Catholic Whistleblowers Join Forces on Abuse, Ex-swim coach accused of abuse

Church Whistle-Blowers Join Forces on Abuse
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN May 20, 2013

They call themselves Catholic Whistleblowers, a newly formed cadre of priests and nuns who say the Roman Catholic Church is still protecting sexual predators.

Although they know they could face repercussions, they have banded together to push the new pope to clean house and the American bishops to enforce the zero-tolerance policies they adopted more than a decade ago.

The group began organizing quietly nine months ago without the knowledge of their superiors or their peers, and plan to make their campaign public this week. Most in the steering group of 12 have blown the whistle on abusers in the past, and three are canon lawyers who once handled abuse cases on the church’s behalf. Four say they were sexually abused as children.

Their aim, they say, is to support both victims and fellow whistle-blowers, and identify shortcomings in church policies….

But the whistle-blowers’ group contends that vigilance is necessary because some bishops are violating the zero-tolerance policies, and abusive clergy (who now number 6,275, according to the bishops’ count of those accusations that they deem credible) still have access to children. They point to the revelations in the last month that a priest in Newark who was a convicted sex offender restricted by a court order from working with children had been ministering in a Catholic parish in Trenton, taking confessions from children and going on weekend youth retreats….

The whistle-blowers’ group plans to hold its first news conference this week in New York, and some members are bracing for the reaction. They said they know priests who spoke up and were removed from their parishes, hustled into retirement or declared “unstable” and sent to treatment centers for clergy with substance-abuse problems or sexual addictions…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/us/catholic-church-whistle-blowers-join-forces-on-abuse.html

Ex-swim coach accused of abuse appears in court
By Peter Schworm    Globe Staff    May 20, 2013

MEDFORD — When the young boy joined the Arlington Boys & Girls Club swim team in the late 1970s, his coach was Paul Collins, who also dated his family’s neighbor and would sometimes fill in as baby sitter.

On those occasions, when the boy went to sleep, Collins would sit at his bedside and “begin rubbing his back and chest,” according to allegations detailed in court documents released Monday. ­Collins would then massage the boy below the waist and tell him he should not talk about it to anyone else.

It was, he told the boy, “our ­little secret.”

The boy, now a middle-aged man, is one of four adults who in recent weeks have accused Collins of sexual assault, part of an expand­ing investigation into child abuse at the youth club. The men came forward after club officials announced in February that another former employee, William Sullivan, had allegedly sexually abused children at the club ­between the 1970s and 1990s. ­Sullivan is deceased.

On Monday, two days after being arrested in his Long Island home, Collins, 62, was arraigned in Cambridge District Court on charges of sexually assaulting the boys and ordered held on $250,000 bail. Collins pleaded not guilty to the accusations, but prosecutors said he had admitted to sexual contact with two accusers and told investigators he may also have had contact with the other two….
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/20/new-york-man-charged-with-sexually-abusing-children-arlington-boys-girls-club-late/dQnWc6GwgfQDC1WtXq5iMI/story.html

The Cleveland Horror and a Week of Violence Against Women, Gina DeJesus: Girl allegedly kidnapped by Ariel Castro watched mother on TV once a year

- Emotional and physical abuse brought into the light in Cleveland

Gina DeJesus: Girl allegedly kidnapped by Ariel Castro watched mother on TV once a year  20 May 2013

She says that was the only glimpse of the outside world Gina, now 23, was allowed in her nine years of captivity

One of the girls allegedly kidnapped by Ariel Castro was allowed to watch TV once a year – to see her mother conduct a prayer service on the anniversary of her abduction, it is claimed.

Mum Nancy Ruiz says that was the only glimpse of the outside world Gina DeJesus, now 23, was allowed in her nine years of captivity.

She told a Spanish TV show: “She knew I hadn’t given up looking because she had seen me on television.

“It gave her more strength to carry on living.”…. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/gina-dejesus-girl-allegedly-kidnapped-1901787

The Cleveland Horror and a Week of Violence Against Women
Leslie Savan on May 9, 2013

In just the last few days, we’ve seen a series of news stories involving violence against women. The violence comes in different forms—physical, psychological, financial—and from different quarters—a former school-bus driver in Cleveland, the NRA convention in Houston, the military, Congress—and so it’s not surprising that the media, as usual, are delivering these stories as unrelated incidents. But arriving almost simultaneously, these tales of misogyny should jolt us all to connect the dots and to shine an unblinking light on the violence against women that’s always there, just below the surface….

