Pennsylvania

Documentary screening sheds light on adult survivors of child sex abuse

by Sarah Kegerreis

For Valerie Gibson, sexual abuse is more than a recent news subject — it's personal.

Gibson, executive producer of the documentary “Pursuit of Truth,” brought her documentary to campus last night in a screening at Waring Commons.

As part of sexual violence awareness week, Gibson and co-producer Neil Jaffee screened the documentary and held a question-and-answer session following the film.

Gibson said she was inspired to shed light on the process adult survivors of child sex abuse go through to pursue a civil or criminal case against their abusers after her own son confronted her about his abuse by a family member. She said she became concerned about screening the documentary on college campuses after her son attended a counseling session at his university's student health center.

“People come from all over the country to go to this particular school for psychiatric treatment,” Gibson said. “But that had no idea what to do with him.”

The documentary told the stories of several survivors as they pursued criminal or civil cases against their abusers as many as 30 years after the abuse ceased.

Much of the difficulties the victims in the film faced dealt with the statute of limitations and its obstruction the legal process.

“One major fundamental difference between these cases and most cases involving sexual assaults on campus, in many of those cases, the legal question revolves around consent,” Jaffee said. “That's not an issues in these cases because you have a child who is the victim who cannot legally consent.”

He said another difference is the victims, because they are children at the time of abuse but adults when they enter the legal system.

Jaffee said this brings forth many challenges.

“In terms of remembering clearly what happened when the survivor was a child, recovering certain memories, being able to articulate those memories in a way that makes sense in the legal system,” he said. “In many respects, I think child sex abuse or adult survivor cases are even more unique and challenging.”

Edie Ye was at the screening as part of her women's studies class and said she was shocked to recognize one of the facilities in the documentary.

Karinah Guzman was one of the survivors featured in the film and her case was tried in San Jose, California.

“When I saw Karina and the San Jose Police Department in the film, I found it really interesting,” Ye (freshman-psychology and criminology) said. “My sophomore year of high school I was part of the teen sheriff department there and we actually toured that county jail.”

Gibson said she has kept in touch with the subjects of the documentary and usually brings one of them to speak at screenings.

She said Guzman, who was abused by her uncle as a child, will be graduating from Saint Mary's College of California in May.

“I supported her through school, so that's really one of my personal things,” Gibson said.

She said Guzman has become very active on her campus in raising awareness of stories like her own.

Her uncle is currently serving a 12 year prison sentence and her case concluded in 2010.

“Films like these are important because they expose [the abuse] and it shows me that, honestly, cases like this can happen to anyone,” Ye said. “Whether it's really far from you or also even really close to home to you.”

Ye said she was in middle school when Guzman's cases was being tried but she remembers learning about similar cases near her hometown.

Gibson said a problem with pursuing cases against abusers is the burden of proof and the likelihood of a conviction after time has passed, which is why much of the film focuses on the statute of limitations.

“I took my son's case against a relative, and we didn't have anything, but that wasn't the issue,” she said. “I wanted to hold him accountable. In our case, the judge is the one that squashed it in the end. The judge didn't want it to come through his courtroom.”

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_bb7d2f0a-f7bd-11e5-a2ee-2383380a7a82.html

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Tennessee

Training to help adults notice, prevent child abuse

by Kristi L. Nelson

The National Children's Alliance has called it "the most effective tool to stop child abuse."

So the Community Coalition to Protect Children is hoping as many people as possible — parents, church leaders, teachers, foster parents, child-care workers and community members — can take advantage of the chance to get the training for free.

The Coalition will offer Darkness to Light's Stewards of Children training Tuesday night in the auditorium on South College's West Knoxville campus, 400 Goody's Lane. The two-hour training includes an interactive workbook, and continuing education credits/contact hours also will be offered for free, said coalition member Amy Rowling, violence prevention health educator for the Knox County Health Department.

Rowling said the training will help adults learn how to pick up on "indicators" of possible child sexual abuse, as well as "how to react responsibly" if they suspect a child is being abused.

A discussion that goes along with the training features interviews with adult survivors of child sexual abuse, who tell "why they didn't tell as children, and what they wished the adults around them had noticed or done to protect them," Rowling said.

The federal government estimates one in 10 children will be sexually abused before age 18; other studies put the number as high as one in six boys and one in four girls. In 2013, according to the Child Welfare League of America, there were more than 10,300 child victims of abuse and neglect in Tennessee, and more than a fourth of them were sexually abused.

"In 90 percent of the cases, they're victimized by someone they know and trust," Rowling said. "It often goes underreported. Most children don't tell."

Sexual abuse is one of the most serious of what researchers now term "adverse childhood experiences" that studies have shown can lead to physical and mental health issues later in life, including depression, addiction, eating disorders and self-harm. Rowling said children who are sexually abused also are at a higher risk of being victimized again.

A panel of representatives from local agencies that serve children and youth will offer information about their services at 5:30 p.m. before the program starts at 6:30. Those who want to attend the training must register by 1 p.m. Monday at knoxcounty.org/health, or by calling Rowling at 865-215-5061.

The training is one of the first offerings of the coalition, which formed about six months ago and has about 30 members, Rowling said. It will be offered again in June, but several trained local facilitators can offer it to groups who call her for information, she said.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/local/training-to-help-adults-notice-prevent-child-abuse-2f4ad4d6-8d56-479c-e053-0100007f8f8c-374179661.html

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Jesus wept: There were 12 reported incidents of Christian pastors molesting kids — in just the last month

by Tom Boggioni

The arrest of a Christian school principal in Port Angeles, Washington for sexually assaulting two pre-teen girls brings to light, once again, what appears to be an epidemic of sexual predators in Christian churches and schools.

According to the Crimes Against Children Research Center, 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse. The exact number of actual sexual assaults is unknown since many victims never speak up or, in some cases like Florida, the sexual assault is hushed up.

Sexual abuse within the Christian community that either ignores it or attempts to sweep in under the rug became a hot topic in 2015 after it was revealed that popular Christian celebrities Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar attempted to hide the fact that their son Josh had molested several of his sisters when they were younger. The resulting scandal forced the family's popular reality show off the air after sponsors fled.

According to Christian writer Tom Challies, sexual predators gravitate to churches because Christians are taught to submit to authority in an atmosphere that encourages trust. Church programs also offer easy access to the children of parishioners.

Quoting from writer Deepak Reju's On Guard: Preventing and Responding To Child Abuse At Church, Challies writes: “Many Christians don't know how to distinguish likability and trustworthiness. They confuse the two categories, assuming that if someone is courteous and nice, they must also be trustworthy. Moreover, some Christians behave as though the problem doesn't exist, and some look with suspicion on reports of abuse. They believe children are lying and are more prone to take an adult's word. Sexual predators know that these dynamics operate in churches, and they know they can get away with a lot on account of it”

Since the beginning of March 2016, there have been 12 assaults — including the Port Angeles principal — reported, or verdicts handed down.

