while I suffered from severe malnutrition and depression. When I tried to flee from this hellhole, he confiscated my passport, deprived me of money and beat me up,” recalls Anna Marie Lopes, 28, a rape survivor who after six years of torture, finally managed to board a flight to New Delhi from the United Arab Emirates in 2012.

Today, Lopes works at a non-profit in India’s capital, New Delhi, and is slowly picking up the shards of her life. “Life’s tough when you have to start from scratch after such a traumatic experience with no support even from your parents. But I had no other choice,” Lopes tells IPS.

Her story is different from that of thousands of Indian women only in that it has a somewhat happy ending. For too many others who are victims of marital rape, escape is not an option, keeping them trapped in relationships that often leave them broken.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that over 40 percent of married women in India between 15 and 49 years of age have been beaten, raped or forced to engage in sexual intercourse with their spouses.

In 2011, a study released by the International Center for Research on Women, a Washington-based non-profit, said one in every five Indian men surveyed admitted to forcing their wives into sex....

The law expressly states that forced sexual intercourse by a man with his wife, provided the latter is not under 15 years of age, does not constitute rape.

Though the Domestic Violence Act passed in 2005 recognises sexual abuse in a marital relationship, legal eagles say it offers only civil recourse, which cannot lead to a jail term for the abusive spouse....

Marital rape has already been criminalised in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, most European nations, Malaysia, Turkey and Bolivia.

This places India in a tiny global minority – along with China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – which refuses to criminalise this form of assault.

Some experts feel that the Indian government’s reservations over the issue may stem from fears about a communal or religious backlash. The Hindu Marriage Act 1955 states that it is a wife’s foremost duty to have sex with her husband....

Only about six of every 100 acts of sexual violence committed by men other than husbands actually get reported, reveals Gupta’s report....
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/05/the-definition-of-rape-cannot-change-with-a-marriage-certificate/

Increase in Sexual Violence, Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Child abused in care of Presbyterian Church in Australia - 131 NI children sent to Australia, Caged until 'broken': life for Mumbai's prostitutes

- ‘Disturbing’ increase in sexual violence
- Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Child abused in care of Presbyterian Church in Australia
- Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: 131 NI children sent to Australia
- Caged until 'broken': life for Mumbai's prostitutes

‘Disturbing’ increase in sexual violence
Dublin Rape Crisis Centre says social media being used as a form of abuse
Kitty Holland

Wed, Sep 3, 2014

Increasing levels of violence are accompanying rape, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has said, and “particularly concerning” was the way social media is being used to film and distribute some assaults.

Angela McCarthy, DRCC’s head of clinical services, speaking at the publication of the centre’s annual report yesterday, said there had been a “disturbing increase in sexual violence” reported last year.

She said 27 per cent of all incidents of adult rape or sexual assault disclosed in therapy sessions included additional violence, predominantly physical abuse, psychological abuse and harassment or intimidation.

Some 21 per cent of all incidents of childhood sexual abuse were accompanied by additional violence, mainly psychological and physical abuse....

“Experienced therapists and counsellors have been very shocked at some of the violence. Age seems to be an issue, with younger people being raped by gangs while others are watching and sometimes filming the assaults.”....

Some 44 per cent of calls related to child sexual abuse and 42 per cent to adult rape. Nine per cent related to adult sexual assault – representing an increase of 21 per cent on the previous year, 2 per cent to ritual abuse, 0.9 per cent to sexual harassment, 0.5 per cent to suspected abuse, 0.3 per cent to trafficking, and, 0.1 per cent to under-13 sexualised behaviour.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/disturbing-increase-in-sexual-violence-1.1917012


Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Child abused in care of Presbyterian Church in Australia
3 September 2014 

A pensioner has told an inquiry examining child abuse that he was physically and sexually abused as a young boy while in the care of the Presbyterian Church in Australia.

His migration was part of a scheme between the Presbyterian Church in the UK and Australia.

Speaking to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry via video link, he outlined his childhood.

He is one of about 50 witnesses giving evidence from Australia.

The man said he was born into the Church of Ireland in west Tyrone in the 1940s to an unmarried mother.

When his mother died of TB, he was taken into a number of foster and care homes before being separated from his brother and sister and sent to Australia in 1950.

The witness said he wanted his brother to join him in Australia, but after being abused, he sent a letter home telling his brother not to come.
"I couldn't put him through that," he told the inquiry....

On Monday, the inquiry heard that 131 children from Northern Ireland, some as young as five, were sent to Australia as child migrants.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29048447  


Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: 131 NI children sent to Australia 1 September 2014
One hundred and thirty-one children from Northern Ireland, some as young as five, were sent to Australia as child migrants, an inquiry has heard.

The experiences of 50 of them will be heard by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) either by oral or written evidence.

It is examining the extent of child abuse in religious and state-run institutions in NI from 1922 to 1995....

The chairman said it would become clear during their evidence that many had suffered severe hardship and "grave" sexual and physical abuse in the institutions to which they were sent in Australia....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29006251 


Caged until 'broken': life for Mumbai's prostitutes
02 September 2014
Channel 4 News gains exclusive access to brothels in Mumbai, where trafficked girls are kept in cages like slaves to stop them running away - and only allowed out to have sex with customers.

