Undercover nationwide sting rescues 149 children from prostitution

149 exploited children recovered in nationwide sex trafficking sting
Oct 14th 2015

NEW YORK (PIX11) — Hundreds of children who were being sexually exploited have been rescued from their “nightmare” as part of a week-long, nationwide operation meant to “end the scourage” of sex trafficking in the U.S., according to the FBI.

More than 150 pimps were arrested in the sting, the agency said. The children — 149 in all — were plucked from hotels, casinos and truck stops, among other locations, federal officials said. The youngest was 12 years old.

Investigators said they tracked down some of the culprits by scouring ads posted on Backpage.com then setting up meetings — recorded by hidden cameras — between the pimps, children and undercover agents….
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/10/14/149-exploited-children-recovered-in-nationwide-sex-trafficking-s/21249236/

Undercover nationwide sting rescues 149 children from prostitution: FBI
October 14, 2015, by Samantha Tata and Rick Boone

….After the children were found, crisis intervention specialists were provided for them as well as “resources for basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention,” the FBI said.

Executed in 135 cities and involving more than 500 law enforcement officials, the sting has been dubbed Operation Cross Country and is part of the FBI’s Innocence Lost National Initiative.

This is the ninth operation of its kind, the agency said. The first one was carried out in 2003. To date it has identified and recovered about 4,800 sexually exploited children and led to the convictions of more than 2,000 pimps and others associated with trafficking crimes, according to the FBI.
http://pix11.com/2015/10/14/undercover-nationwide-sting-rescues-149-children-from-prostitution-fbi/

Child Abuse ‘Almost at an Epidemic Level’ in U.S., Human trafficking: The lives bought and sold

– FBI: Child Abuse ‘Almost at an Epidemic Level’ in U.S.
– Sex trafficking: Lifelong struggle of exploited children
– Human trafficking: The lives bought and sold

FBI: Child Abuse ‘Almost at an Epidemic Level’ in U.S. 
Tara John July 30, 2015

The bureau rescued 600 children last year  Tens of thousands of children are being sexually exploited each year in the U.S., according to an investigation by the BBC.  Despite rescuing 600 children last year, the FBI says child sex abuse is at epidemic levels where tens of thousands of children are believed to be sexually exploited in the country each year. “The level of paedophilia is unprecedented right now,” Joseph Campbell of the FBI told the BBC.

Campbell, who works in the Criminal Investigation Division, has seen individuals from all walks of life engaged in both child pornography and child exploitation, calling it a problem “almost at an epidemic level.” Hundreds of American children are also being sold into sex, according to the BBC, where poverty and neglect are thought to be some of the main reasons why young kids are vulnerable to sex trafficking…. http://time.com/3978236/american-children-sold-sex/

Sex trafficking: Lifelong struggle of exploited children  By Ian Pannell BBC News 30 July 2015
In the US, poverty, deprivation and exploitation draw thousands of its own children down into a dark underworld that offers few ways out.   It is a world few Americans are aware of. But tens of thousands of American children are thought to be sexually exploited every year.  It’s believed that every night hundreds are sold for sex.   The FBI says child sex abuse is almost at an epidemic level, despite the agency rescuing 600 children last year….  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33710224

Human trafficking: The lives bought and sold
28 July 2015

Millions of men, women and children around the world are currently victims of human trafficking – bought and sold as commodities into prostitution and forced labour. This trade in people criss-crosses the globe – and it is a lucrative business. The International Labour Office estimates that forced labour generates $150bn (£96bn) in illegal profits every year. Two thirds ($99bn; £63bn) comes from sexual exploitation.

But who are the people behind the numbers?
Kemi and Bilkisu, from Nigeria, Jane from the UK and Gabby from the US describe how they fell prey to traffickers.

Kemi’s story, Nigeria
Thousands of women and girls from West Africa are bought and sold every year – most end up in Europe. The UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime estimates West African trafficking victims, many of whom originate in Nigeria, make up about 10% of those forced into sex work in Western Europe.
Benin City, in Nigeria’s south, is a key player – with networks and infrastructure built around the trade in people….