According to PennAlive, former pastor Raymond P. Buhrow, 65, of Calvary Temple Holiness Church in South Middleton Township pleaded no contest to molesting two pre-teens between 2009 and 2014.

BDN-Maine reports that Lucas Savage, 37, of Youth Haven Ministries in Canaan was taken into custody on March 18, and accused of unlawful sexual contact involving a young girl.

Former Las Vegas church pastor Otis Holland — already facing life in prison for sexually assaulting teenage girls in his congregation — was called up on similar charges in a separate case on March 23 in Henderson, reports KOLO.

Youth pastor David Thorne, 35, of Goodyear Baptist Church in Picayune has been accused of sexually molesting a 15-year-old who police say may have been a parishioner at his church. Thorne is also sought in Pearl River County on a similar sexual battery charge, the Picayune Item reports.

In California, youth pastor Daniel James Moreno, 25, has been charged with seven felony counts of sex crimes with a minor female as well as using force to keep his wife from turning him in, reports the Lompoc Record.

Pastor Keith Frye, 54, of the Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Lilbourn, Mo. was taken into custody on March 21, and charged with raping a 4-year-old child, reports KFVS.

The Tennessean reports that Christopher Douglas Ross, 44, of Fairview Church in Lebanon pleaded guilty to two counts of statutory rape with a 15-year-old when he was a youth pastor there.

Chad Apsey, a youth minister at Believers Christian Church in Eagle was convicted of sexually assaulting a teen under the age of 15 after the teen turned to the pastor for help with family problems, reports the Lansing State Journal.

WCPO reports that Rodney Mathews, 24, a youth pastor at the Versailles Church of Christ was taken into custody on two counts of child seduction and two counts of possession of child pornography, tied to his relationship with a 15-year-old.

Scott D. Stockton, 44, a youth pastor and mentor working with several churches in Tonawanda, New York was arrested on child pornography charges on March 28, reports WGRZ.

Lloyd Schallenberger, a youth group leader with the First Baptist Church of Richland, in Polk County, Mississippi, was taken into custody for sexually abusing a minor, and having contact with a 9-year-old boy, reports The Ledger.

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/jesus-wept-there-were-12-reported-incidents-of-christian-pastors-molesting-kids-in-just-the-last-month/

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Canada

Being There For Our Children After Sexual Abuse

by Jean-Paul Bedard

I'm turning 50 in a few weeks, and for the first time in my life, I find myself reflecting more on how far I've come rather than on projecting what the future may have in store. I'm reminded of a poem by the Mumbai-based poet and writer Sanober Khan, and I can't help but be deeply moved by her beautiful, yet utterly haunting words.

"The splendid thing

about falling apart

silently...

is that

you can start over

as many times

as you like."

I am fortunate to have reached a level of success both personally and professionally, yet surprisingly, the one thing which has had the most significant impact on the trajectory my life has taken has little to do with something I did, and everything to do with something that happened to me.

I am the survivor of both childhood sexual abuse and a violent rape. And sadly, that in of itself is an all too common occurrence here in Canada. In fact, one in three girls and one in six boys are survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The statistics truly are sobering and frightening, but it is not until we look at the lives and faces behind those numbers, that we begin to see the ripple effect that childhood trauma has within a family and across a community. Even more alarming is the aftershock of that trauma that continues to reverberate throughout a survivor's lifetime.

If childhood trauma teaches us anything, it most certainly attests to the sheer resiliency of children. When I speak of resiliency, I'm not limiting my definition to an inner strength or fortitude to withstand trauma, but instead to a broader scope of resilience that encompasses a variety of coping mechanisms that I and other children draw on to 'make sense of the senseless', and to find the will to carry on in the midst of unimaginable confusion, violence, and turmoil.

But herein lies the problem -- those same self-protecting coping mechanism essential to weathering childhood trauma gradually morph into self-destructive behaviours that derail many survivors as they enter adolescence and adulthood. For instance in my own case, my ability to distance myself and disassociate protected me as a child; however, in later years, led to chronic drug and alcohol addiction, not to mention a long line of fractured relationships.

Please don't get wrong... by no means do I intend for this to be some sad tale of woe or years lost. In fact, I've come to believe that when we begin to process our trauma with the help of a therapist or psychiatrist, we open ourselves up to interpreting this trauma as somewhat of a 'gift' we never asked for, yet a gift nonetheless.

That being said, looking back on my childhood through the eyes of wisdom and years, I think the most heart wrenching part of it all is how invisible I felt as a child and how easy it was for my mind to so subtly transform pain into shame. How does a child even begin to process such adult emotions? Not much has changed for kids like me in the past 35 years, but there are a few sparks of hope seen in the action of advocates working tirelessly to engage the broader public in an uncomfortable dialogue we as community have been so reluctant to address.

The thing about childhood trauma is that if it is left untreated, undiagnosed, it continues to metastasize over a lifetime. I can only imagine the trajectory my life would have taken had there been both intervention and access to a treatment program like that offered at the Be Brave Ranch, located east of Edmonton, Alberta. Children admitted to the program are given free access to long term treatment for child sexual abuse, and receive over 200 hours of therapy offered both on site and off over the course of a year.

Still in its clinical trial phase working in conjunction with researchers from the University of Alberta, the Be Brave Ranch has demonstrated that children attending the program show significant improvements in symptoms of depression, self-esteem, healthy peer interactions, and to a lesser degree improvements in anxiety and PTSD.

Whenever I give a talk about my experience living as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I always say, "I am thankful for the life I have been given, but I wouldn't wish that life on any other child."

If you'd like to find out more about the Be Brave Ranch and the amazing impact their program is having on so many young lives, please visit: http://bebraveranch.littlewarriors.ca/

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jeanpaul-bedard/being-there-for-our-children_b_9577068.html

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Pennsylvania

Out of secrecy: Sex assault awareness display set

by Gordon Rago

If you're driving down East Market Street toward Springettsbury Township this month, chances are you'll notice a bunch of wooden, human-like cutouts.

The unusual lawn display outside the Turning Point Women's Counseling and Advocacy Center was set up Thursday in preparation of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, held each April in the United States.

And its goal is to convey a message.

Every fourth cutout is painted the color teal, representing a statistic that one in four girls will be sexually abused before age 18.

As the awareness month gets underway this week, here are some things you need to know:

Education is key

On the prevention and education front for child sexual abuse, education is key for both adults and children, said Amber Wagman, a licensed social worker at Turning Point. For children, that involves teaching them about the "safe touch rule" and saying "no" to an adult if abuse is happening. It also means teaching children the correct names for body parts. Adult education about childhood sex abuse entails learning the signs of abuse.