....I was taken into the reception area of the brothel, the space where the customers are taken to select a girl. On the ceiling I could see a small, open trap door. The madam disappeared, and I climbed up a wooden ladder and pushed through the small gap.

Suddenly I was face to face with a "box cage". I knew what I was looking at. The prostitutes I had met over years of investigating the sex industry in Mumbai had told me of the caged rooms and boxes they had been held in for months, even years. They told me they were held in the cages when they were first trafficked to the red-light district.

The madams would keep the girls like slaves in the cages until they were "broken" - the aim being to stop them running away. The girls told me they never knew if it was night or day when they were in the cages. They were only taken out to eat or to be given to a customer for sex. For years I had wanted to photograph these cages, to prove that these places actually exist....

Over those years, I have watched and photographed thousands of men visiting Kamathipura - they say they are looking for pleasure. But a red-light district is not a place of pleasure. It is a place of pain.

I have often wondered if men would come and have sex with these women if they knew their true stories, like Guddi's, if they knew how the girls have been trafficked, and that actually they are paying to rape a girl who is a sex slave. http://www.channel4.com/news/prostitution-mumbai-india-caged-trafficked-brothels

Christian Assemblies International: Former members detail abuse, Official campus statistics for sexual violence mislead

Christian Assemblies International: Former members detail abuse handed out by CAI leader Scott Williams ABC By Caro Meldrum-Hanna July 29, 2014

A four-year investigation by the ABC has uncovered shocking claims of abuse and torment in relation to NSW-based registered charity and religious group Christian Assemblies International (CAI).
Four Corners has revealed that self-styled religious guru Pastor Scott Williams was using his warped brand of evangelical Pentecostalism to run a clandestine homosexual sex ring while allegedly misusing vast amounts of member donations for personal use.

Courageous former members broke their silence and told of their torment living inside the group, which they said is not a Christian church but a horrendous cult run by one man.
The ex-members have remained in the shadows until now out of fear and shame. They detailed shocking acts of abuse ranging from spiritual abuse, financial abuse, verbal and physical abuse, and the sexual abuse of adult men.

They said bizarre sexual rituals were carried out in secret by Williams, who described himself as "The Anointed One" with the Lord's authorisation to sidestep biblical commands against homosexuality and sexually train his male members into submission and obedience....

Former members say they were recruited by Williams as teenagers and young adults, with many still at school. They say they were brainwashed into believing Williams was The Anointed One, filled with the Holy Spirit and gifted with the divine power of healing.....
Katja's husband, Steve, says women were treated as less than men.
"Women were second-rate citizens," he said. "They were there to have children and stand in the kitchen and make food."

Using biblical scripture, Williams also preached that children were born evil and that the evil had to beaten out of them with an iron rod.

Four Corners spoke to many children who were born into the cult who are now adults. They detailed disturbing policies of punishment, including children being publically beaten for making any noise during a Sunday sermon or for moving off a mat laid out at the front of the Assembly....
https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/24564053/christian-assemblies-international-former-members-detail-abuse-handed-out-by-cai-leader-scott-williams/


Official campus statistics for sexual violence mislead
A school with a lower rate may just be better at discouraging students from reporting assault
July 14, 2014  by Jennifer J. Freyd

Last month, The Washington Post released a compilation of reported rates of campus sexual assault nationwide. Such reports, which colleges and universities are required to release each year, are generally thought to be useful to the public. Parents of college-bound high school students who read that School A has a higher rate of reported sexual violence than School B can make more informed decisions about where their children will be safest. And they might very reasonably think that School A is a more dangerous school. However, the higher rate of reported sexual violence at School A likely indicates the opposite: that it is actually safer than School B. It means that School A is making it possible for — even encouraging — students to report sexual violence.

As a social scientist researching campus sexual violence, I know that even the highest rates of official reported victimization on campuses are substantially lower than what social science data suggest are the real rates of sexual assault. The best national estimate is that approximately 1 in 5 women experience sexual violence in college. But the reported rates are nothing like this, even at those colleges with the highest rates.

Why? Victims of abuse are often reticent about making official reports because they fear the consequences, including being stigmatized or not being believed. This tendency to remain silent is then amplified by institutional barriers to reporting. Colleges and universities have a perverse incentive to discourage sexually victimized students from reporting assault, due to the reputational hit colleges experience if their reported rates of violence are higher than those of their competitors. It’s a profoundly dangerous status quo, because encouraging reporting is one of the key ways colleges can make campuses safer.

Institutional cover-ups
Part of the challenge of tackling campus sexual assault is that sexual abuse typically starts in adolescence, prior to the beginning of college. Perpetrators have often been victimized themselves. Many college victims also have a prior history of abuse. These are important factors that my laboratory has studied for years. Ultimately we must address the underlying society-wide problem of child sexual abuse that contributes to college sexual violence. But in the meantime, college campuses offer a remarkable intervention point for sexual assault: They have resources. They are limited in number (thousands of institutions of higher education versus millions of families, for instance). They influence young people on the cusp of adult responsibility.  