Gabby’s story, US
It is a similar story in the United States, where tens of thousands of children are being trafficked into prostitution. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says child exploitation is at “near-epidemic levels”.  Gabby, from Baltimore, says she was abused by her father between the ages of eight and 12 – a relationship that she feels has influenced how she interacts with men. “I learnt very early that you could get things that you wanted or needed through sexual favours,” she says. Gabby says she turned to drugs and fell into a relationship with an addict who, years later, pushed her into prostitution…. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-33592634

Spanish paedophile pardoned in Morocco arrested in Spain, How girls fall into clutches of pimps, Bishop apologises over claims of decades of abuse at Catholic boarding school

Spanish paedophile pardoned in Morocco arrested in Spain  8/5/13
MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police have arrested a convicted paedophile who was pardoned by Morocco’s King Mohamed VI last week, a source at Spain’s Interior Ministry said on Monday.

Daniel Galvan Vina, who was serving a 30-year sentence in Morocco and was among 48 jailed Spaniards pardoned at the request of Spain’s King Juan Carlos, was arrested in the south-eastern region of Murcia.

He will be taken to Madrid where one of Spain’s top courts will handle the judicial proceedings, according to the source.

Morocco’s interior ministry confirmed in a statement, Galvan has been arrested in Murcia, southern Spain, after the North African kingdom had issued an international arrest warrant against him.

The pardon was revoked by King Mohamed VI on Sunday following a protest in front of parliament on Friday over the decision to release Galvan, who had raped and filmed at least 11 children aged four to 15.

The king has promised an investigation into Galvan’s release and said he did not know the gravity of the paedophile’s offences when the royal pardon was issued….
http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-paedophile-pardoned-morocco-arrested-spain-165729292.html

How girls fall into clutches of pimps
Henry K. Lee Saturday, August 3, 2013
The 15-year-old girl, a chronic runaway from an Oakland group home, could not escape the clutches of her alleged pimp in Hayward. In response to his demands, the young prostitute insisted in text messages that she was getting “dates” from the online ad he had posted but apologized for not making him any money.

After he dropped her off at the La Quinta Inn & Suites on Hesperian Boulevard last week, the girl solicited an undercover police officer for sex – and was promptly arrested as part of a nationwide FBI-led crackdown on child prostitution. Authorities in the Bay Area rescued 11 other children who were allegedly being forced to work as prostitutes and arrested 21 suspected pimps.

The 15-year-old’s alleged pimp…. were charged by Alameda County prosecutors with human trafficking of a minor for commercial sex.

Although details of the girl’s case are sealed because of her age, the 15-year-old shared one trait with many other exploited children – she had run away from a foster care or group home.

Of the children reported missing who are likely sex trafficking victims, 60 percent were in foster care or group homes, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

It isn’t surprising that the majority of child victims come out of such settings – they may have been born into a dysfunctional environment and endured instability all their young lives, said Detective Angela Irizarry of the Hayward Police Department….
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/How-girls-fall-into-clutches-of-pimps-4705407.php

Bishop apologises over claims of decades of abuse at Catholic boarding school
ONE of Scotland’ s most senior Catholic clerics has apologised for decades of physical and sexual abuse of pupils at a church boarding school.
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
04 Aug 2013

The Rt Rev Hugh Gilbert, Bishop of Aberdeen, expressed his “horror and shame” during a mass at Fort Augustus and said abuse by monks at the former Fort Augustus Abbey School was a terrible tale of broken trust and integrity.

His statement followed a television documentary that found evidence of physical and sexual abuse by monks at the Highland school, and its prep school in East Lothian.

The Benedictine order that ran the schools, has already apologised, but Bishop Gilbert’s address was the first time a senior cleric had spoken publicly about abuse at the abbey school, which closed in 1998….