Stranger danger?

Statistics show that abusers are not strangers. About 90 percent of children who are victims of abuse know their abuser, according to numbers provided by Turning Point.

Secrecy

"Sexual violence thrives in secrecy," Wagman said.

Perpetrators include a wide range of people with different motivations, according to statistics Wagman provided.

That speaks to the mission behind Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Wagman says she strives to be up front with children about abuse, including what to do to prevent it from happening and where to go if something happens to you. "It's very uncomfortable for people to discuss," she said.

Grooming

Perpetrators will groom children, Wagman said, by building trust with them and their family and demanding secrecy. When she speaks with victims, she often talks about this grooming process.

Who helped out?

The lawn display was a combination of many different organizations coming together. That included Home Depot, which donated money toward the wood, Resource York for paint and signs from Signs By Tomorrow. Chris Tolman and Jordan Tolman donated their time making the project along with Steve Stankiewicz.

Local resources

YWCA York Victim Services has numbers you can call. For help regarding sexual violence, call 717-854-3131 or 800-422-3204

Crisis intervention: 717-851-5320 or 800-673-2496 at WellSpan Health

Other Sexual Assault Awareness Month events

YWCA York will be holding several events throughout the month:

April 5, 5 to 9 p.m., Dine out fundraiser, Chipotle Mexican Grill, 32 Wilson Ave., Hanover, supporting the York County Alliance Against Sexual Violence. Tell the cashier you are participating to get 50 percent off proceeds for the Alliance

April 5, 3 to 10 p.m., Dine out fundraiser, Texas Roadhouse, 1510 Mt. Zion Road, Springettsbury Township

April 12, 7 p.m., Crime Victims Rights Vigil, Trinity UCC Church, 32 W. Market St., York

April 22, 7 p.m., York County Children's Advocacy Center anniversary celebration, 50 N. George St. (Strand-Capitol)

Beyond the Bar training happening throughout the month, a free one-hour training for bar and tavern staff to create a safer environment for customers

http://www.ydr.com/story/news/2016/03/31/out-secrecy-sex-assault-awareness-display-set/82237608/

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Oklahoma

Stillwater child sexual assault hard to investigate, harder to prosecute

by Stetson Payne

A house on Ninth Avenue has a backyard play set that 4-year-olds dream about and rooms with shelves full of toys and books to read. To the unwary eye, it's like any other manicured house in Stillwater.

But down the hall from the playroom in the Saville Center for Child Advocacy is a smaller room with a pale-faced doll and a discreet, wall-mounted camera to record children's interviews.

It's so they have to talk about the sexual abuse only once.

The Saville Center has served Payne and Logan counties since 1999 and acts as a controlled environment and central location where investigators and advocates can come to gather information, instead of sending victims to multiple offices and locations to give several interviews. Police and the health department refer victims to the center.

Children are the perfect prey for sexual predators. Mending the epidemic's damage to victims is a challenge, but putting their attackers behind bars is a greater one.

Of 66 sexual assaults reported to the Stillwater Police Department in 2015, 36 involved juvenile survivors, according to police public incident reports. Only one of the juvenile cases resulted in an arrest. There were 33 reported cases each in 2013 and 2014, with four arrests in 2013 and nine in 2014.

“It's very underreported, under documented, under treated,” said Brandi White with the Saville Center. “Everything that we do is to try to help the victims that have reported it, but there are so many other kids that aren't receiving services because they never tell.”

The executive director at the center for child advocacy said reports alone aren't the sole numbers for child sexual assault, and only one in 10 report sexual assault.

With the 10 percent report rate, fewer of those cases will see the courtroom.

The Saville Center's picturesque white house has a medical examination room, where the youngest victims of sexual assault are examined for the little, if any, physical evidence left behind.

Unless there is a sexually transmitted disease or an internal injury, cases largely depend on the word of an accuser against an alleged predator, White said.

It's for this reason and more, unlike other types of crime that leave a trail of evidence for investigators to follow back to a suspect, child sexual assault often lacks the standard of proof for prosecutors to take the case, White said.

City Manager Norman McNickle worked as a sex crimes investigator with the Stillwater Police Department during the 1970s and 1980s. The former police chief said it's the age of victims that can hamper an investigation.

“In some cases, the age of the child makes it very difficult, trying to get the story out of them in terms that you can use what they say in prosecution,” McNickle said. "Imagine trying to interview a 9-year-old who's been the victim of sexual assault and getting them to describe it in adult terms.

“A lot of times they don't really know what it is that happened to them.”

Investigators get testimony in a controlled environment at the Saville Center, where a forensic interview specialist spends time with a child while investigators covertly watch.

Child sexual abuse often starts with what's known as “grooming,” and usually the perpetrator is someone a child knows, rarely a stranger. A person will gradually build trust with a child over time, in an effort to convince the child anything they do is OK, White said. It's after these grooming behaviors the assault occurs.

White said like adult sexual assault survivors, few children make false reports.

“Most of the research shows very few children lie about sexual abuse,” White said. “And when they do, it's usually discovered very early on in the investigation. Kids are just not very good liars.”

Holly Chandler interviews victims at the Saville Center, and she said children often remember the specifics of an assault.

“Most children, if they've experienced abuse, they're able to give details about that incident,” Chandler said. “What it felt like, what it looked like, what it smelled like, what it tasted like, who was there, what happened.”

For cases in Stillwater, detectives struggle to get cases to a courtroom and predators arrested. In 2015, 12 of 34 juvenile cases were classified as unfounded. Stillwater police Lt. Jeff Watts said unfounded cases are those where detectives can't find any evidence or testimony to corroborate a report.

The head of the criminal investigations division said child sexual assault cases are often classified as unfounded or exceptionally cleared.

“Unfortunately in kid cases, they're more likely to meet an unfounded criteria than say an adult,” Watts said.

Watts said evidence in child sexual assault cases is sometimes limited to a report and a statement from an alleged attacker.

Watts said the department receives calls Sunday nights that are typically unfounded. Parents whose children are returning from weekend visitation report possible sexual assault after talking with their child, and after an interview, it's revealed to be an overreaction as part of a custody battle, Watts said.

Child sexual assault cases are also regularly exceptionally cleared, Watts said. The designation is used when detectives know something happened but don't know what, Watts said. Eight cases were exceptionally cleared in 2015, where it's possible that a crime occurred, but there is no way for it to be prosecuted, Watts said.

Several addresses and apartment complexes appear multiple times on public incident reports for different reports of sexual assault involving adults and juveniles. Chandler said it's not unheard of for children to be interviewed more than once for separate incidents.