But only when such violence is reported can victims access services and colleges hold perpetrators accountable. For most colleges and universities, however, discouraging reporting appears to remain the norm. Colleges can make it difficult to determine how to report; they can also make life harder for students who do report by shaming, invalidating and even punishing them. This is why the reported rates likely tell us more about the campus climate than about underlying rates of sexual violence.
When schools discourage reporting, they collude with many societal forces to cover up sexual violence. Sexual violence thrives on secrecy; if students do not feel they can safely report, the assaults will continue unchecked....
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/college-campus-sexualassaultsafetydatawhitehousegender.html

Celebrities Join the Fight to Stop Rape as a Weapon of War, Despite tougher laws, India can’t shake rape culture

Celebrities Join the Fight to Stop Rape as a Weapon of War
By Janine di Giovanni 6/16/14

....“War zone rape thrives on silence,” Jolie said in her opening remarks, and Hague agrees: Sexual crimes should not be shameful. “It’s about waking people up,” he told Newsweek. “Despite all the communications within the modern age, these crimes have taken place on a vast scale without the world noticing. And that now is changing.”

....Five years after the Sri Lankan government defeated the Tamil Tigers, human rights groups report continued abductions, torture, rapes and other sexual violence against both men and women of the Tamil minority.

“For all intents and purposes, the war has not finished,” insists Frances Harrison, author of Still Counting the Dead, a brutal account of the Sri Lankan conflict. “Especially for young men and women who had association with the rebels, they are still being abducted, hunted down. It’s a mopping up operation five years on.”

Harrison says the Sri Lankan government—which is not considered a pariah state, despite its persistent human rights violations—“are using very sophisticated intelligence methods like facial-recognition software, as well as hooded informers who nod when they identify somebody.” ....
http://www.newsweek.com/celebrities-join-fight-stop-rape-weapon-war-255054


Despite tougher laws, India can’t shake rape culture
Mandakini Gahlot  USA Today Jun 16, 2014

NEW DELHI (RNS) Despite tougher laws against sexual violence, the grisly rape and murder of two teenage girls found hanging from a tree shows India has a long way to go to safeguard women in its male-dominated, socially stratified culture, critics say.

Protestors rally outside Sufdarjung Hospital in 2012 while seeking justice for a gang rape victim. Despite recent reform to toughen India's sexual violence laws, India's male-dominated and socially stratified culture isn't helping solve the problem, critics say.

Protestors rally outside Sufdarjung Hospital in 2012 while seeking justice for a gang rape victim. Despite recent reform to toughen India’s sexual violence laws, India’s male-dominated and socially stratified culture isn’t helping solve the problem, critics say.

“Even though the laws are there, many people feel they can get away with anything, an attitude that some of our politicians have gone out their way to encourage,” said Ranjana Kumari, a prominent women’s rights activist and director of the Centre for Social Research in New Delhi.

The incident in Katra Sadatganj, an impoverished village in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is just the latest in a string of attacks. At least two other rape cases were reported in the past two weeks in the same state. The incidents are igniting debate about sexual violence against women and triggering outrage over lax attitudes about it, despite the strengthening of laws against rape last year....

More than 240,000 sexual offenses against women were reported in 2012, according to Indian government statistics. But human rights experts believe that number is vastly underestimated because many women don’t report the crimes.

India’s government enacted measures last year to address concerns after nationwide protests seeking more security for women followed Singh’s death. The new laws mandate strict guidelines for reporting rapes, shorter trials, less onerous hurdles for victims making accusations and requirements that female officers process victims.

However, high-profile rapes continue to occur, suggesting men’s behavior isn’t changing and marring the country’s image abroad. Last year, the number of female tourists dropped 10 percent, according to industry experts, in a country where tourism makes up 6 percent of GDP....
http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/16/despite-tougher-laws-india-cant-shake-rape-culture/

Paedophile monster Ian Watkins to bank more than £150,000 from band break-up while behind bars, Pervert vicar facing prison sentence after pleading guilty to child pornography offences, Gang rape, killing of teen in India sparks outrage

Paedophile monster Ian Watkins to bank more than £150,000 from band break-up while behind bars

    Lostprophets distributing assets having disbanded after conviction
    Watkins, 36, currently serving 29 years for serial sex offences
    Set to earn £147,497 in assets and more than £100,000 in royalties
By Mia De Graaf 4 January 2014

Paedophile rock star Ian Watkins will earn more than £150,000 while serving a 29-year jail sentence for child sex offences.

The singer's conviction forced his former band, the Lostprophets, to break up - and distribute their assets worth more than £700,000, it has been revealed.

Watkins, who is currently jailed in top-security Wakefield prison, is contracted to take £147,497 in the deal.

And music experts claim the convicted molesterer will earn more than £100,000 in royalties during his sentence.

The 36-year-old, from Pontypridd, pleaded guilty to three counts of child sexual assault at a trial in Cardiff Crown Court last month....

Lostprophets were founded in Pontypridd in 1997 and the band sold about 3.5 million albums worldwide.

