Scotland Yard to investigate satanic abuse claim, Bitcoin’s Blockchain Offers Safe Haven For Child Abuse, Sierra Leone: Wife beating

Enoch Powell is named by bishop in sex abuse probe: Scotland Yard to investigate satanic abuse claim – and demands to see filed held on serving MPs

Bishop of Durham Paul Butler names late Tory politician to Scotland Yard
Former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, heard allegation in 1980s
Claim being examined by Operation Fenbridge – one of several such probes
Simon Heffer, Powell’s official biographer, branded allegations ‘nonsense’

By Glen Owen and Brendan Carlin for The Mail on Sunday
29 March 2015
The probe into an alleged paedophile network at the heart of the British Establishment took an explosive turn last night with the revelation that Enoch Powell’s name has been passed to police.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the late Tory MP, one of the most prominent and divisive politicians of the 20th Century, has been named to Scotland Yard by the Bishop of Durham. The claims relate to ‘ritual satanic abuse’.

And in a further development to the sex-ring investigations, police are to be given access to secret files held on MPs in the House of Commons archives as they hunt for evidence on suspected abusers, including former Liberal MP Cyril Smith….

Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations of satanic rituals – often involving the abuse of children – were widespread….

Sources close to one of Scotland Yard’s sex-ring investigations say officers contacted Lawrence Ward, the Commons Serjeant at Arms – the Commons’ most senior security official – earlier this month to ask him to search the files kept on all MPs. It is understood that no information was uncovered implicating MPs in abuse, sparking fears at Scotland Yard that some of the evidence might have been shredded….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3016399/Enoch-Powell-named-bishop-sex-abuse-probe-Scotland-Yard-investigate-satanic-abuse-claim-demands-filed-held-serving-MPs.html

Bitcoin’s Blockchain Offers Safe Haven For Malware And Child Abuse, Warns Interpol
Thomas Fox-Brewster  Forbes Staff 3/27/2015
The blockchain, the public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions, has all kinds of good uses outside of providing stability for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, from decentralised data storage to super-flexible email. But it can also be put to malicious use. According to Interpol’s Christian Karam, speaking from the Black Hat Asia conference, it could be abused to store malware control mechanisms or provide access to illicit content such as child abuse images that would be extremely difficult to take down….
http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/03/27/bitcoin-blockchain-pollution-a-criminal-opportunity/

Sierra Leone: Wife beating is still a common practice
28 March 2015
By Mariama Kandeh, Guest Writer, London, UK….

According to the Sierra Leone family support Unit, in 2012, the Western Area reported a total of 1,923 domestic violence cases while in 2013 the number rose to 2,073, the highest in the entire country and over 95% committed by husbands against their wives.

This excludes the provincial areas of the country that hosts the majority of the population. Meanwhile in 2014, a total of 11, 358 cases of child sexual abuse, domestic violence and rape against women and girls were recorded. Considering the fact that a good number of domestic violence cases is unreported, it displays a worrisome situation for Sierra Leone’s women….
http://www.thepatrioticvanguard.com/sierra-leone-wife-beating-is-still-a-common-practice-8231

Lawmakers Blast Child-Abuse Inquiry on Tax Shelter Jersey Island, 40 percent of women with severe mental illness are victims of rape, attempted rape

Lawmakers Blast Child-Abuse Inquiry on Tax Shelter Jersey Island
By Leah McGrath Goodman  9/10/14

Neil McMurray used to be a professional fisherman and crabber—until one of his children was repeatedly bullied in school and he found himself investigating what he began to view as a startling lack of concern for the welfare of children in his tiny island home.

“For the past decade, I have been writing about what I have come to see as a culture of concealment within our government, education and justice systems, which have repeatedly failed the most vulnerable members of our society, particularly children,” says McMurray.

McMurray lives on the island of Jersey, a $2 trillion tax shelter in the Channel Islands. Just 14 miles off the west coast of France, Jersey is part of neither Great Britain nor the European Union but a “Crown dependency”—meaning it is technically accountable to the queen of Great Britain but governs itself.

A 47-year-old married father of two, McMurray launched a humble but highly influential blog, Voice for Children, around the time the island’s police announced in 2008 that nearly 200 people from different parts of the world had come forward to report they had been victims of child predators on the island.

Since then, McMurray has assiduously covered child-protection issues in Jersey, gaining a following that includes global human-rights activists as well as the island’s locals, not excluding Jersey’s chief minister, Ian Gorst. But he has also gathered a good deal of notoriety….