“There are certain families that we're definitely familiar with,” Chandler said. “If we know some stuff's going on and we've interviewed the children multiple times, but we have no control over where children are placed or who they're with.

“Unfortunately if it happens, they're brought back here another time.”

http://www.ocolly.com/news/article_403bd07e-f792-11e5-a626-3363ba0e5f66.html

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Louisianna

More child abuse awareness needed in Cenla, group says

by Melissa Gregory

PINEVILLE — Friday marked the beginning of Child Abuse Awareness Month, and the head of the Rapides Children's Advocacy Center told a crowd gathered near the Red River that more awareness is needed.

Wade Bond, the center's executive director, said they mulled over just how to mark the month's beginning, and said "one of the things that we felt needed to happen more publicly is to incorporate the need for awareness of child abuse in our community.

"Our region has great people. We have strong communities, and we have individuals who care, love and support the children of Central Louisiana," said Bond while standing underneath the giant flag near the Red River off Main Street. "And although unfortunately, some children aren't able to succeed in their living environments because of circumstances that are beyond their control, as a community we have a network, a base, of individuals, families, municipalities, law enforcement departments and community stakeholders who all recognize the need and importance to be the safety net for these children."

The advocacy center, based in Alexandria, works in eight Cenla parishes — Avoyelles, Catahoula, Concordia, Grant, LaSalle, Rapides, Vernon and Winn. At its Albert Street location or in a mobile unit, the center provides a safe environment in which children who are abuse victims or witnesses to violent crimes can tell their stories.

Bond told the crowd that, each year, one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused. The majority of those children don't tell anybody about their abuse immediately, he said.

"You gathering here today helps raise the awareness and provides a voice for them so that they can hear us and know that our community supports them."

Pineville Mayor Clarence Fields spoke, pointing out the law enforcement officers in attendance and thanked them and others for their work in combating child abuse. He said he hoped that more people would become involved and that more people understand just how important it is to make a difference in the lives of abused children.

Fields said the city of Pineville always would be ready to help in the fight against child abuse.

Last year in Louisiana, 39 children died from abuse and neglect, said Bond. Pointing to the crowd gathered, he said he hoped that the work that they do collectively would raise awareness and break the cycle of abuse.

"And, in addition to that, we thought maybe a councilman and a reverend would give us an extra in," he joked, drawing laughs as Nathan Martin approached the podium.

Martin, District 5 councilman and lead pastor at Christian Challenge, said he wasn't sure just how much pull he had, but thanked both Bond and Fields for their comments before beginning a prayer.

True religion is looking out for the downtrodden, the abandoned, the broken and the abused, he said. He gave thanks for those who work "the often thankless job" of looking out for those people and for the center.

"Let us say that in our community, no more. No more will we stand silently by when another tear goes down a child's face. No more will we stand silently by and say somebody should have done something. For Lord, we are that somebody that you have called to do something."

http://www.thetowntalk.com/story/news/2016/04/02/more-child-abuse-awareness-needed-central-louisiana-says-group/82524572/

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Ohio

Million march against child abuse

by Barrett Lawis

NEWARK - For Julie Cordle, the fourth annual Million March Against Child Abuse event in Newark was for more than just a good cause, it was personal.

Cordle's daughter was shaken as an infant by her birth mother and suffered a subdural hematoma and severe brain damage.

Luckily, she is one of the 10 percent of shaken baby syndrome survivors that leads a normal life: She's competing in a gymnastics competition Sunday.

"She's the reason we are here," Cordle said. "The other 90 percent of children can suffer blindness or cerebral palsy or even death. And this is something that is 100 percent preventable."

Cordle met with MACA Regional Coordinator Renee Steele four years ago to help organize the first walk.

Even though the walk was cancelled Saturday because of the weather, Steele still considered the event a success.

"Today was positive. It was a great day to come together and to support the children," she said.

Steele's granddaughter was sexually assaulted in late 2012 and when the culprit was found incompetent to stand trial, Steele went online to find a solution.

"Children Without A Voice is an organization that is trying to raise awareness about child abuse, and they started the march," she said. "This is my way to be a voice for my granddaughter and the nation's children."

Steele said that anyone can lead a walk in their city and there are over 100 cities across the United States that participate on one day to help bring attention to Child Abuse Awareness month in April.

Members of the Central Ohio Chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA) said they were impressed to see the response at Saturday's event.

"It's nice to see the community is waking up to what a problem child abuse is after years of it being swept under the carpet for the real disease that it is," Hollywood said, giving his BACA name to keep his anonymity.

BACA member Chaser said there are 3.5 million child abuses cases reported in the USA alone and that 80 percent of those are usually committed by someone the child knows.

"No child should have to live in fear," he said, adding that BACA's purpose is to empower the children to show strength for themselves, but not to be role models for the children.

Steele appreciated the chapter's attendance. She said they were the first people she called about her granddaughter.

"They've been here for all four years we've had the event," Steele said. "They do what they do and they're awesome for it."

She said the walk will be rescheduled for a date in April, but in the meantime, people can help fight the abuse by supporting local agencies that deal with the issue and volunteer.

"There is so much people can do," Steele said. "They can be a voice for those without one, take time to be a neighbor and help stop all kinds of abuse, not just child abuse."

Interested in attending the rescheduled walk?

Visit the Million March Against Child Abuse MACA Newark, Ohio Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/rsteeleagainstchildabuse/

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/local/2016/04/02/million-march-against-child-abuse/82531732/

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Texas

CPS scrambles to cover loss of child-abuse investigators

by The Associated Press

DALLAS -- More than half of state child-abuse investigators in Dallas County are leaving each year, forcing Texas Child Protective Services to bring in scores of workers from other parts of the state to ensure abuse cases are properly handled.

Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales told The Dallas Morning News that the agency also is boosting recruitment efforts to find replacements.

The turnover, personnel changes among CPS managers and an unpopular overhaul in how cases are assigned have created a crisis in Dallas County, said Madeline McClure, founder of TexProtects, the Texas Association for the Protection of Children.

She said the situation has "resulted in a very imperfect system of protecting children and leading to a spike in child deaths," noting that there was a 71 percent increase last year in child deaths resulting from abuse and neglect in Dallas County.

State CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said the agency is scrambling to conduct hiring fairs and install "sound management" practices.

The "current upheaval is the result of our failure to properly manage a challenging combination of factors," such as a high volume of child-mistreatment allegations in Dallas County and the loss of senior regional administrators, he said.

Lawmakers and agency officials have struggled for years for an answer to high turnover among child-abuse investigators. Exit surveys have found the departing investigators' biggest complaints are job stress, safety concerns about knocking on doors at night, overwhelming caseloads, poor supervisors and low pay.