Alleged victims who attended the school told a BBC Scotland programme they were molested and beaten by monks over a period of three decades from the 1950s.

Five men claimed they were raped or sexually abused by Father Aidan Duggan, an Australian monk who taught at Carlekemp, the East Lothian prep school, and Fort Augustus between 1953 and 1974….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10221629/Bishop-apologises-over-claims-of-decades-of-abuse-at-Catholic-boarding-school.html

 

Psychobiological DID/MPD evidence, Pediatric dentist facing child porn possession charges, Victims of child pornography seek restitution from men who downloaded and traded horrific images, Paedophiles behind a face of respectability

– Prosecutor: Pediatric dentist facing child porn possession charges
– Victims of child pornography seek restitution from men who downloaded and traded horrific images
– Dissociative Identity States “DID does not have a sociocultural (e.g., iatrogenic) origin”
–  Psychobiological characteristics of dissociative identity disorder: a symptom provocation study.
– One Brain, Two Selves.
– Paedophiles behind a face of respectability

Prosecutor: Pediatric dentist facing child porn possession charges
By Laura Ly and Rande Iaboni, CNN
Thu December 27, 2012

(CNN) — A pediatric dentist charged with possession and distribution of child pornography can still treat children at his Framingham, Massachusetts, dental office under a judge’s ruling, according to a news release from the Middlesex district attorney’s office.

Melvin A. Ehrlich, 52, was arraigned Thursday in Framingham District Court on three counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of distribution of child pornography, according to the release.

Ehrlich, who was arrested Wednesday, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, according to Stephanie Chelf Guyotte, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

“While the case remains under development and investigation, there is currently no evidence that presently leads law enforcement to believe that Ehrlich physically abused any children or manufactured any images of child pornography,” the news release said….

Authorities immediately launched an investigation that they say revealed Ehrlich had used the laptop “under various user names to download and distribute commercially traded child pornography images,” the release said….

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/27/us/massachusetts-pediatric-dentist-charged/index.html

Victims of child pornography seek restitution from men who downloaded and traded horrific images
By Jenifer B. McKim Globe Staff December 27, 2012
The woman, now in her twenties, lives in relative anonymity on the West Coast, but to child pornography collectors worldwide she will always be known as “Vicky,” a little girl raped by her father in a series of videos illegally disseminated online thousands of times during more than a decade.

Now the woman and a small but growing number of other child pornography victims are seeking restitution from those who collected or traded pictures and videos depicting their abuse, filing claims for damages against convicted child pornographers in Massachusetts and around the country. In court papers, victims describe living with the knowledge that their images can never be cleansed from the Internet.

“Many people somewhere are watching the most terrifying moments of my life and taking grotesque pleasure in them,” the woman said in court statement provided by her Seattle attorney, Carol Hepburn. “They are being entertained by my shame and pain.”

Since 2008, six federal child pornography cases in Massachusetts have resulted in defendants being ordered to pay restitution, according to the US attorney’s office in Boston.

The amounts range between $2,000 and $2.5 million, and more than a dozen local cases are pending as courts across the country grapple with questions about whether victims deserve restitution and, if so, how much.

The recent restitution efforts come as the scourge of child pornography has accelerated during the last decade, aided by improved technology and the Web’s promise of anonymity.

While most sexually exploited children go unidentified, nearly 5,000 nationwide have been located during the last 10 years by law enforcement officials and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

The Virginia nonprofit manages a database to aid prosecutors and help identify exploited children….
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2012/12/27/victims-child-pornography-seek-restitution-from-men-who-downloaded-and-traded-horrific-images/LPHPAEuOjJGACBwBTA485K/story.html

Dissociative Identity States. Reinders AATS, Willemsen ATM, Vos HPJ, den Boer JA, Nijenhuis ERS (2012) PLoS ONE 7(6): e39279. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.003927