His former bandmates have turned their back on him - saying they are 'heartbroken, angry, and disgusted' at his sex crimes and have urged more of his victims to contact police.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2533974/Sick-paedophile-Ian-Watkins-set-bank-150-000-bars.html


Pervert vicar facing prison sentence after pleading guilty to child pornography offences By Gary Stewart
3 Jan 2014

The Rev Ian Hughes made and possessed thousands of indecent images of children

A Merseyside vicar is facing jail after pleading guilty to making and possessing thousands of indecent images of children.

The Rev Ian Hughes, who was priest in charge of the Wirral parishes Poulton and Seacombe, admitted 16 counts relating to more than 8,000 images and movies when he appeared at Liverpool Crown Court today....

Hughes was charged following a search of his home on Brougham Road, Wallasey , on May 22 last year.

Pornographic material recovered included more than 6,000 images and movies at the lowest category of seriousness, more than 1,000 at category two, more than 500 at categories three and four and more than 60 at category five, the most serious....

After charges were brought against him  a spokesman for the Church of England’s Diocese of Chester said: “Ian Hughes was suspended from all church duties as soon as these very serious and disturbing allegations became known to us.”
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/pervert-wirral-vicar-facing-prison-6467573


Gang rape, killing of teen in India sparks outrage
January 4, 2014

KOLKATA, India (AP) — The father of a teenage girl who was allegedly gang raped and later died after being set on fire in eastern India is demanding a federal inquiry into the case, which has renewed public outrage over sexual violence in the country.

Hundreds of people protested Friday in the West Bengal city of Kolkata, accusing state authorities of failing to protect the family after the 16-year-old girl went to police in October to report she had been raped twice by the same gang.

The state's urban development minister defended the police response, noting that six suspects had been arrested in the rapes and another two for allegedly setting the girl on fire....

The girl reported being gang raped and left in a field near her home in late October in the Madhyamgram suburb of Kolkata, formerly Calcutta. The next day she was allegedly abducted by the same gang and raped again before being left unconscious by railway tracks, police said.

The girl's father, a taxi driver, said last week that his daughter was set on fire on Dec. 23 after being threatened with violence if she did not withdraw her police complaint. She died from her injuries on Wednesday....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/01/04/gang-rape-killing-of-teen-in-india-sparks-outrage/4317079/

Sexual violence common among teens. Feeling responsible isn't.

Sexual violence common among teens. Feeling responsible isn't.
By Melissa Healy  October 7, 2013

Nearly 1 in 10 young Americans between ages 14 and 21 acknowledges having perpetrated an act of sexual violence at least once, and 4% of a nationally representative sample of American kids reported attempting or completing rape, a new study finds.

While those most likely to report initiating unwanted sexual contact in their early to mid-teens were boys, girls were among the perpetrators as the age of respondents increased....

The research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, appears to be first to gauge how widespread sexual violence is among Americans of high-school and college age. It was based on surveys conducted between October 2010 and March 2012 with 1,058 people ages 14 to 21 who participated in a broader longitudinal study called "Growing Up With Media."....

In all, 8% of those responding -- 84 of 1,058 respondents -- reported they had kissed, touched or made someone else do something sexual when they knew the person did not want to (characterized as "forced sexual contact"). About 3% reported they had gotten someone else to give in to sex when the perpetrator knew the other person did not want to (characterized as "coercive sex"). Also, 3% acknowledged attempting rape, meaning that he or she had been unable to force someone else to have sex. And 2% -- a total of 18 individuals -- said they had forced another person to have sex when they knew the person did not want to, a completed rape.

Coercive tactics, including arguing, pressuring, getting angry or making someone feel guilty, were most commonly reported by those who acknowledged attempted or completed rape. And the study found that 75% of the cases of sexual violence occurred in the context of a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Ten of the respondents -- just under 1% -- acknowledged having threatened or used physical force to get someone to engage in sex....

The study also found that perpetrators of sexual violence of all types were unlikely to accept responsibility for their acts. One in seven believed that he or she was "not at all responsible for what happened," and almost 4 in 10 said they considered the victim somewhat or completely responsible for the reported incident. And only two of the respondents reported being arrested for the transgression....
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sexual-assault-teens-20131007,0,1369499.story


Prevalence Rates of Male and Female Sexual Violence Perpetrators in a National Sample of Adolescents
Michele L. Ybarra, MPH, PhD1; Kimberly J. Mitchell, PhD2

JAMA Pediatr. Published online October 07, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.2629

....Results 
Nearly 1 in 10 youths (9%) reported some type of sexual violence perpetration in their lifetime; 4% (10 females and 39 males) reported attempted or completed rape. Sixteen years old was the mode age of first sexual perpetration (n?=?18 [40%]). Perpetrators reported greater exposure to violent X-rated content. Almost all perpetrators (98%) who reported age at first perpetration to be 15 years or younger were male, with similar but attenuated results among those who began at ages 16 or 17 years (90%). It is not until ages 18 or 19 years that males (52%) and females (48%) are relatively equally represented as perpetrators. Perhaps related to age at first perpetration, females were more likely to perpetrate against older victims, and males were more likely to perpetrate against younger victims. Youths who started perpetrating earlier were more likely than older youths to get in trouble with caregivers; youths starting older were more likely to indicate that no one found out about the perpetration.