In North Texas, investigators start at $38,800 a year. A 2012 study found that the average CPS caseworker in North Texas, which would include investigators, made more than $10,000 less than the average public school teacher in the area.

Many of the problems in Dallas County are playing out statewide for the Department of Family and Protective Services.

A federal judge has declared that the state's foster-care system is "broken." Two special administrators that the judge appointed are expected to urge her to order Texas to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to improve supervision of foster children and regulation of foster home recruitment agencies and residential facilities.

Meanwhile, the state faces a bed shortage for foster children, especially older ones with complex problems.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article69601327.html

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New York

An ‘Exemplary' Foster Father, a String of Suspicions and Sexual-Abuse Charges

by NIKITA STEWART and JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

When New York City needed foster care for vulnerable boys with emotional problems, the answer was often the Long Island home of Cesar Gonzales-Mugaburu.

Over two decades, the city's child welfare agency sent 95 boys to live with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, according to state records. Other child welfare agencies turned to him during that time as well. In all, 106 boys were placed with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, as he became a sort of storybook hero to child welfare workers struggling to find suitable homes for troubled children.

Yet some of the boys who had been in his care tried to tell a different story to anyone who would listen — a school guidance counselor, or social workers. Anonymous tipsters called a child-abuse hotline that feeds reports into a statewide database.

Some of the reports alleged bizarre neglect, like refusing to replace a child's broken glasses or not letting a child shower. Other reports, from as recently as last April and as far back as the 1990s, accused Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu of sexual abuse. But the investigations did not lead to criminal charges or apparently to any limitations on his role as a foster parent.

So the four-bedroom house in the hamlet of Ridge, N.Y., with a backyard pool and water slide, continued to serve as a destination for foster children, placed in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu's care by a Long Island nonprofit, SCO Family of Services, that is paid tens of millions of dollars a year by New York City. For eight of the children, who were adopted by Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, the house became a permanent home.

But the long run of suspicions ultimately caught up with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, and last month prosecutors in Suffolk County charged him with sexually abusing at least five children and endangering two others.

It is one of the most damning episodes to strike the region's child welfare system in recent years, and investigators believe other children may have been abused.

Interviews with law enforcement and child welfare officials and information from state child-protection records document a trail of suspicions and a failure of oversight by SCO and by the government agencies that shared responsibility for the welfare of the children placed in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu's care. Again and again, agencies in different jurisdictions apparently failed to share crucial information that might have kept children out of harm's way.

Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was the subject of at least 12 complaints over the past decade, according to an official briefed on entries to the Statewide Central Register, as the database of abuse reports is known.

SCO was aware of the reports of suspected abuse, but under its contract with the city's Administration for Children's Services, the organization was not required to tell the city, which this week changed the terms of its contract to mandate such reports.

Rose Anello, a spokeswoman for SCO, said the nonprofit's policy is to inform the city after notifying the State Office of Child and Family Services about each report of abuse, as it is required to do. “We believe that the policy was followed,” Ms. Anello said, but declined to provide documentation, citing confidentiality laws.

Joanne Wasserman, a spokeswoman for the Administration for Children's Services, said the agency never received such notifications.

The State Office of Child and Family Services catalogs such reports — screening 300,000 calls a year through the hotline — and relays cases to local child welfare agencies to investigate. But the state does not flag individuals based on allegations that local investigators ultimately deem unfounded, as was the case with those against Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu.

The Administration for Children's Services, having allowed nearly 100 of its wards to be placed outside the city in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu's home, did little to track their care. Instead, the city relied on Suffolk County, which, as the local jurisdiction where the children were living, bore responsibility for investigating reports of abuse.

The police and the child welfare agency in Suffolk did investigate reports involving Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu and children from the city, according to the police. But the county had stopped allowing Suffolk children to be placed with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu more than a decade ago after a sexual-abuse allegation involving a foster child from the county.

Justin Meyers, a spokesman for the county government, declined to say what information, if any, the child welfare agency had provided to city officials about individual investigations or about the earlier decision to stop placing Suffolk children with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu. Ms. Wasserman said the city agency was unaware of that decision until after the charges were announced last month.

Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, 59, has pleaded not guilty, and in a jailhouse interview, he told The Daily News the allegations were not true. “I don't know anything about it,” he told The News. His lawyer, Donald A. Mates Jr., said this week that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu “vehemently” denied the allegations.

The unsettling nature of the charges, the prospect of more former foster children coming forward with allegations and the warning signs cataloged in state records have shaken the region's child welfare system.

Gladys Carrión, the city child welfare commissioner, said there were “gaps” in communication within the entire foster care system, including her agency. But Ms. Carrión also said SCO had performed poorly.

“I have to acknowledge that,” she said. “There were many things that we were unaware of and things that they missed that they should have been doing differently that they were required to do.”

The city's child welfare agency has stopped placing children through SCO, except when they are going to relatives, and this week the state ordered other local child welfare agencies to similarly restrict their work with SCO.

Ms. Carrión said the city would inspect every SCO placement site and a sampling of other providers' sites over the next two to three months, enlisting retirees and state employees to help.

A Promise of Stability

SCO was responsible for licensing and monitoring Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, and judged him to be dependable, even “exemplary,” as one longtime case worker for the organization described him in a review, according to the official who discussed the state register and who was briefed on documents that SCO has provided to child welfare authorities in recent weeks.

A former wine distributor who became a full-time foster parent, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu filed for bankruptcy three years ago. In the court filing, he listed his job as “Home Care Provider (Foster Care)” with an income of $6,600 a month and assets that included a couple of classic cars: an MG Roadster and a Plymouth Savoy. SCO continued to place children with him throughout his financial difficulties and reliance on foster care stipends as his primary source of income.

Indeed, his home was always in demand. He was certified as a “therapeutic” foster parent, deemed qualified to care for children with complex emotional needs. Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was a single, Latino man with a large house at the bottom of a suburban cul-de-sac, and most of the children sent to him were also Latino. For social services agencies struggling to place vulnerable boys, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu's profile seemed a perfect fit, especially because of his willingness to take in so many boys, most of them with emotional or developmental challenges.

For many of the children, who may have felt abandoned by their biological parents and had moved between homes, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu promised a stability they had never known. But investigators have found that he isolated the boys from the outside world and imposed rigid limits on their lives, said Detective Lt. Robert Donohue, commander of the Suffolk County Police Department's Special Victims Section.

The boys, for example, were forbidden to join after-school clubs, play team sports or have girlfriends, Lieutenant Donohue said. “It's clear to me that he exercised this control over their lives in order to commit the atrocities which he did,” he said.

The biological father of one of the boys whom Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu adopted said he was shocked to learn, after he and his son reunited, that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had not only adopted his son and changed the boy's surname, but had also changed his given name. It was, the authorities said, a step he took with other children he adopted.