When I first saw the photo of a freed Amanda Berry with her sister and daughter, and tried to imagine the women’s unimaginable captivity, I couldn’t get another set of images out of my mind—that of “The Ex,” a target mannequin that squirts blood when you shoot her. “The Ex” (variously called “The Ex-Girlfriend” and “Alexa”) is a large-breasted white woman, her clothes party ripped off, blood dripping from her mouth down her cleavage, and she was sold with other “bleeding zombie targets” at the NRA convention in Houston last weekend. A target mannequin that looks like Obama painted green (one happy customer calls him “Barry” in a video that has been removed) also made the news. Buzzfeed reported that the NRA asked the vendor, Zombie Industries, to remove it from display, but it continued to be sold, a reminder of the racism that fuels the pro-gun paranoia. But the NRA didn’t object to displaying “The Ex,” and she still appears on the company’s website….

Tim Murphy of Mother Jones cites other shelters and domestic violence programs that are being reduced or completely eliminated in Louisiana, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Oregon and other states. “The projections are bleak,” he writes.

Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) office estimates that 70,120 fewer domestic violence victims will have access to recovery programs and shelters; 35,900 fewer people will get help obtaining non-shelter services such as restraining orders and sexual assault treatment. Cuts to programs related to the Victims Against Crime Act will hurt another 310,574 people….

And you know that big-shock Pentagon report released Tuesday that estimates 26,000 sexual assaults took place in the armed forces in 2012, a 37 percent increase over 2010? The report that also said fewer than 10 percent of the sex-assault cases end with a conviction at court-martial, while 62 percent of victims who dare to report an assault are rewarded with retaliation?….

In the Pentagon report above, an estimated 13,900 of the 1.2 million active duty men said they had experienced some form of sexual assault in the past year (a far smaller portion than the active duty women). About a quarter of the victims of non-family child abductions are boys. And from 1994 to 2010, about four in five victims of intimate partner violence were female, according to the Bureau of Justice stats. But that leaves one in five victims to be men…. http://www.thenation.com/blog/174267/cleveland-horror-and-week-violence-against-women  

Emotional and physical abuse brought into the light in Cleveland
BY MARILOU JOHANEK BLADE COLUMNIST  5/17/2013

….Ariel Castro terrorized his wife. He has a history of domestic violence and restraining orders.

What he’s accused of doing to three other women is not classified as domestic violence, said Linda Dooley, who is the CEO of the Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Center in Cleveland, but his alleged tactics of power and control are classic traits of a domestic violence offender.

“He clearly isolated the victims, manipulated them — that’s how he wound up getting them to his house — and abused them both physically and emotionally.”

Domestic violence offenders are masters at manipulation, Ms. Dooley added.

“I think the emotional mind-set is really a big part of this [Cleveland case], especially when you hear that he [Castro] intentionally left the door open and if they [victims] came out, he would beat them,” she said.

Emotional abuse takes a toll.

“When you’re in this day after day, year after year, and no one’s rescuing you, no one’s hearing you, many times victims give up.”

But contrary to common belief, Ms. Dolley added, victims of ritual abuse are anything but passive.

“Every day, they’re actively looking at how to survive,” Ms. Dooley said. “Escaping is secondary. They do a lot of things to stay alive like trying not to get their abuser angry or do something he doesn’t like so maybe he won’t beat them…. http://www.toledoblade.com/MarilouJohanek/2013/05/18/Emotional-and-physical-abuse-brought-into-the-light-in-Cleveland.html

Satanic murder accused tells of beating, Oxford sex gang

- Satanic murder accused tells of beating
- Witness not warned of satanic killing
- Child rapist’s jail term appeal fails – “satanic” sex abuse
- Loving parents. An utterly respectable home. So how did Rachel, 11, fall prey to the Oxford sex gang?

Satanic murder accused tells of beating  May 17 2013 by Meggan Saville    Johannesburg

The case against four people accused of killing teenager Kirsty Theologo in an alleged satanic ritual was postponed by the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Judge Geraldine Borchers postponed the matter until Monday, when one of the accused, Harvey Isha, would testify. Kirsty Theologo, 18, and her friend, who was 14-years-old at the time, were tied up, doused with petrol, and set alight on a hill in Linmeyer, south of Johannesburg, on October 21, 2011. Theologo died in hospital, but her friend survived.