Conclusions and Relevance 
Sexual violence perpetration appears to emerge earlier for males than females, perhaps suggesting different developmental trajectories. Links between perpetration and violent sexual media are apparent, suggesting a need to monitor adolescents’ consumption of this material. Victim blaming appears to be common, whereas experiencing consequences does not. There is therefore urgent need for school programs that encourage bystander intervention as well as implementation of policies that could enhance the likelihood that perpetrators are identified.
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1748355

Former priest among four probed in Italian sex slavery cult

Former priest among four probed in Italian sex slavery cult
Aug. 23, 2013

FLORENCE, Italy, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Four people, including a former priest, were under investigation Friday for a cult involving sex slavery in Tuscany, Italian police said.

Authorities were looking into allegations of mistreatment of nine men and a woman in a religious cult based in Montecchio di Cortona, as well as misappropriation of funds, the newspaper Gazetta del Sud reported Friday.

Florence investigators said cult members were subjected to sexual and psychological violence, and identified the cult leader as Mauro Cioni, 68, a former priest who left the Catholic clergy in 1985.

In the late 1980s Cioni found adherents to what he termed living "another form of Christianity," forcing them to cut ties to family and work, hand over their financial holdings and submit themselves to his sex-related orders, investigators said....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/08/23/Former-priest-among-four-probed-in-Italian-sex-slavery-cult/UPI-28311377291312/
 

Pope updates Vatican law, criminalizing sex abuse, leaks, The case of Fran and Dan Keller - Fran’s Day Care, PTSD treatments

Pope updates Vatican law, criminalizing sex abuse, leaks
New laws apply to clergy, others in the city-state
By Nicole Winfield   Associated Press  
July 12, 2013 VATICAN CITY

Pope Francis overhauled the laws that govern the Vatican city-state on Thursday, criminalizing leaks of Vatican information and specifically listing sexual violence, prostitution, and possession of child pornography as crimes against children that can be punished by up to 12 years in prison.

The legislation covers clergy and laypeople who live and work in Vatican City and is different from the canon law which covers the universal Catholic Church.

It was issued at a critical time, as the Vatican prepares for a grilling by a UN committee on its efforts to protect children under a key UN convention and prevent priests from sexually abusing children. The Vatican signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 yet only now — 23 years later — has it updated its legislation to reflect some of the treaty’s core provisions....
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2013/07/11/pope-updates-vatican-law-crminalizing-sex-abuse-leaks/URHItA5fuIxJNruXaGO2jI/story.html


Fran’s Day Care Case - Randy Noblitt, PhD
The case of Fran and Dan Keller

excerpts:
"Some of the parents whose children attended the preschool became suspicious when their children returned home wearing underwear not their own, or with their clothes inside out or with their hair wet. There were always reasonable explanations: the child had an accident and was changed into clothes on hand for that purpose; or the child splashed water on herself when the children were cleaning up; and so forth. However, when one of the children made an outcry, the parents more closely scrutinized the strange behaviors some of the children had started engaging in and the aforementioned episodes, and they took their concerns to the police. The police took the concerns seriously and collected statements and evidence. The grand jury found a basis for indictment. The Kellers responded to the warrant for their arrest by fleeing the state in disguise, obtaining false identifications in their new personas, and attempting to leave the country. They were apprehended in Las Vegas, Nevada and extradited back to Travis County."

"The case ended with the conviction of the Kellers and their sentencing to 48 years in prison each. They are in prison still, any efforts for appeal having failed to date."

"the perspective was one of advocacy for falsely accused, persecuted, prosecuted, and convicted victims of a malicious or inept legal system that places too much trust in the stories children tell. A particular flaw in this story was the story. It was certainly not founded on anything I witnessed during my participation in the case. Evidence was not withheld from the prosecution to my knowledge. The defense was left flat-footed by their own conviction that the children would not be believed. And the advice I offered may have helped to prevent influence or contamination of the children’s testimony. The children’s stories were credible – Fran and Dan Keller’s defense was not."

"One of the child victims, Veejay Staelin, a now 21-year old...re-asserted that he had been abused by Fran and Dan Keller."
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/

Meta-analysis of the efficacy of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder. Authors Watts BV, et al

Journal
J Clin Psychiatry. 2013 Jun;74(6):e541-50. doi: 10.4088/JCP.12r08225.

Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an important mental health issue in terms of the number of people affected and the morbidity and functional impairment associated with the disorder. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of all treatments for PTSD....

RESULTS: Effective psychotherapies included cognitive therapy, exposure therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (g = 1.63, 1.08, and 1.01, respectively). Effective pharmacotherapies included paroxetine, sertraline, fluoxetine, risperidone, topiramate, and venlafaxine (g = 0.74, 0.41, 0.43, 0.41, 1.20, and 0.48, respectively)....