The father's wife recalled how her stepson, who is to turn 26 on Saturday, told them that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had said “he wanted to change his name so his father couldn't find him because his father was a very bad man.”

The couple did not want to be identified in order to maintain the privacy of their son. “He's not ready to talk about it yet,” said the father, who re-established contact with this son six years ago.

The biological father, who described a troubled past, stayed in touch with his son during the boy's first years in foster care. But he said he had been cut off from his son once the boy was delivered to Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu. “I hold that agency that sent those kids to him responsible,” the man said.

Accusations and Denials

The allegations of sexual abuse go back two decades, prosecutors said.

The official briefed on some of the entries in the Statewide Central Register said that in separate reports several months apart in 2006, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had been accused of sexual and physical abuse. The police closed their inquiry into the sexual-abuse accusations for lack of evidence after the four children living with him at the time — all of them foster children he had adopted — denied the abuse when they were interviewed by investigators. Others allegations of sexual abuse were reported in 2015 and 2016, the police said.

Ronald Richter, a former commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services and now chief executive of JCCA, a foster care provider, said it was essential that the system stay focused on the safety of children.

“There are pedophiles out there,” Mr. Richter said. “They're smart. They can beat us. They will find the holes. It is up to us to be vigilant about finding the holes to protect the children by getting smarter and more strategic as a system with a vengeance.”

Last year, Suffolk detectives followed up on a complaint they had received about the possibility that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had sexually abused two foster children who had once lived with him. The complaint originated with a social worker, who informed the state's central registry, which in turn alerted the Suffolk police, Lieutenant Donohue said.

Detectives interviewed the two boys, Lieutenant Donohue said, “but because of inconsistent statements among the children we were not able to make a criminal case.” In January, though, two other foster children made multiple complaints about Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, including alleging that he had had sex with a dog in the presence of at least one child.

Those complaints led to the arrest of Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, who urged a detective to speak to one of his older adopted sons, now 28, prosecutors said.

Several days later, the man helped detectives build a broader case against his adoptive father, bringing forward others who had been cared for in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu's home and who said they too had been sexually abused, the Suffolk County district attorney, Thomas J. Spota, said.

A Search for Answers

The indictment last month has left child welfare officials searching for explanations. “Now looking back, we say ‘Oh my God', but this is in hindsight, looking back,” Ms. Carrión said.

Neighbors are asking similar questions. “I knew 60 or 70 by their first name,” said one longtime neighbor of the children who came to live with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu.

About two years ago, the neighbor said, he spotted one of Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu's foster children, by then an older teenager, shivering in the backyard, apparently after being locked out of the house.

“I called him over and brought him into the house and I gave him a sweatshirt,” said the neighbor, who asked that his name not be used because he was ashamed that he had not done more.

He added that he had learned that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu suspected the teenager of stealing from him and the other children living in the house. As a result, the boy was not allowed indoors while Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was not home.

“It was maybe 45 degrees outside,” the neighbor recalled.

From time to time, the neighbor would tease Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu about women he occasionally saw leaving his home. A girlfriend? No, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu would tell him; they were social workers.

“He would say, ‘They're just checking up on me — all's good.'”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/nyregion/a-foster-father-on-long-island-a-string-of-suspicions-and-sexual-abuse-charges.html?_r=0

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Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania one of lowest reported child abuse rates in country

ERIE, Pa.

Child abuse is an ever growing problem, especially in Pennsylvania, where it's believed to go vastly under reported.

The "Protect our Children" committee said the commonwealth has one of the lowest rates of reported child abuse in the nation.

"There are predators out there who have focused on children and had multiple victims. It was kept quiet," Janet McKay, executive director of the Victims Resource Center in Wilkes-Barre said.

Advocacy groups allege Pennsylvania has developed a culture of cover-ups. High-profiles cases like in Altoona-Johnstown, where a grand jury found Diocese members abused hundreds of children, and a similar scenario involving Penn State's football coach Jerry Sandusky highlight the issue.

In both cases, people high up in the organization allegedly knew of the child abuse and did what they could to conceal it from law enforcement and school administrators.

The cases have inspired a recent push for legislative change in the commonwealth. Advocates hope to change the statute of limitations on child sex-abuse claims.

"I think its time we start to think about the victims. It has not been a crime - sexual abuse - that victims come forward with immediately. Sometimes, not at all," McKay said.

Activists argue child sex-abuse victims often don't understand what is happening to them. If they do, they may not know where to go or who to talk to until later in life. By that time, the statute of limitations on their case may have expired.

"I want them to focus on the victims," McKay said. "They need this at this time, because so many of them have been coming forward years after discovering the crimes happened."

Other therapists, like Laura Jacoby who works at Children's Service Center, believe child abuse is under reported in the state because not all signs of abuse are noticeable. For instance, emotional abuse and neglect can be just as damaging to a child as sexual abuse.

"Neglect is a child not having the appropriate clothes, housing, necessities or water," Jacoby said.

Child abuse is more rampant in low income neighborhoods and areas with high unemployment. Those stressors go hand in hand with abuse.

"You talk about basic needs of a child and a family which are food, shelter, and water. If those basic needs aren't being met, it increases frustration and intolerance for things," Jacoby said.

But experts who see abused children every day said, regardless of what Pennsylvania lawmakers decide when it comes to the statute of limitations, the first emphasis of therapists and social work experts must be to focus on the victims.

"What they need has to be separate sometimes from what happens in the criminal justice system. We have to look at the whole person and what they need," McKay said.

http://www.your4state.com/news/4state-in-focus/4sif-child-abuse/pennsylvania-one-of-lowest-reported-child-abuse-rates-in-country

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West Virginia

Official: Child abuse cases on the rise in West Virginia

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Child abuse affects thousands of families in West Virginia.

Most parents would never intentionally hurt their children, but some do and others could use some help defining what abuse is to make sure they do not cross a line harming their child.

Under ideal conditions, parents raise their children in a happy, wholesome environment. But sometimes, behind a smile, there's deep scars from family problems and pain.

Currently, there are more than 4,800 children under state custody in West Virginia, and despite efforts by law enforcement, child abuse numbers are on the rise.

"Sometimes, what you see is someone has used an object on someone and maybe...there's bruising," said Nancy Exline, commissioner of children and families at the Bureau of Children and Families in downtown Charleston.

Exline started on the front lines in the battle against child abuse 19 years ago as a county case worker.

She has a passion for children and an eye for abuse. She helps define child abuse.

"It could be they have used an extension cord and hit somebody with that - you know a pipe, a bat - those types of horrible things horrible things." Then we asked... "Are parents allowed to paddle in West Virginia?" Commissioner Exline said.