Jeremy King and Lester Moody admitted to the crime and were both sentenced to 17 years in jail, five of which were suspended.
The other four accused – Isha, Robin Harwood, Lindon Wagner, and Courtney Daniels – have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. On Friday, Lydia van Niekerk, for Wagner, cross-examined State witness King about the killing. The court heard that Wagner admitted hitting Theologo with a rock on the hill where the ritual took place…. http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/satanic-murder-accused-tells-of-beating-1.1517745

Witness not warned of satanic killing May 17 2013 by SAPA

Johannesburg – A youth present when a teenager was set alight in an apparent satanic ritual was not warned he would witness a killing, a State witness said on Friday. Jeremy King, 20, told the High Court sitting at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court the youth was only told King and his friends would perform a “soul-selling” ritual.

Kirsty Theologo, 18, and her friend, who was 14-years-old at the time, were tied up, doused with petrol, and set alight on a hill in Linmeyer, south of Johannesburg, on October 21, 2011. Theologo died in hospital, but her friend survived.

King and Lester Moody confessed to the crime and were both sentenced to 17 years in jail, five of which were suspended. The other four accused – Harvey Isha, Robin Harwood, Lindon Wagner, and Courtney Daniels – have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, and assault to cause grievous bodily harm….
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/witness-not-warned-of-satanic-killing-1.1517657

Child rapist’s jail term appeal fails  Saturday, May 18, 2013 By Court staff

A child rapist who posed as a holy man to subject three victims to “satanic” sex abuse has failed to convince judges his 18-year prison sentence is too long.

The man claimed he had black magic powers and told the children, who were as young as 10, that if they did not submit to “religious massage”, evil spirits would remain in their bodies and their mothers would die….
The man was jailed at Leicester Crown Court after he was convicted in November 2011 of three counts of rape, one of another serious sexual offence and four counts of sexual activity with a child.

Three senior judges at London’s Court of Appeal this week rejected his challenge against his sentence, saying he had committed the crimes “under the cloak of religion” and deserved the sentence imposed. The man had denied all the offences but was found guilty by a jury, with the sentencing judge saying he had “deliberately frightened the children” so he could carry out “satanic abuse”….
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Child-rapist-s-jail-term-appeal-fails/story-19020011-detail/story.html

Loving parents. An utterly respectable home. So how did Rachel, 11, fall prey to the Oxford sex gang?

Victim started not turning up for family suppers at 7.30pm
Lured into life of sex slavery by Oxford gang with gifts of cocaine, cannabis, cigarettes and vodka
By age of 13, she had 700 men’s names on Facebook
Mother: ‘We did everything to try to keep her indoors, locking all windows and doors at night’  By Sue Reid  18 May 2013

….As her mother, Georgina, says today: ‘Rachel loved school and was the teacher’s pet. She was excited about going to the big secondary with her friends. She is the youngest of our big family and we doted on her. We called her our baby.’

Yet five months after the holiday picture, Rachel’s childhood was abruptly ended. Instead of returning home straight after school, she started staying out in the park with the same group of girls who used to come to her home for tea.

She would arrive late for the 7.30pm family supper. And — after a time — she often did not come home at night and went missing for days on end.
Now her horrified mother knows the reason for her daughter’s worrying behaviour. She was being seduced by a predatory gang of paedophiles, who lured her into a life of sex slavery by giving her gifts of cocaine, cannabis, cigarettes and vodka.

By the age of 13, Rachel had more than 700 men’s names on her Facebook page. Hundreds of others were sending text messages and even naked photos of themselves to her pink mobile phone.
She changed her online identity to a Muslim name. And when she did come home, she often had savage bruises and bites all over her face and body….

Rachel was the youngest of six girls who bravely gave evidence at an Old Bailey trial that ended this week as seven men from Oxford were convicted for brutal sex assaults on them over eight years.
The men, five of Pakistani origin and two North African brothers, were convicted of 23 rapes, 15 charges of rape  conspiracy and nine of child prostitution, as well as other offences including trafficking the girls for sexual exploitation and having sex with a child.

Scandalously, police and social workers knew in 2005 that the Oxford girls were being preyed on by  the gang, but did little to stop the nightmare unfolding before they finally started to investigate  in 2010.