Dubbed Operation Rectangle, the 2008 police investigation into widespread child abuse on the island yielded 151 suspects in Jersey, which is only 5 by 9 miles in size. Of those, 30 are now dead and fewer than a dozen were convicted, sparking widespread outrage from victims and witnesses and creating deep divisions on the island.

During Operation Rectangle, a dig under a government-run Jersey children’s home, Haut de la Garenne, unearthed the remains of children aged 6 to 12, according to a Jersey police press release, which noted that “no people are reported missing” and “there are no suspects for murder.” The probe closed in 2010 under questionable circumstances.

In July, a long-awaited Committee of Inquiry convened hearings in Jersey to investigate whether there may have been a cover-up of decades of atrocities against children. The inquiry stated September 5 that “new witnesses are coming forward all the time, and it is anticipated the hearings will last many months.”….
http://www.newsweek.com/lawmakers-blast-child-abuse-inquiry-tax-shelter-jersey-269447

40 percent of women with severe mental illness are victims of rape, attempted rape
September 3, 2014
University College London

Summary: Women with severe mental illness are up to five times more likely than the general population to be victims of sexual assault and two to three times more likely to suffer domestic violence, reveals new research.

Women with severe mental illness are up to five times more likely than the general population to be victims of sexual assault and two to three times more likely to suffer domestic violence, reveals new research led by UCL (University College London) and King’s College London funded by the Medical Research Council and the Big Lottery.

The study, published in Psychological Medicine, found that 40% of women surveyed with severe mental illness had suffered rape or attempted rape in adulthood, of whom 53% had attempted suicide as a result. In the general population, 7% of women had been victims of rape or attempted rape, of whom 3% had attempted suicide. 12% of men with severe mental illness had been seriously sexually assaulted, compared with 0.5% of the general population….

“The number of rape victims among women with severe mental illness is staggering,” says lead author Dr Hind Khalifeh of UCL’s Division of Psychiatry. “At the time of the survey, 10% had experienced sexual assault in the past year, showing that the problems continue throughout adulthood. Considering the high rate of suicide attempts among rape victims in this group, clinicians assessing people after a suicide attempt should consider asking them if they have been sexually assaulted. Currently this is not done and so patients may miss opportunities to receive specialist support.”

Men and women with mental illness were also found to be more likely to be victims of domestic violence than the general population. Domestic violence includes emotional, physical and sexual abuse. 69% of women and 49% of men with severe mental illness reported adulthood domestic violence.

Domestic violence from family members (other than partners) made up 63% of total domestic violence cases against psychiatric patients compared with 35% of the general population…. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903204125.htm

When Fathers Say ‘No More’ to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

When Fathers Say ‘No More’ to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault   Michael Bolton 6/14/2013

….Too often, we see the horrific results of the mistreatment of women and children on the evening news and in crime statistics. Every 15 seconds, a woman is abused by her partner. Nearly three out of every four Americans knows someone personally who is or has been a victim of domestic violence. Sex trafficking — especially of young children — is increasing at alarming rates across our country. And while we stand tall and proud with those men and women who have served and continue to serve in our military, we have seen even those institutions shaken by the scourge of sexual assault — 26,000 members of the Armed Forces were sexually assaulted in just one year.

….It has been estimated that as many as 10 million children witness assaults by one parent against another each year. We recognize that domestic violence places children, as well as women, in harm’s way. Our determined efforts continue across the country, most notably in Connecticut and Nevada, where visionary leaders and everyday citizens are coming together to advance effective strategies, legislation and solutions that work, and that matter.

For all of these reasons, I support a new initiative called NO MORE. It aims to get men talking about these serious issues. New data from a NO MORE survey, sponsored by the Avon Foundation for Women, shows that on this subject, fathers have been virtually silent. Three out of four men nationwide say they have not talked about domestic violence or sexual assault with their children. And so, as fathers, we can wait no more. We must all begin the conversation, close to home, with each of our children. As fathers, we must continue the conversation with leaders in business and our government. And, as fathers, we must fully engage with our educational system so boys can be taught in the developmental stages that you can never be a real man and be violent with a woman….  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bolton/when-fathers-say-no-more-to-domestic-violence_b_3428547.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

Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, Cleveland kidnapping captive Michelle Knight

– Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, and Abroad: An Eyewitness Comes Forward and Names her Torturers
– Cleveland kidnappings: Was Ariel Castro record of abuse a red flag?
– Cleveland captive Michelle Knight was gang-raped while in junior high
Michelle Knight bore a child as a result of the sex attack, which happened roughly a year before she was abducted in August 2002
– Cleveland captive Michelle Knight leaves hospital without telling family

Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, and Abroad: An Eyewitness Comes Forward and Names her Torturers
(ZWOLLE, Holland) – A survivor of a high-level ring involving child sacrifice, torture and trafficking went public today in an exclusive disclosure and interview with Freedom Central’s Mel Ve and ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett. May-08-2013

Toos Nijenhuis, a fifty four year old physiotherapist and mother of five from Holland, was tortured, raped and used experimentally from the age of four years old by wealthy and powerful men around the world, including top officials of churches and governments.

And, Nijenhuis claims, these crimes are continuing today, including the ritual sacrifice of children in rural Holland.

On May 7, Ms. Nijenhuis accompanied Kevin Annett, Mel Ve and other investigators to a forested site near to Zwolle where such child murders took place as recently as November, 2010, according to Ms. Nijenhuis….

These assaults occurred in Holland, Scotland, and a military experimental base in Melbourne, Australia, where Toos was subjected to what appears to be pain threshold and behaviour modification experiments. She also witnessed the torture and murder of other children.

Key excerpts from the interview and statement of Toos Nijenhuis are found in this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyrPEu7nk1Q

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may082013/holland-child-ring.php

Cleveland kidnappings: Was Ariel Castro record of abuse a red flag? (+video)
What if Ariel Castro’s past record of domestic violence had resulted in legal action? Could it have led authorities to discover that he was holding three women in his house? Could it have prevented the kidnappings from occurring?

By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer May 11, 2013

What if Ariel Castro’s past record of alleged domestic violence had resulted in legal action against him?

Could it have led authorities to discover sooner that the Cleveland man was holding three kidnapped women in his house? Could it have even prevented the kidnappings from occurring?

Those questions are emerging after details have surfaced that the Ohio kidnapping suspect had several run-ins with the law regarding alleged domestic violence.

The incidents involved the woman, Grimilda Figueroa, with whom Mr. Castro fathered four children.

Now Castro has been arrested and stands accused of kidnapping and abusing three other women and keeping them locked in his house since 2002, 2003, and 2004 respectively.

The Reuters news agency reported Saturday that Ms. Figueroa’s accusations against Castro began as early as 1989 and spanned through 2005. The most recent case involved a request by her for a court order of protection….
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/0511/Cleveland-kidnappings-Was-Ariel-Castro-record-of-abuse-a-red-flag-video

Cleveland captive Michelle Knight was gang-raped while in junior high 
Michelle Knight bore a child as a result of the sex attack, which happened roughly a year before she was abducted in August 2002 By Rich Schapiro AND Corky Siemaszko  NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, May 9, 2013

Michelle Knight went through hell even before she was kidnapped off a Cleveland street and imprisoned as a sex slave for nearly 11 harrowing years.

A year before her August 2002 disappearance, Knight was gang-raped while in junior high school and bore a child as a result of the ordeal, her great-aunt said Thursday. The boy, who she named Joey, was later taken from her and placed in foster care.

“She was a delightful girl, outgoing,” Deborah Knight, 62, told the Daily News. “She was very helpful. We just had a lot of fun together.”

But all that changed when three classmates “grabbed her by the arm and raped her at the school,” the great-aunt said. “That’s how she had Joey.”

Then, when Knight was at her lowest, Ariel Castro slithered into her life, police say.

Her abduction, imprisonment and rape — all at Castro’s hands, police say — ended on Monday, when she and two other women — escaped from Castro’s house of horrors on Seymour Ave. in Cleveland. Also liberated was a 6-year-old girl born to one of Knight’s two fellow captives. Knight, now 32, was forced to serve as a midwife during the delivery….

While fellow captives Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were quickly reunited with their families, it took police several hours to track down Michelle Knight’s twin brother, Freddie, the first member of her family police were able to reach.

Freddie Knight — who in earlier interviews said he wasn’t even aware his sister had been kidnapped because he was kicked out of the family’s home at age 14 — said “she looked white as a ghost.”

Michelle Knight suffered several miscarriages while imprisoned and lived in darkness for long stretches of her confinement.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cleveland-abduction-vic-gang-raped-jr-high-article-1.1339798

Cleveland captive Michelle Knight leaves hospital without telling family
After one visit with her mother, Barbara Knight, the hospital says the daughter refused to see visitors, including close family members.