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that patients and providers have a variety of options for choosing an effective treatment for PTSD. Substantial differences in study design and study participant characteristics make identification of a single best treatment difficult. Not all medications or psychotherapies are effective.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23842024/

UNC-Chapel Hill Faces Backlash Over Sexual Assault Victim Landen Gambill's Honor Court Charge

UNC-Chapel Hill Faces Backlash Over Sexual Assault Victim Landen Gambill's Honor Court Charge

The Huffington Post   By Tyler Kingkade 03/06/2013

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is under intense community backlash after news broke that Landen Gambill, a sexual assault survivor, faces possible expulsion for "intimidating" her alleged abuser.

Gambill was part of a group that filed a federal complaint against UNC over the way the institution treats sexual assault victims. Though Gambill has never publicly identified her abuser, other than to say he's an ex-boyfriend and a current UNC student, her alleged attacker filed an Honor Court charge against her last week.

The American Association of University Professors' Committee on Women stood by Gambill and urged the university to drop the charges in a letter to UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp.

"Charging a plaintiff in a sexual assault case with an Honor Court violation appears very much like retaliation for raising the issue of sexual assault," wrote professors Ann Green and Donna Potts, of St. Joseph's University and Kansas State University, respectively. "Such action by UNC can only serve to silence survivors of sexual violence and to contribute to the chilly campus climate delineated by the recent 'Dear Colleague' letter issued by the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education."

The university has insisted it has nothing to do with the Honor Code charge, but the AAUP noted the administration does have oversight of the Honor Court system. Indeed, the Committee on Student Conduct, comprised of students, faculty and administrators, "oversees the implementation of the Honor Code and the workings of the Honor System at UNC," according to its website....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/unc-chapel-hill-sexual-assault_n_2814090.html

Pope should be tried over the church’s sex abuse scandals: Corrigan, Gang rape in Cambodia, George: Any ties to sexual abuse could disqualify papal candidate

- Pope should be tried over the church’s sex abuse scandals: Corrigan
- Cardinals Start to Ponder Subtleties of a Big Task
- George: Any ties to sexual abuse could disqualify papal candidate
- Gang rape widespread in Cambodia

Pope should be tried over the church’s sex abuse scandals: Corrigan
Thursday Mar 07, 2013

An international lawyer says that the Roman Catholic Church and Pope can be sued in the International Court of Justice over hundreds of filed sexual abuses cases.

The comments come as the leader of Catholic church Pope Benedict XVI has officially resigned, ending an eight-year pontificate shaped by struggles to move the church past sex abuse scandals. Meanwhile international lawyers are looking into former Pope Benedict XVI’s legal status to see whether the former pontiff is liable to a legal action over failing to stop child sex abuse by church priests....

Corrigan: Well, if it goes to the International Court of Justice I think certainly the Roman Catholic Church can be sued.

Priests, bishops, archbishops, all along the hierarchy have been sued successfully in the past and there are a number, maybe even hundreds of sexual abuse cases which have been filed against the church, many of which have been upheld and sometimes they are dealt with internally through Canon law and internal secrecy which is supposed to protect the victim but also certainly has the appearance of protecting the church and sort of hiding this problem which needs to be brought up in the open and there have been numerous priests and other religious figures who have been convicted of sexual abuse of children and women and others.

So certainly the church can be sued....
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/07/292357/pope-could-be-sued-over-sexual-scandal/


Cardinals Start to Ponder Subtleties of a Big Task
By DANIEL J. WAKIN March 4, 2013 VATICAN CITY....

On Monday, a senior American cardinal made a rare mention of the clerical sexual abuse scandal in that discourse. Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, said the new pope “obviously has to accept the universal code of the church now, which is zero tolerance for anyone who has abused a child.” Speaking in answer to a question at a news conference, Cardinal George said, “There’s a deep-seated conviction, certainly on the part of anyone who has been a pastor, that this has to be continually addressed.”....
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/world/europe/cardinal-george-of-chicago-urges-zero-tolerance-of-sex-abuse.html


George: Any ties to sexual abuse could disqualify papal candidate
By Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune reporter March 7, 2013

ROME — Days before Pope Benedict XVI resigned and Roman Catholic cardinals descended on Rome to select his successor, Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien was, for all intents and purposes, fired.

As one of the cardinal electors for the next pope, O'Brien, who later apologized for sexual misconduct with other clergy, could have had a say in the next pope. Technically, he could have become the next pontiff.

But in an exclusive interview with the Tribune before the American cardinals' moratorium, Chicago's Cardinal Francis George said there are attempts to vet candidates to avoid surprises. He also said ties to anyone guilty of sexual misconduct — whether intended or unintended — could put a man's candidacy in question if it could distract from his spiritual mission.