As with similar outrages in Rochdale, Derby, Rotherham and Telford in Shropshire, where street-grooming gangs have been convicted recently….
Georgina contacted Oxford social services hundreds of times to ask for help with her out-of-control daughter and says they did not return her calls.
She stormed down to their offices in Oxford and says she was ignored.
She phoned the police, who to their credit often went out searching for Rachel, but officers (and social services) failed to tell Georgina that a gang of men, predominantly British-born Pakistanis, was operating a sex-grooming ring in the city and any white girl was at risk from them….
Today, she is in the care of Oxford social services and living in another part of the country. It is a unit where she is secure so the gang cannot contact her — nor she them.

Aged 16, she is not allowed a mobile phone or computer access. She can speak to her family only when a phone call is made for her by a warden at the home.

Suffering from post-traumatic stress because of her five-year ordeal, she is studying for her GCSEs  and is visited by her mother regularly….
Oxford police said this week that 60 other girls may have been abused by 50 men from similar gangs in Oxford….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2326381/Loving-parents-An-utterly-respectable-home-So-did-Rachel-11-fall-prey-Oxford-sex-gang.html

Cleveland forgotten abductee Michele Knight may have been beaten the worst, Kevin Annett Video

- Ariel Castro may have beaten Michelle Knight worst in Cleveland hell house
- New details emerge about Michelle Knight — oldest of the woman freed from Cleveland hell house
- Behind the forgotten abductee Michele Knight
- Kevin Annett video

Ariel Castro may have beaten Michelle Knight worst in Cleveland hell house
The first victim in the Ohio house of horrors was allegedly the captors’ main ‘punching bag.’
By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, May 16, 2013

Inside Ariel Castro’s Cleveland hell house, three young women allegedly suffered over a decade of abuse — but his first captive, in particular, may have borne the brunt of that beast’s brutality.

Michelle Knight’s family friend told CNN that she was Castro’s main “punching bag,” having been beaten so severely with hand weights and other objects that she suffered vision and hearing loss, as well as muscle and joint damage.

Back in August 2002, Castro abducted Knight, 21, but she was removed from the FBI’s missing persons database after 15 months and slowly forgotten; whereas, awareness campaigns sprung up for the other victims, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry.

Castro allegedly raped the women repeatedly and impregnated Knight at least five times. But each time, he starved her for at least two weeks before punching her stomach until she miscarried, the police report read….

Knight appears to have gone into seclusion, even from some family members, her grandmother said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/michelle-knight-worst-article-1.1345709

New details emerge about Michelle Knight — oldest of the woman freed from Cleveland hell house
Michelle Knight disappeared Aug. 23, 2002.

She was reportedly beaten repeatedly by her captors and suffered hearing loss and damage to some of the bones in her face — but her mother tells the ‘Today’ show she never gave up hope. By Corky Siemaszko / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Word that Michelle Knight had escaped from the Cleveland house of horrors came as a double shock Wednesday to her twin brother Freddie.

“I was freaking happy as hell because I didn’t know my sister was kidnapped,” he told CNN. “My mother never tells me anything.”

Freddie Knight said his mom, Barbara, kicked him out of the house when he was 14 and he was estranged from the rest of the family. But the years melted away when he saw his sister at the hospital….

Knight, who is believed to be 32, was reportedly beaten repeatedly by her captors and suffered hearing loss and damage to some of the bones in her face….

Police have already conceded that they paid more attention to the disappearances of the younger women Knight had been imprisoned with — Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry.

Knight reportedly had a troubled childhood and dropped out of high school at 17 after she was bullied by classmates….
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/details-cleveland-escapee-michelle-knight-article-1.1338149

Behind the forgotten abductee Michele Knight
Matt Young     news.com.au     May 10, 2013
Knight was never officially classed as a missing person
Abducted women found alive in Cleveland home

HORRIFIC details are emerging about Cleveland abductee Michele Knight’s difficult past, including an alleged gang-rape before her decade-long kidnapping.
Knight is also reported to have given police crucial evidence indicating there may have been more victims, telling authorities she was unsure how many women were detained inside the house.

It’s alleged she suffered up to five miscarriages while imprisoned and lived in darkness for long stretches of time….

19 Action News reports she is being treated at Metro Health Medical Centre for anxiety, and reports she may undergo reconstructive surgery to “heal injuries suffered at the hands of her attacker during her decade in captivity”.