By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, May 11, 2013

Kidnapping victim Michelle Knight slipped away from the hospital without seeing her family — upsetting and confusing her mother.

“Michelle Knight has been discharged from MetroHealth. She is asking for her privacy at this time,” MetroHealth Hospital said in a statement Friday.

Earlier that day, the hospital released a statement saying that Knight, now 32, is in good spirits and grateful for flowers and gifts from well-wishers. They added that she is particularly thankful for the Cleveland Courage Fund….

Michelle Knight’s grandmother, Deborah Knight, told local station WOIO-TV that Knight the young woman’s face had been beaten so severely that she might need to undergo facial reconstruction surgery.

Knight, the first of the three victims, was likely subjected to additional physical abuse at the age of 20 — before Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry joined her in the home on Seymour Ave. in Cleveland.

Large awareness campaigns were launched to find Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, the other victims, but Knight’s case was largely dismissed as a runaway case. She was removed from the FBI’s list of missing people after 15 months.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cleveland-captive-knight-avoids-public-family-article-1.1341364

Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, Cleveland Suspect Ariel Castro Domestic Abuse, Jimmy Savile

– Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland: An Eyewitness speaks out
– Chains, ropes found in Cleveland house where women were held
– Cleveland suspect Ariel Castro: A troubling portrait emerges
– Conference shines light on plight of battered mothers seeking custody
– Police force admits mistakes that let Jimmy Savile escape justice

Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland: An Eyewitness speaks out (Introduction)
Published on May 8, 2013
During Kevin Annett’s visit with us here at Freedom Central, we have been contacted by several people with some very interesting stories.
Meet Toos of the Family Nijenhuis, a very brave woman who came to meet Kevin Annett at the event Freedom Central hosted for him. Following of from the disclosure of some very sad but important facts, we immediately arranged for an interview with Toos….
very graphic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PyrPEu7nk1Q

Chains, ropes found in Cleveland house where women were held
By Alana Semuels and Tina Susman
May 8, 2013
CLEVELAND — Chains and ropes have been removed from the home where three women were rescued on Monday after being held captive as long as 11 years….

Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show, the police chief confirmed reports that the victims — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight — had been physically bound in the Castro home.

“They were released out in the backyard once in a while, I believe,” he told Savannah Guthrie.

That could bolster some neighbors’ claims Tuesday that they had seen at least one naked woman in Castro’s backyard a couple of years ago. Police have said they have no record of calls reporting such a sighting, but neighbors have said their attempts to alert police were dismissed.

Ariel Castro’s first cousin, 45-year-old Maria Castro Montes, a hospital administrator, expressed shock and disbelief at her cousin’s alleged actions as she stood Wednesday outside his small white house in a downtrodden area about two miles from downtown Cleveland.

“He was a normal man. He was a loving cousin, a loving father a loving grandfather,” she said. “Just like any other member of a family that you think you know.”….
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cleveland-kidnapping-20130508,0,743912.story

Cleveland suspect Ariel Castro: A troubling portrait emerges
By Matt Pearce  May 9, 2013

When three young women emerged from a Cleveland home Monday evening after being held captive for about a decade, neighbors were thunderstruck. Ariel Castro, 52, who owns the home and who faces kidnapping and rape charges, was known as a sunny face, someone who was good with children.

The neighborhood was shocked. But Fernando Colon wasn’t.

“The first thing I said was, ‘I knew it, I knew it,’ ” Colon told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, adding: “He’s a monster. He’s the opposite of what people thought he was.”

As the case gained worldwide attention, details were trickling out about the dungeon-like conditions in which Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, about 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, were purportedly imprisoned and abused.

A dark portrait of Castro also was emerging. Interviews and court documents detailed long-term, repeated allegations of manipulation and domestic abuse….

According to court records and interviews, allegations of abuse against Ariel Castro began in the early 1990s. Castro had three daughters and a son with Grimilda Figueroa between 1981 and 1990. The pair never married. In 1993, Figueroa would say later, Castro attacked her at their home on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland.

Figueroa, who died last year, suffered a broken nose, broken ribs, a blood clot in her brain and two dislocated shoulders, in addition to losing a tooth, according to a court petition she filed against him.

In 1994, a Cuyahoga County grand jury was to hear the abuse allegations, but Figueroa failed to testify. In a sworn statement she gave a decade later – in connection with the child abuse charges against Colon – Figueroa said Castro saw her on the day she was to testify and offered her money and a car if she didn’t tell the grand jury about his beatings.