David Clohessy, executive director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, said that kind of vetting should have been taking place for decades. On Wednesday, Clohessy's group issued a list of a dozen cardinals whose selection as pope would cause further offense to victims of sex abuse by priests....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/religion/ct-met-sex-abuse-0307-20130307,0,7784915.story


Gang rape widespread in Cambodia
Published on Mar 7, 2013

In a recent survey, five percent of men reported they participated in gang rape in Cambodia, one of the highest rates in the Asia-Pacific region. Still, fewer than 20 gang-rape cases were prosecuted in Cambodia last year. A law against domestic violence, passed in Cambodia in 2005, has led to a 15 percent reduction in violence in the home. There is increasing recognition that sexual violence needs to be tackled in the Southeast Asian nation. Al Jazeera's Aela Callan reports from Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyxhEfBubGI 

Evidence of Satanic Ritual Abuse by Noemi Mattis, JD, PhD., Washington police accused of 'disturbing' failures to investigate rape, Sara Reedy, the rape victim accused of lying and jailed by US police, wins $1.5m payout

Evidence of Satanic Ritual Abuse written August 7 2003 to Judy Byington by Noemi Mattis, JD, PhD., Co-chair of the Utah Governor's Task Force on Ritual Abuse.
http://22faces.com/sra-evidence


Washington police accused of 'disturbing' failures to investigate rape

Human Rights Watch to publish report that shows some victims experience fresh trauma from police neglect in rape cases
      Joanna Walters in New York
    guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 January 2013

Police in Washington DC frequently fail to investigate reports of rape, and treat victims so dismissively at times, that they experience fresh trauma while the chances of the perpetrator being caught are undermined, according to a comprehensive report due out next week.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch is expected to uncover "disturbing evidence of police failure" in a 200-plus page report after a two-year investigation into law enforcement practices in the US capital.

But although shocking, the situation in Washington is far from isolated. There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.

"This is a national crisis requiring federal action. We need a paradigm shift in police culture, because rapes and sexual assaults are being swept under the rug, and too many victims are being bullied," said Carol Tracy of the Women's Law Project, a legal advocacy group that specialises in sexual violence cases....

Sara Reedy, 27, last year won a $1.5m settlement from the Cranberry police near Pittsburgh after they did not believe she had been raped at gunpoint and arrested her. She was about to stand trial when her perpetrator was caught elsewhere....

In Cleveland, Ohio, serial rapist and murderer Anthony Sowell was caught in 2011 after killing 11 women, six of them after a rape kit was disregarded. Milwaukee serial rapist Gregory Below was finally sentenced to 350 years in 2011, but three of his victims said the police dismissed their cases initially....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/17/washington-police-accused-rape-failures



Sara Reedy, the rape victim accused of lying and jailed by US police, wins $1.5m payout

Pittsburgh woman raped at gunpoint and charged with fabricating her story has won a settlement after a marathon legal battle, changing federal law along the way

     Joanna Walters in Pittsburgh
    The Observer, Saturday 15 December 2012

....Reedy was 19 when the man entered the petrol station near Pittsburgh where she was working to pay her way through college and pulled a gun. He emptied the till of its $606.73 takings, assaulted her and fled into the night. But the detective who interviewed Reedy in hospital didn't believe her, and accused her of stealing the money herself and inventing the story as a cover-up. Although another local woman was attacked not long after in similar fashion, the police didn't join the dots.

Following further inquiries, Reedy was arrested for theft and false reporting and, pregnant with her first child (by her now ex-husband), thrown in jail. She was subsequently released on bail, but lost her job. More than a year after attacking Reedy, the man struck again, but this time he was caught and confessed to the earlier crime.

When the charges against her were dropped, Reedy sued the police and has now won a marathon legal battle and a $1.5m (£1m) settlement against the detective who turned her from victim into accused. The payment was agreed earlier this year, but can be revealed only now because of a non-disclosure clause that was part of the settlement....

Upon being bailed, she was turned away from a local victim help centre, and old school friends spread rumours about her. Even her parents expressed doubts about their daughter's veracity after talking to Evanson. But a month before Reedy's trial, Wilbur Brown, 44, was arrested after raping a woman in a convenience store several miles away. He admitted attacking Reedy too, and in 2006 she was in court to see him plead guilty to assaulting 10 women. He is now serving life in prison.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/15/sara-reedy-rape-victim-wins-police-payout

Criminal investigation launched into paedophile ring involving UK politicians in the 1980s, India's New Focus on Rape Shows Only the Surface of Women's Perils

Criminal investigation launched into paedophile ring involving UK politicians in the 1980s
Police launch criminal investigation into MPs’ child sex ring
Martin Hickman Author Biography
Thursday 17 January 2013

Scotland Yard tonight launched a full investigation into allegations that Conservative politicians were members of a paedophile ring which abused children in care the 1980s.

Operation Fernbridge will centre on the alleged historic sexual abuse of children at Elm Guest House, in Rocks Lane, a suburban street in Barnes, south-west London.

Residents of a nearby care home run by Richmond Council claim they were sexually assaulted at the property by a network of prominent individuals, including Tory MPs, who used their connections to escape justice....

Saying that the file contained “clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring”, Mr Watson said at Prime Minister’s Questions: “One of its members boasts of a link to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad....

In a short statement, Scotland Yard said: “The Metropolitan Police Service have today, Thursday 17 January, launched an investigation, Operation Fernbridge, into historic allegations of child abuse in the early 1980s at the Elm Guest House, Rocks Lane, Barnes, London.

“The investigation will be led by the Child Abuse Investigation Command.”