“When she was severely beaten, he had beat her so bad in the face, she has to have facial reconstruction, and she’s lost hearing in one ear,” her grandmother, Deborah Knight said.

But it is unclear whether those injuries were sustained during her imprisonment or whether it was due to a gang-rape which allegedly occurred in junior high school, one year before her August 2002 disappearance.

Knight’s grandmother claims three of her classmates “grabbed her by the arm and raped her at school”.

Knight bore a child after the ordeal, a boy named Joey. She later lost custody of the child who was placed in foster care, reports the Daily News….
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/behind-the-forgotten-abductee-michele-knight/story-fnat7jnn-1226639583612

Kevin Annett video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C7g111Ih-pU#!

 

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Preyed on His Daughters’ Friends, Emily Castro Says, – Neighbor Reported Screams in Past, Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution

- Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Preyed on His Daughters’ Friends, Emily Castro Says
- Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past
- Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Preyed on His Daughters’ Friends, Emily Castro Says  By RUSSELL GOLDMAN   May 16, 2013

Ariel Castro, the man accused of kidnapping three women and keeping them imprisoned in his home for a decade, stalked the neighborhood where his daughters lived and preyed on the girls’ friends, his daughter says.

Two of his alleged victims, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, went to school with Castro’s two daughters and the four girls all knew each other, his daughter Emily told a private investigator in a recorded jailhouse interview obtained by ABC News.

“It couldn’t be coincidence,” Emily Castro told private eye Chris Giannini of her father’s decision to allegedly target two girls his daughter’s knew.

READ: Cleveland Kidnap Suspect Comforted Victim’s Mom Last Year

Emily Castro is serving a 25 year prison sentence for stabbing her own infant daughter in 2011.

At the time of her 2003 abduction, Berry lived just a few houses down the block from the home in which Castro’s daughters lived with their mother and stepfather. And Emily’s sister Arlene was the last person to see DeJesus before she disappeared.

Berry, now 26, and Emily, now 25, attended school together. “I went to Wilbur Wright (Middle School) with her,” Emily Castro told Giannini.

She said she was bothered that her father allegedly “used” her and her sister to look for victims on their street where they lived and played….

She said her father was routinely abusive of her mother Grimilda Figueroa, even beating her once while her mother was recovering from brain surgery. During the incident Emily Castro said she jumped on her father’s back stabbing him with a pencil in an effort to get him to stop.

Ariel Castro was arrested following that incident, but the charges were later dropped….
http://abcnews.go.com/US/accused-kidnapper-ariel-castro-preyed-daughters-friends-emily/story?id=19195556

Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past 05/07/2013
Juan Perez discusses his neighbor Ariel Castro, who was arrested in the abduction of three women.

Transcript for Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past

We’re joined by another neighbor, juan perez. Thank you for joining us this morning. I know you live just two houses away from ariel castro.

Before you saw the police pull up last night, had you had any sense that something terribly wrong was happening inside that house? No, I had no idea.

He was loving to all the kids in the neighborhood. He was nice to me since I was 5 years old. Never had any kind of suspicions….

What can you tell us what happened there? Well, my sister — my mother had heard the screaming and then I heard it too. My sister then reported it.

But we didn’t know which direction it was coming from. We didn’t know seriously if it was from the right side or the left side because we were inside the house, but there’s a difference between — there is a difference between a woman that’s, you know, playing around and joking around screaming and there’s another kind of scream that makes you want to report. And my sister reported it….
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/missing-cleveland-girls-found-alive-castro-neighbor-reported-19123728

Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution
Part 2 of 2008 “Primetime”: Two Ohio cousins kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery.
05/10/2013

Transcript for Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution

Two teenage cousin. — who vanished off the streets of Toledo have now been missing for 48 hours. I think it — price — something’s happened.

Police think the girls ages fourteen and fifteen have probably run away in the most likely come home soon. — Kimberly his mother Stephanie refuses to just sit and wait….

All the while the girls are being held captive for us towns and — – less than six miles away by a pimp and two prostitutes.