“He also told me, ‘You know what will happen to you if you do testify,’ ” Figueroa said in the statement. “I knew that he would find me and assault me again. … I was unable to offer my testimony before the grand jury. I did not tell anyone about the threats.”

The case against Castro was dropped….
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-castro-abuse-history-20130509,0,1600490.story

The Post’s View
Conference shines light on plight of battered mothers seeking custody

By Editorial Board, May 10, 2013

THE BATTLES over child custody that unfold in courtrooms across the United States don’t get much attention. If a celebrity is involved, there might be headlines, but publicity is generally shunned out of the not-unreasonable urge to protect the privacy of children. Unfortunately, though, that has tended to shroud problems in how these critical decisions are made. That’s why a conference focusing attention this week on systemic issues in family court is so important.

The Battered Mothers Custody Conference started Friday at George Washington University Law School and concludes Sunday with a vigil at the White House. It brings together victims of domestic abuse, advocates and experts in an effort to reform a system they say doesn’t do enough to protect children. Too often, said organizers of the event, which is now in its 10th year, custody or access in contested cases where domestic violence has been alleged is given to abusive fathers because of a misguided emphasis on parental rights that discounts or disbelieves the concerns of women who have been battered. Victimized parents, often suffering from trauma caused by the abuse, are bankrupted and punished for fighting for their children.

“Cascading disasters and shattered lives are predictable and inevitable,” said Eileen King, executive director of Child Justice in the District and a speaker at the conference. She pointed to the case of 15-month-old Prince McLeod Rams, allegedly drowned by his father after his mother unsuccessfully tried to block unsupervised visits, and the infamous deaths in 2008 of Amy Castillo’s young children by a father she warned was dangerous….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/conference-shines-light-on-plight-of-battered-mothers-seeking-custody/2013/05/10/8a2830fc-b8f1-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html

Police force admits mistakes that let Jimmy Savile escape justice
Kiran Randhawa 10 May 2013

A police force today denied a cover-up of Jimmy Savile’s five-decade reign of sex crimes but admitted to “mistakes” and missed opportunities which allowed the DJ to escape justice.

According to a new review, the disgraced entertainer was rumoured to be a “pervert” and officers were passed on information about his possible sex offending while he was alive.

One officer even commented on the late DJ getting “so many of these type of complaints”.

Despite this, he was left free to sexually assault 68 victims in his hometown of Leeds, including eight under the age of nine, and one as young as five.

The inquiry, dubbed Operation Newgreen, examined the history of the TV presenter’s relationship with West Yorkshire Police, including how officers attended his well-known Friday Morning Club at his Leeds flat.

But although the force admitted there was an “over-reliance on personal friendships” between the Jim’ll Fix It host and officers who socialised with him, it found he was not shielded or protected from arrest.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/police-force-admits-mistakes-that-let-jimmy-savile-escape-justice-8610304.html

 

Ariel Castro, Cleveland Kidnappings – History of Abuse, Pentagon estimates 26,000 sexual assaults

– Hints of a dark side in Cleveland abduction suspect’s life
– In note, Ariel Castro claimed he was sexually abused as a child
– Cleveland kidnapping suspect had history of abuse, former lover said
– Cleveland kidnappings: Suspect Ariel Castro had ‘no flaw,’ neighbor says
– Pentagon estimates 26,000 sexual assaults

Hints of a dark side in Cleveland abduction suspect’s life
By Daniel Trotta CLEVELAND  Wed May 8, 2013

(Reuters) – In hindsight, there were signs of a darker side to Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man suspected of abducting three girls and holding them captive for around a decade.

Divorced years ago and never seen in the company of women, Castro suddenly started showing up in the largely Latino, working-class neighborhood with a 6-year-old girl. It was his girlfriend’s child, he told neighbors.

Castro, 52, was believed to have lived alone, yet on his lunch break would bring home enough bags of fast food and beverages for several people.

He was a school bus driver given mostly “excellent” marks on his performance appraisals, but was repeatedly disciplined, including for one incident when he was accused of calling a young student a “bitch” and leaving the child alone on a bus. These incidents eventually caught up with him, and he was fired last November….

“Ariel was in my garage probably five or six years ago. We were recording a song, an idea we had – a little hard rock with some Latin,” said Joe Popow, 45, a father of six who said he has known the Castro brothers since childhood.