CPS Policy defines an abused child as a child whose health or welfare is harmed or threatened by a parent, guardian or custodian who knowingly or intentionally inflicts physical, mental or emotional injury.

Each incident is handled by a child protective service worker on a case by case basis.

"There's a very fine line between what a parent can do to correct their children and what becomes abuse and quite frankly, that's why things have to be assessed," Exline said.

Last year, the bureau received 39,231 referrals about child abuse; 60 percent had enough evidence to yield an investigation.

"Abuse can also be because they have been mentally abused. It may be some of the punishment mechanisms used in the home, in which a child may be placed in a closet and locked in a closet, or the way they are talked to and demeaned so much it brings them down to a place where they have suicidal thoughts," Exline said.

Exline said their have been several fatal cases of abuse in West Virginia.

Some abused children have committed suicide and because of the growing abuse of drugs, some kids are deprived of the basic necessities of life.

"Worst case scenarios are when the children are sexually abused. Terrible, terrible situations and quite frankly, there are times when some of the things that go on with children, we would probably think of those as torture," Exline said.

Scenarios so bad that the Bureau of Children and Families is always in need of people willing to become case workers to help the victims, get the adults to counseling and then help make sure the family stays abuse-free in the future.

If you see what you think might be signs of abuse on a child or even an elderly person, call the Adult Abuse Centralized Intake Center hotline at this number 1-800-352-6513.

Pennsylvania

'I only answer to God. Bishops don't bother me.'

by Maria Panaritis, Philly.com

The three veteran investigators were speechless.

For just a few months, they had waded into a probe of clergy sex abuse in central Pennsylvania. They didn't yet know much. But they had heard about a man near Altoona named George Foster.

Foster, they were told, had long been "making noise" about eliminating abusive priests in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown - writing letters in the local papers, meeting with church leaders. Daniel Dye, the deputy attorney general leading the investigation, knew he was someone worth meeting.

But Dye and the two agents with him were not prepared for what they saw as Foster arrived at a Pittsburgh hotel to meet them for a cup of coffee in late 2014.

Foster came carting an armload of manila folders. Each was labeled. "Victim 1." "Victim 2." And so on. Others bore the names of priests. Inside were detailed accounts from victims and others.

Years' worth.

"You kept files?" Dye asked incredulously.

"Oh, yeah," he told them. "People have been coming to me for years."

"Why didn't you ever take these files to the police?" Dye asked him.

"Well," Foster said, "some of what's in here, I'm getting from the police."

His information became a critical building block for investigators as they developed the case that led this month to the release of two grand jury reports outlining years of child sex abuse by clerics in the eight-county Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

The grand jury was livid that parents sought justice but civil authorities took no action to help them. Instead, people with badges and law degrees deferred to bishops and other Catholic leaders, who largely buried what was known about child abusers under their charge

Foster, however, refused to turn away. For that, Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane and the grand jury branded him a hero.

"This is not about a religious order. This is not about Catholicism," Kane said last week, taking a moment in her news conference at the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown to point out Foster, a silver-haired man with hazel eyes. "This is about the law. And this is about people standing up for other people."

Dye put it another way.

"George became like a compass" for the investigation, he said in an interview. "George got us there quicker."

Inspired by his faith

A devout Catholic and family man, Foster, 55, is like and unlike many who live in the Altoona-Johnstown area.

He has spent his whole life in the neighboring postindustrial cities, which are shells of what they once were. He is married, has six children, and adheres to church dogma with deep loyalty.

"I don't think I did anything special," he said in his office in Duncansville, surrounded by photos of his family and a Star Trek cup and saucer.

But where fierce devotion to the church blinded others from taking action, Foster drew on his faith as fuel to do the right thing.

"I only answer to God," he told the grand jury. "Bishops don't bother me."

The path that led him there had begun more than a decade earlier.

In 2002, a man in his 30s showed up without an appointment at Foster's workplace, the Altoona-area office for the billboard and advertising giant Lamar Advertising Co.

As the clergy sex-abuse scandal was unfolding nationally, Foster had already taken bold stands in letters to the local paper about removing abusive priests. The man knew this. Foster and he were about the same age.

"I came to you," he said, "because you're not afraid of the diocese."

The stranger told Foster that as a youth he had been sexually abused by a local priest and then berated by the priest's jealous lover - another priest, who worked at the high school the victim attended.

"The one guy's abusing me, and the other guy's screaming at me when I'm at school," he explained, according to Foster.

The victim said the diocese leaders knew about the sexually abusive priest but did nothing. He wanted to rent a billboard to expose the priest as a molester.

Foster was shocked. And yet, he instinctively reached for a notebook: "I immediately started writing things down. I said, 'Let me look into this.' "

Foster had come from a devout family. An uncle and a brother were priests. And he knew a lot more priests, too. So he called one and asked, discreetly, about the alleged abuser.

"Oh, yeah," the priest replied. "I think he could do that."

Wow, Foster thought. The priests knew.

More phone calls and visits followed.

Foster also heard about a 1994 Blair County civil trial and guilty plea delivered by an accused predator named the Rev. Francis Luddy. So he went to the courthouse, found the case file. Couldn't believe what he read.

"It was like the roots of a tree spreading out," Foster said. "I realized, if I'm just a lay person and just asking a few questions, I'm getting all this information, how widespread and deep is this?"

Bearer of influences

A Johnstown native who lives in a once-grand Hollidaysburg house built for a 19th-century banker, Foster carries profound influences forged in childhood.

His father, James, said the rosary every night. He enlisted at age 17 to serve in World War II, and then raised seven children as a life-insurance salesman, proud he had what he considered a noble job.

James Foster went to every client's funeral. When he died in 2000, so many came to his, you couldn't get in, recalled his son, John.

To him, George is a lot like their father.

"George is one of the few guys who puts his life where his mouth is," said John Foster, 59, of Collingswood, N.J., the only one of seven siblings who moved away.

But George recalls the righteous passions of his mother, Patricia.

"She was like the Blessed Mother - but with a machine gun," he said.

"We grew up with pictures of aborted kids on the kitchen table," Foster went on. "A lot of that burned into me."

And yet, as strong as her religious identity was, he is convinced that his mother would have insisted he do nothing other than what he has done the last 14 years. Her maternal and advocate soul would have agreed.

"Child molestation is wrong," Foster said. "And it doesn't take a bunch of psychiatrists or a bunch of bishops to hold a meeting to figure that out."

The first grand report alleged decades of clergy sex abuse ignored or concealed by the leaders of the diocese. Prosecutors say as many as hundreds of children may have been assaulted, but that the statute of limitations, or the deaths of accused priests, prevented them from bringing charges.