….The FBI thinks it’s the bigger number a 100000. Minors in America. Forced to trade sex for money.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/teen-girls-held-captive-forced-prostitution-19153038

‘It was like they were prisoners of war:’ Gina DeJesus cannot move her head after being chained up with Michelle Knight in basement for years, say medics

- ‘It was like they were prisoners of war:’ Gina DeJesus cannot move her head after being chained up with Michelle Knight in basement for years, say medics
- Horrific ordeal of ‘Girl D’ who was raped injected with heroin, branded and sold for sex at £600 an hour
- We the People
- Plan to stop child sex tourism

‘It was like they were prisoners of war:’ Gina DeJesus cannot move her head after being chained up with Michelle Knight in basement for years, say medics

The basement where the women were held had chains coming from the wall, and dog leashes attached to the ceiling, according to police sources
Description comes as lawyers for Castro announce that he will plead not guilty to kidnapping and rape charges
The women were restrained with them and duct tape in ‘stress positions’ for long periods that left them with bed sores and other injuries
Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were in worse condition than Amanda Berry with the source saying: ‘There is a reason why you have only seen a picture of Amanda
Abductor would duct tape the women over all parts of their faces, even their eyes, only leaving an opening so they could breathe
Former daughter-in-law Monica Stephens says Castro always gave her ‘the heebie-jeebies’
The women, especially DeJesus and Knight, were now exhibiting signs of malnutrition as Ariel Castro used food as a means to torment them

By Reuters Reporter
15 May 2013

Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, two of the women imprisoned in a Cleveland house in conditions described as similar to a prisoner of war camp, have suffered from severe malnutrition.

The women will require long-term therapy for injuries such as hearing loss and joint and muscle damage, two sources with direct knowledge said.

The harrowing details come as Castro’s attorneys claim he’s not the ‘monster’ depicted in news reports – and he will plead not guilty to kidnapping and rape charges….

Castro appeared to treat Berry – his ‘favorite’ – better than the other two, the sources said.

‘There is a reason why you have only seen a picture of Amanda,’ said one of the sources, referring to the condition of DeJesus and Knight.

Knight told investigators she fell pregnant five times, but lost the baby each time. She said that Castro starved and repeatedly punched her in the stomach to force her to miscarry.

Police sources told the National Enquirer that Castro had no interest in having children with Knight, because she was only 4-foot-7 and believed her to be ‘mentally disabled.’

The magazine’s source added that he was grooming his 6-year-old daughter with Amanda, Joselyn, as another sex slave because the other captives ‘were getting to old for him.’….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324731/It-like-prisoners-war-Cleveland-women-suffer-injuries-severe-malnutrition-including-hearing-loss-muscle-damage.html

Horrific ordeal of ‘Girl D’ who was raped injected with heroin, branded and sold for sex at £600 an hour

Mohammed Karrar plied girl with drink and drugs and raped her
She then became his ‘property’ and a sex slave
Was loaned out to abusers around the country for up to £600 an hour

By Arthur Martin   14 May 2013

The ordeal for one of the victims began after she became desperate for love and attention because she was forced to care for her sick parents.

So when Mohammed Karrar entered her life, bought her perfume and treated her like an adult, she believed in him. But the ‘nicey-nicey honeymoon period,’ as she described it, would last barely a year.

After grooming her, Karrar made sure she was ‘out of it’ on drink and drugs before raping her on his sofa.

From that moment she became his ‘property’ and a sex slave loaned out to abusers around the country for up to £600 an hour.

Over five years she was repeatedly attacked in what she described as ‘torture sex’. Injected with heroin, she was sold to groups of Asian men who violently gang-raped her in bedsits and guesthouses around Oxford and elsewhere.

The victim identified as Girl D for legal reasons, frequently broke down in tears giving evidence via videolink as she described her horrific ordeal….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324621/Horrific-ordeal-Girl-D-raped-injected-heroin-branded-sold-sex-600-hour.html

We the People    James Haven  Honorary Senior Advisor on Global Issues at Harvard; Founder, CoreCause Foundation 05/10/2013

….66% percent of adults in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused as children.

80% of young adults who suffered child abuse or neglect, met criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder by age 21, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.

42% percent of children who are molested are suicidal by their teens.

Abused and neglected children are 11 times more likely to engage in criminal behavior as an adult.

Sentencing in crimes against children typically carries 25 percent of the sentencing if the same crime was committed against an adult.

Child abuse and neglect in America is growing at a very high rate. And the most vulnerable is 0-6 in age. Thousands are being exploited and millions are in poverty and living on our streets across the nation.

124 billion is the minimum annual cost to the U.S. directly related to child abuse… Healthcare for mental illnesses and substance abuse… Child welfare and protection… Law enforcement and court systems to handle juvenile and adult criminal cases.