“And – you’re going to laugh – he said he was in the CIA. And I don’t know if he was joking or not, but it’s the way he said it, how serious he said it. I didn’t know what he was capable of. That just put me on defense, and I just started stepping away,” Popow said….
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/us-usa-missing-ohio-suspect-idUSBRE94704Z20130508

In note, Ariel Castro claimed he was sexually abused as a child
CBS News  May 9, 2013

A Cleveland man allegedly confessed years ago in writing to taking the three women he’s accused of raping and holding captive and said that he was abused as a child and raped by an uncle, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports.

According to a law enforcement source, Ariel Castro apparently contemplated committing suicide in the lengthy, handwritten note discovered in his house from which the women – Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32 – escaped Monday.

According to the source, Castro wrote about his whole life, saying that he was abused by his parents as a child and that he was raped by an uncle.

Castro also provided details about taking each of his alleged victims, who went missing in their teens and early 20s. The note was discovered by FBI agents searching his house this week.

CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports Castro called himself a “sexual predator” and blamed the women for their own kidnappings, but he asks for whatever money he has to be donated to his victims after his death.

Investigators inferred from the 2004-dated note that Castro was going to commit suicide. He asked in the note that all of his money be provided to each of his victims….
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57583660/in-note-ariel-castro-claimed-he-was-sexually-abused-as-a-child/

Cleveland kidnapping suspect had history of abuse, former lover said
By Alana Semuels and Ari Bloomekatz
May 8, 2013

CLEVELAND — One of the men suspected of imprisoning and abusing three recently freed young women was earlier accused of a series of violent acts against the mother of four of his children and was ordered to complete domestic violence and substance abuse counseling.

Grimilda Figueroa, who in various court documents filed in 2005 said she had four children with Ariel Castro, told authorities that Castro broke her nose twice, knocked out her tooth and threatened to kill her and her daughters several times.

“Ariel Castro and I were never married. During our relationship, he was very abusive,” Figueroa said, according to an affidavit filed in Cuyahoga County in 2005.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ohio-women-cleveland-suspect-abuse-20130508,0,5534556.story

Cleveland kidnappings: Suspect Ariel Castro had ‘no flaw,’ neighbor says
By Michael Muskal and Alana Semuels
May 7, 2013
CLEVELAND – Ariel Castro, the former school bus driver who is a suspect in the kidnapping of three women who escaped years of incarceration, was a friendly man who befriended area children and gave no hint of what was happening behind the locked doors of his Seymour Avenue house, his neighbors say.

“If a kid didn’t have a father, they would look up to him. There was no flaw,” said Juan Perez, 27, who lives two doors down from the house from where the three abducted women escaped on Monday. “I guess he had a great mask to cover a monster.”

Castro was known for giving children rides in his four-wheeler. He attended neighborhood parties and would have a beer….

Hector Lugo, 31, who lives on the same street, said he still can’t believe the friendly guy who would give his nieces rides was allegedly the perpetrator behind kidnappings that have baffled this city for a decade.

“He used to drive my nieces on his four-wheeler. That’s what threw me off,” Lugo said. “They always thought of him as a cool person — a cool person to kick it with. He was an outgoing person, he never messed with anyone. He was always cool.”….
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cleveland-kidnappings-ariel-castro-20130507,0,325028.story

Pentagon estimates 26,000 sexual assaults; Obama vows crackdown
By DAVID S. CLOUD Tribune Washington Bureau  Tuesday, May. 7, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon estimated that 26,000 members of the military were sexually assaulted in unreported incidents last year – 35 percent more than in 2010 – a severe trend that senior officials warned could threaten recruiting and retention of women in uniform….

police in Arlington, Va., arrested the chief of the Air Force sexual-assault prevention branch for allegedly groping a woman outside a bar near the Pentagon, the latest sexual scandal to hit the headlines. Officials said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski was removed from his post after the arrest.

….An investigation that began in 2011 at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas has turned up 59 cases of sexual assault of military recruits by drill instructors….
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/07/5402972/pentagon-estimates-26000-sexual.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

Unspeakable: Father-Daughter Incest in American History, Most Mass Shootings Target Women and Families

– Child Pornography: A Modern Day Childhood Gonorrhea Epidemic
– Most Mass Shootings Target Women and Families; Study Finds Men With Legal Guns Are to Blame

Child Pornography: A Modern Day Childhood Gonorrhea Epidemic
By James R. Marsh on February 26, 2013

I am reading a fascinating book by Lynn Sacco, an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, entitled Unspeakable: Father-Daughter Incest in American History.