The statement went on: “The allegations under Operation Fernbridge were initially assessed under Operation Fairbank which was information passed to police by MP Tom Watson. Operation Fernbridge reached the threshold for a criminal investigation.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-launch-criminal-investigation-into-mps-child-sex-ring-8456434.html


India's New Focus on Rape Shows Only the Surface of Women's Perils
January 13, 2013
By GARDINER HARRIS / The New York Times

NEW DELHI -- Harassed for years by her husband and his relatives, an Indian woman was finally kidnapped, raped, strangled and tossed into a ditch.

For more than a year, the woman's father has tried without success to get the police to arrest those accused of killing her, including her husband, who were charged but remain at large. The father, Subedar Akhileshar Kumar Singh, an army officer, says he believes his daughter was killed because her in-laws were not satisfied with her dowry, according to an article on Thursday in The Indian Express.

Such crimes are routine in this country, where researchers estimate that anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 women a year are killed over dowry disputes. Many are burned alive in a particularly grisly form of retribution.

While a horrific gang rape in New Delhi has transfixed India and drawn attention to a violent epidemic, rape is just one facet of a broad range of violence and discrimination that leads to the deaths of almost two million women a year, researchers say. Among the causes are not only sexual violence but also domestic violence, family disputes and female infanticide, as well as infant neglect and poor care of the elderly that affect girls and women far more than boys and men....
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/indias-new-focus-on-rape-shows-only-the-surface-of-womens-perils-670266/

A Pedophile in Plain Sight, Gang of men who groomed young girls

A Pedophile in Plain Sight
By ERIC L. LEWIS January 12, 2013

JUST after Christmas, Poly Prep Country Day School, the venerable Brooklyn institution, settled a lawsuit alleging a more than 40-year cover-up of the predatory pedophilia of its legendary football coach, Philip Foglietta. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the lawsuit charged that school administrators were repeatedly informed from the 1960s until his forced retirement in 1991 that Mr. Foglietta was sexually abusing boys — on campus, in his apartment and during trips. Mr. Foglietta, who died in 1998, fondled and raped dozens, if not hundreds, of children....

But many of us also knew that Coach Phil showered with the fifth graders. We knew that he hung around the locker room and checked that each of us had thoroughly rinsed off. Most of us knew he invited kids for car rides to Coney Island in his green Chevy Impala and for overnight stays at the apartment he shared with his mother. Most of those kids were young and small, often boys who had lost their fathers. He didn’t bother kids whose fathers were in local politics (my dad was in the State Senate) or allegedly high up in the mob (a couple of Gambino grandsons went to our school). Those boys were never offered a ride in the green Impala.

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit was the younger brother of a classmate. The brothers’ dad died suddenly in 1970, when my classmate and I were in seventh grade. Both brothers were slight; only the younger one played football. My classmate, Scott Smith, went to Cornell, made a fortune in finance, and is now Poly’s chairman of the board. His younger brother, Philip, never went to college and slid into multiple addictions. According to the lawsuit, he was sexually assaulted hundreds of times....

But there is little doubt that senior administrators were told about the abuse on multiple occasions. The lawsuit recounts specific meetings between boys, their parents, the headmaster and the athletic director. That athletic director, who went on to become dean of students and assistant headmaster, reportedly witnessed abuse in the showers and walked away. In 1991, the headmaster allegedly told one of the victims that Coach was a bitter, sick old man who should be left alone. Coach Phil was powerful, intimidating, successful, not to be trifled with. And so for a quarter-century, he freely abused vulnerable boys, virtually in plain sight....

Pedophilia remains endemic, a powerful, difficult-to-treat compulsion. Prosecutions are rare, and victims who come forward years later are often barred from court by inflexible rules. Statutes limiting lawsuits should be altered to recognize that these crimes emerge slowly. Every school should have an investigative protocol available to parents online. There should also be at least one experienced person in every institution to whom incidents can easily be reported on a confidential basis.

Sexual abuse of children presents itself in confusing, ambiguous ways, so pedophilia education should be a mandatory part of the curriculum, repeated in elementary, middle and high school, at age-appropriate levels of detail. Abused children need to understand that they have done nothing wrong, that it is safe to come forward....  
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/at-poly-prep-a-pedophile-in-plain-sight.html


Gang of men 'who groomed young girls for sex drove terrified victim, 14, to the woods at night and threatened to cut her head off'

    Nine men groomed and abused vulnerable girls, court hears
    Jury told they used 'extreme physical and sexual violence'
    Girls given so many drugs that they were 'barely aware', it's claimed
    One girl said she was forced to miscarry after home abortion
    The abuse was alleged to have taken place over eight years

by Arthur Martin and Keith Gladdis

15 January 2013

Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped by a child sex ring before being sold to abusers across Britain, a court heard yesterday.

Nine men, mostly of Asian heritage, befriended vulnerable girls with gifts of perfume, alcohol and drugs before subjecting them to a 'living hell' for eight years.

The six girls were subjected to 'extreme physical and sexual violence' while they were repeatedly raped by numerous abusers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262723/Gang-men-groomed-young-girls-sex-drove-terrified-victim-14-woods-night-threatened-cut-head-off.html