Those are very sobering statistics. But they also prove the most important statistic of all. That as Fredrick Douglas once said, “It is easier to build strong children than it is to fix broken men.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-haven/we-the-people_4_b_3254727.html

Plan to stop child sex tourism
May 15 2013 By BARBARA COLE

Durban – South African hotels are signing up to help protect children from sex tourism and are on the lookout for suspicious guests who try to check in with underage companions.

South Africa has the right combination of factors, such as poverty and violence against women, which put children at risk of exploitation.

In a move to stop South Africa becoming a child-sex tourism or trafficking destination, there were certain factors that created an environment for the exploitation of children, said Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, a non-profit organisation and the local representative of the Tourism Child Protection Code of Conduct. The code is based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Some of these realities are explained as follows: “The inflow of tourists, the ease with which people can cross (the) borders, societal beliefs that tolerate violence against women, high levels of poverty, and growing inequality since 1994 suggest that tens of thousands of children are at risk of sexual and other forms of exploitation.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/plan-to-stop-child-sex-tourism-1.1516301

Japanese mayor: Wartime sex slaves were necessary, Oxford exploitation trial: Guilty verdicts over child rapes

Japanese mayor: Wartime sex slaves were necessary
By MALCOLM FOSTER Associated Press 5/14/13

TOKYO (AP) — An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military’s forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to “maintain discipline” in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle.

The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan’s wartime aggression and have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities.

Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, also said that U.S. troops currently based in southern Japan should patronize the local sex industry more to help reduce rapes and other assaults.

Hashimoto told reporters on Monday that there wasn’t clear evidence that the Japanese military had coerced women to become what are euphemistically called “comfort women” before and during World War II….

Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in military brothels.

China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the mayor’s comments and saw them as further evidence of a rightward drift in Japanese politics under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“We are appalled and indignant about the Japanese politician’s comments boldly challenging humanity and historical justice,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily media briefing. “The way they treat the past will determine the way Japan walks toward the future. On what choice Japan will make, the Asian neighbors and the international community will wait and see.”

Asked about a photo of Abe posing in a fighter jet with the number 731 — the number of a notorious, secret Japanese unit that performed chemical and biological experiments on Chinese in World War II — Hong again urged Japan not to whitewash history so as to improve relations with countries that suffered under Japanese occupation.

“There is a mountain of definitive iron-hard evidence for the crimes they committed in the Second World War. We hope Japan will face and contemplate their history of aggression and treat it correctly,” Hong said.

Abe posed, thumbs up, in the aircraft during a weekend visit to northeastern Japan.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment over what it called a senior Japanese official’s serious lack of historical understanding and respect for women’s rights. It asked Japan’s leaders to reflect on their country’s imperial past, including grave human rights violations, and correct anachronistic historical views….
http://news.yahoo.com/japanese-mayor-wartime-sex-slaves-were-necessary-042050746.html

describes crimes
Oxford exploitation trial: Guilty verdicts over child rapes 14 May 2013  Seven members of a sex grooming ring have been convicted of abusing children from Oxford.

An Old Bailey jury heard six girls were drugged and suffered sadistic abuse while aged between 11 and 15.

The court heard victims were plied with alcohol and drugs before being forced to perform sex acts. Some had also been beaten, burnt and threatened.

Nine men had denied charges including rape, arranging child prostitution and trafficking between 2004 and 2012.

Two were acquitted of all charges….

The abuse began in Oxford but some of the victims would be later taken around the country to be offered to other men who were in contact with the gang.

Victim: “I was scared to say no”

The court heard how the men identified vulnerable girls for abuse then groomed each one of them until they were under the control of the gang….

The Old Bailey was told the key members of the group used and abused the six victims in a systematic and organised sex trafficking ring over eight years until their arrest in 2012.

The court heard how the men identified vulnerable girls for abuse and then groomed each one of them until they were under the control of the gang.

They were then each either abused by the men themselves, given to their friends or offered at a price to others who were not on trial.

The youngest girl to be targeted was 11-years-old. The girls were mostly chosen because their unsettled or troubled lives made them easier to manipulate….

One of the victims had complained to police twice but no one was charged.

A care home manager, who was later sacked, refused to pay her taxi fare when she returned after running away and the 14-year-old was driven back to Oxford where she was raped….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-22438623