Unspeakable

Unspeakable is an excellent book which explains how cultural mores and political needs distorted attitudes toward and medical knowledge of patriarchal sexual abuse at a time when the nation was committed to the familial power of white fathers and the idealized white family.

For much of the nineteenth century, father-daughter incest was understood to take place among all classes and legal and extra-legal attempts to deal with it tended to be swift and severe. But public understanding changed markedly during the Progressive Era, when accusations of incest began to be directed exclusively toward immigrants, blacks, and the lower socioeconomic classes. Focusing on early twentieth-century reform movements, Sacco argues that middle- and upper-class white males, too, molested female children in their households, even as official records of their acts declined dramatically.

One of the most interesting chapters in Unspeakable discusses the revolution in medicine in the early 20th century when doctors were first able to diagnose gonorrhea vulvovaginitis. Guess what they discovered?

When physicians began to use the new technology, however, they were shocked to discover that gonorrhea vulvovaginitis was widespread among American girls.…But though condemning child prostitution among the working class was one thing, explaining how girls from good families had become infected with a sexually transmitted disease was another. On the cusp of moving from the margins to the center of American health care, doctors used their professional authority, if not their medical skills, to twist the etiology of girls’ infections into existing narratives that fit more seamlessly with what doctors believed than with what they had discovered. In the process, doctors attributed fewer infections in girls to sexual assault.

Over the next ten years, doctors diagnosed gonorrhea vulvovaginitis so often that by 1904 an epidemiologist writing in the Journal of Infectious Diseases declared it an “epidemic” among girls. In 1909, Dr. Flora Pollack, who treated girls at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Dispensary, estimated that at least a thousand girls in Baltimore became newly infected each year, and she visited police stations and met with community groups to press for more aggressive prosecution of their assailants….

In terms of child pornography, it is not possible to provide an exact number of people trading child pornography across the world. UNICEF and the United Nations have provided some estimates. UNICEF estimates that there are more than four million websites featuring sexually exploited minors. Further, the number of child pornography websites is growing: 480,000 sites were identified in 2004 compared to 261,653 in 2001. More than 200 new images are circulated daily, and UNICEF estimates that the production and distribution of child pornographic images generates in between 3 and 20 billion dollars a year.

The United Nations released a report in July 2009 asserting that there are approximately 750,000 sexual predators using the Internet to try to make contact with children for the purpose of sexually exploiting them….
http://www.childlaw.us/2013/02/child-pornography-a-modern-day.html

 

Most Mass Shootings Target Women and Families; Study Finds Men With Legal Guns Are to Blame
Data suggests that a gun present in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide for women by 500 percent.  AlterNet By Steven Rosenfeld  February 24, 2013

A new analysis of 56 mass shootings across America since 2009 finds women and family members are the most frequent victims, and that the shooter almost always acquired his guns legally, in cases where the gun source is known.

“In at least 32 of the cases (57 percent), the shooter killed a current or former spouse or intimate partner or other family member, and at least eight of those shooters had a prior domestic violence charge,” the Mayors Against Illegal Guns report on mass shootings said, suggesting that the problem of gun violence is far more related to violence against women in homes than rampages in public settings such as schools and theaters.

The study also found that in the cases where the source of the guns was known, almost all were acquired legally: only two examples were given of mass killings with a stolen or illegal gun. That finding runs counter to the gun lobby’s oft-cited rhetoric that only criminals abuse guns.

“We had sufficient evidence to judge whether the shooter was a prohibited gun possessor in 42 of the 56 incidents,” the report said, referring to laws barring ex-felons, mentally ill people, drug addicts and other categories of people from owning guns. “Of those 42 incidents, 15 (36 percent) involved a prohibited possessor and 27 (64 percent) did not.”

MAIG’s analysis should help focus the national debate about curbing gun violence, whether the most horrific mass shootings or ongoing violence where 33 Americans are killed daily from guns (not counting suicides). The report strongly suggests that better background checks before buying guns are needed, as well as far more discussion of domestic violence and violence against women….

“Assault weapons or high-capacity magazines were used in at least 13 of the incidents (32 percent),” the report said. “These incidents resulted in an average of 14.8 total people shot—135 percent more people shot than in other incidents (6.8)—and 8.0 deaths.”
http://www.alternet.org/most-mass-shootings-target-women-and-families-study-finds-men-legal-guns-are-blame

A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year, The Price of a Stolen Childhood, Bishop, McGeehan announce reintroduction of child sex abuse bills

A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year 01/24/2013
Rebecca Solnit Author, ‘A Paradise Built in Hell’
Hate Crimes in America (and Elsewhere)

Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren’t that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large.  Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they’re everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern….