Methodology/Principal Findings

DID patients, high fantasy prone and low fantasy prone controls were studied in two different types of identity states (neutral and trauma-related) in an autobiographical memory script-driven (neutral or trauma-related) imagery paradigm. The controls were instructed to enact the two DID identity states. Twenty-nine subjects participated in the study: 11 patients with DID, 10 high fantasy prone DID simulating controls, and 8 low fantasy prone DID simulating controls. Autonomic and subjective reactions were obtained. Differences in psychophysiological and neural activation patterns were found between the DID patients and both high and low fantasy prone controls. That is, the identity states in DID were not convincingly enacted by DID simulating controls. Thus, important differences regarding regional cerebral bloodflow and psychophysiological responses for different types of identity states in patients with DID were upheld after controlling for DID simulation.

Conclusions/Significance

The findings are at odds with the idea that differences among different types of dissociative identity states in DID can be explained by high fantasy proneness, motivated role-enactment, and suggestion. They indicate that DID does not have a sociocultural (e.g., iatrogenic) origin
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0039279

Psychobiological characteristics of dissociative identity disorder: a symptom provocation study. Reinders AA, Nijenhuis ER, Quak J, Korf J, Haaksma J, Paans AM, Willemsen AT, den Boer JA. Biol Psychiatry. 2006 Oct 1;60(7):730-40.

Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Dissociative identity disorder (DID) patients function as two or more identities or dissociative identity states (DIS), categorized as ‘neutral identity states’ (NIS) and ‘traumatic identity states’ (TIS). NIS inhibit access to traumatic memories thereby enabling daily life functioning. TIS have access and responses to these memories. We tested whether these DIS show different psychobiological reactions to trauma-related memory.

METHODS:
A symptom provocation paradigm with 11 DID patients was used in a two-by-two factorial design setting. Both NIS and TIS were exposed to a neutral and a trauma-related memory script. Three psychobiological parameters were tested: subjective ratings (emotional and sensori-motor), cardiovascular responses (heart rate, blood pressure, heart rate variability) and regional cerebral blood flow as determined with H(2)(15)O positron emission tomography.

RESULTS:
Psychobiological differences were found for the different DIS. Subjective and cardiovascular reactions revealed significant main and interactions effects. Regional cerebral blood flow data revealed different neural networks to be associated with different processing of the neutral and trauma-related memory script by NIS and TIS.

CONCLUSIONS:
Patients with DID encompass at least two different DIS. These identities involve different subjective reactions, cardiovascular responses and cerebral activation patterns to a trauma-related memory script.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17008145

One Brain, Two Selves.  Reinders AA, Nijenhuis ER, Paans AM, Korf J, Willemsen AT, den Boer JA. Neuroimage. 2003 Dec;20(4):2119-25.

ABSTRACT:  Having a sense of self is an explicit and high-level functional specialization of the human brain. The anatomical localization of self-awareness and the brain mechanisms involved in consciousness were investigated by functional neuroimaging different emotional mental states of core consciousness in patients with Multiple Personality Disorder (i.e., Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)). We demonstrate specific changes in localized brain activity consistent with their ability to generate at least two distinct mental states of self-awareness, each with its own access to autobiographical trauma-related memory. Our findings reveal the existence of different regional cerebral blood flow patterns for different senses of self. We present evidence for the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the posterior associative cortices to have an integral role in conscious experience.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14683715

Paedophiles behind a face of respectability
By Tracey Spicer The Daily Telegraph September 21, 2009
A PAEDOPHILE lives in Sydney’s East Ryde. He doesn’t have a facial tic or a stutter. He doesn’t look like the sex offender from central casting. And his name is not Dennis Ferguson.

He is one of tens of thousands of paedophiles, living in the suburbs, who don’t walk around with big signs on their foreheads.

In about 90 per cent of child sex abuse cases, the perpetrator is a family member or friend, not some rock spider who abducts kids in the street.

“Offenders look like everybody else,” Carol Ronken from Bravehearts, a support group for child sex victims, said….
http://www.news.com.au/opinion/paedophiles-behind-face-of-respectability/story-e6frfs99-1225777275022