A woman is beaten every nine seconds in this country. Just to be clear: not nine minutes, but nine seconds. It’s the number-one cause of injury to American women; of the two million injured annually, more than half a million of those injuries require medical attention while about 145,000 require overnight hospitalizations, according to the Center for Disease Control, and you don’t want to know about the dentistry needed afterwards. Spouses are also the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S.

“Women worldwide ages 15 through 44 are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined,” writes Nicholas D. Kristof, one of the few prominent figures to address the issue regularly…..

Increasingly men are becoming good allies — and there always have been some.  Kindness and gentleness never had a gender, and neither did empathy. Domestic violence statistics are down significantly from earlier decades (even though they’re still shockingly high), and a lot of men are at work crafting new ideas and ideals about masculinity and power.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-solnit/violence-against-women_b_2541940.html

The Price of a Stolen Childhood
By EMILY BAZELON  January 24, 2013
The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs.

The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images….

When she was 16, Nicole told her mother, in a burst of tears, what had been going on at her father’s house. Her father was arrested for child rape. The police asked Nicole whether he took pictures. She said yes, but that she didn’t think he showed them to anyone. A few months later, while her father was out on bail, Nicole was using a computer he gave her to work on a presentation for Spanish class when she came across a file with a vulgar name that she couldn’t open. She showed it to her mother and stepfather, and they brought the computer to the police.

A search detected five deleted video files of child pornography, two of them showing Nicole and her father. In the spring of 2006, he was charged with a new crime — producing the videos — and he fled the country. At this point, the police didn’t realize that Nicole’s father had also distributed the images.

Months later, the police said they had no leads on her father, so Nicole went on television to ask the public for any tips that might help them find him. A police officer in Toronto involved in tracking child pornography around the world saw the broadcast and recognized Nicole as an older version of the girl in the notorious videos. The Toronto officer set off an alert that reached the police in Nicole’s hometown, informing them that she was the victim in a major pornography-distribution case….

Precise numbers of child-pornography viewers are hard to come by. Unicef estimates that there are at least hundreds of thousands of Web sites with child pornography worldwide. Child-pornography consumers are even more likely to swap with one another via hidden networks. Using a tool developed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2009, police have logged close to 22 million public I.P. addresses offering child-pornography pictures or videos via peer-to-peer file sharing, which allows users to download content from one computer to another; almost 10 million of the I.P. addresses were located in the United States. Many of the users shared only a single illegal image, perhaps downloaded inadvertently, but others offered collections of hundreds or thousands of pictures.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/magazine/how-much-can-restitution-help-victims-of-child-pornography.html

Bishop, McGeehan announce reintroduction of child sex abuse bills
Rep. Michael P. McGeehan
173rd Legislative District
Philadelphia County

HARRISBURG, Jan. 23 – Saying the move is long overdue andflanked by high-profile reform advocates, state Reps. Louise Williams Bishop and Michael P. McGeehan, both D-Phila.,today announced a renewed push to update archaic statute-of-limitations laws in child sexual abuse cases at a Capitol Rotunda news conference.

Bishop and McGeehan said their respective bills are patterned after ones they introduced in the last two-year legislative session but died after being inexplicably bottled up in the committee process.

Bishop has reintroduced her legislation, now known as H.B. 237, which would abolish the statute of limitations on criminal charges and civil lawsuits in cases of child sexual abuse.

“Child sexual abuse victims are slowly beginning to break the barriers of silence; however, they still face a daunting procedural obstacle — the statute of limitations,” said Bishop, who came out last year as a victim of child sexual abuse. “Instead of suppressing legislation that would lift the statute of limitations, we should be voting these game-changing bills out of committee and the House, so more victims can seek justice.”

McGeehan has introduced H.B. 238 that would suspend any expired statute of limitations for two years in child sex abuse cases, providing a window of opportunity for those victims to file a civil lawsuit. His bill also would seek to make child sexual abuse an exception to the sovereign immunity defense that shields public officials from being sued.

“The effects of child sex abuse are felt everywhere,” McGeehan said. “We are all victims. The scandals which have rocked school districts and dioceses across the country, Penn State, the Boy Scouts — the problem clearly is not going away.

http://www.pahouse.com/McGeehan/PAHouseNews.asp?doc=28629