In a potentially groundbreaking prosecution, however, Kane last week announced charges against three priests who as leaders of a Franciscan order allegedly failed to remove a friar suspected of sexually assaulting more than 100 minors since the 1980s.

Minutes before announcing those charges, Kane met privately with Foster to thank him. He came at her invitation.

Dye also shook his hand - again.

"You can't have mercy," Foster told Dye, "without justice."

At home the next day, Foster's wife of 27 years, Katie, 51, said she does not view him so much as a hero as a man who strives to live by his faith. She kissed him on the cheek as she spoke of him.

"George is a father," she said. "I think that maybe that instinct is what came through."

Both are relieved that "truth has been heard." But they are sad - that the scandal has driven people away from their faith, that it has caused so many souls so much damage.

"It took this long to be heard," Katie Foster said. "How many people were hurt in the interim?"

Foster is convinced he was guided by an invisible hand. "I got wrapped up in this," he said, "and that was God's will."

Perhaps his late father helped keep him strong, too. Long before the grand jury's work was made public - and his name in it - word had spread through the local church that he was an agitator, worthy of excommunication.

One day not long after his father died, in 2009, one of his dad's friends - "Uncle Harry" to the seven kids - called from Johnstown with a message.

"I just want you to know," Harry told him, "your dad would be proud."

As he recalled the message last week, tears welled in Foster's eyes.

"He knew," Foster whispered, "I was taking heat for this."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160322__I_only_answer_to_God__Bishops_don_t_bother_me__.html

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New York State

State launching review of county CPS in light of boy’s death

by Lou Michel

The state has launched a review of all open child abuse investigations by Erie County Child Protective Services in response to last week’s beating death of 5-year-old Eain Clayton Brooks.

The state’s Office of Children & Family Services notified State Sen. Tim Kennedy, D-Buffalo, late Wednesday afternoon that the review is under way and that additional steps to oversee the county’s CPS operation will continue for an extended period.

The state also is moving forward with a legally required fatality investigation into Eain’s death to determine what services the county had provided prior to the fatal attack.

Relatives of the Buffalo boy have said they repeatedly called county CPS workers to report that Matthew W. Kuzdzal, the 26-year-old live-in boyfriend of Eain’s mother, was physically abusing the child and that CPS failed to take precautionary steps.

Kuzdzal was charged with second-degree murder last Thursday, two days after Eain died from massive brain injuries.

The News on Wednesday also received an independent confirmation from a police source close to the criminal investigation that CPS had received numerous complaints regarding Eain’s safety.

“First we are conducting an immediate safety assessment on all open CPS cases to establish that the proper protections are in place to safeguard the children involved,” said Gladys Carrion, commissioner of the Office of Children & Family Services. “In addition, we will be reviewing the next 200 cases prior to Erie County CPS making a determination that a case can be closed in order to assess whether the investigation was thoroughly conducted and that the conclusion is sound.”

Kennedy had written a letter to Carrion on Friday expressing concern that CPS failed to take necessary actions to protect Eain, after having received repeated complaints about the boy’s welfare.

He requested a review of Erie County CPS and a statewide investigation into how county child protective workers determine if a child is at risk.

“I am pleased that the state is using its authority to thoroughly investigate Child Protective Services and taking further steps to protect the safety of our children in Erie County,” Kennedy said. “These are important and long-needed actions to root out child abuse.”

Robin Hart, Eain’s maternal grandmother, said that while she is grateful for the efforts by Kennedy and the state, they will not help her grandson.

“It is a little late in my eyes. Like I said, they need to have more than one caseworker making a decision. They leave it to one person to decide a child’s safety and that is not right,” Hart said. “I understand they’re shorthanded, but they need to share the case, two or three caseworkers each investigating and then going back and making a decision.”

Hart said she asked the caseworker assigned to Eain’s case months ago what it would take to place the boy in a safe situation. “Obviously the caseworker on Eain had an opinion that was wrong and now he can live with it the rest of his life. He is responsible for it and can live with it the rest of his life,” Hart said.

She added that she wants to meet children and family services investigators to provide them with her account of how the system failed to protect Eain.

On Wednesday, additional horrific details of the attack on the boy were obtained by The News.

Eain, authorities believe, was sexually molested, then washed in a bathtub during which time his head may have been slammed against the tub at the first-floor Albany Street apartment on the West Side where Eain lived with his mother, Nora Brooks, and Kuzdzal.

Kuzdzal told police he went outside to smoke marijuana and that when he returned inside, he found Eain lying at the bottom of the basement steps.

Police are awaiting the results of other evidence before deciding whether to charge Kuzdzal with sexual assault.

They say that Kuzdzal was alone baby-sitting Eain on the evening of Sept. 15 when the incident occurred.

Attorney Robert J. Cutting, who is representing Kuzdzal, told The News Wednesday night why he believes the death is a tragic accident.

“I have not seen the medical or autopsy reports,” he said. “My understanding is largely based on conversations I have had with my client and with the three statements he gave to the police.

“The way the child was injured was that my client was trying to get the child to cooperate and take a shower and he pushed the boy towards the tub. The child flipped over into the tub and struck his head.

“The child appeared fine with no noticeable physical injury and was able to talk and it was only later when my client was unable to find the child that he went and looked for him and found him on the floor in the basement surrounded by the laundry. One of the child’s basic household chores was to take the laundry down into the basement,” Cutting said.

“As soon as my client sees the child is in distress, he performs CPR, texts the mother and calls 911. That’s why I call it a tragic accident.”

Carrion, in her letter to Kennedy, also stated she was suspending Erie County’s Family Assessment Response program, an alternative approach to investigating child abuse and neglect claims.

Unlike traditional child abuse investigations, FAR is less confrontational and provides the family with immediate services to hold the family together, if it is determined there is no threat to the child.

FAR came under scrutiny after 10-year-old Abdifatah Mohamud was bludgeoned to death last year by his stepfather, Ali-Mohamed Mohamud, who beat the boy more than 70 times over the head with a baker’s rolling pin in the basement of the family’s Guilford Street house on the East Side.

A year before Abdifatah was murdered on April 17, 2012, he had called 911 twice, moments apart, urging police to hurry to his home, saying it was a matter of life and death involving his stepfather. Police investigated the case and called in Child Protective Services.

The News later learned the case was referred to the county’s FAR program. Following Abdifatah’s death, Erie County disbanded one of its FAR teams, explaining that increasing numbers of child abuse reports required a reallocation of manpower.

A child protection official said Eain’s case was not referred to FAR.

County Executive Mark Poloncarz Wednesday evening issued a statement welcoming the state’s expanded role in this latest tragedy. “Maintaining children’s safety is a responsibility that my administration takes very seriously.

“Yesterday, we agreed to a joint process with the New York State Office of Children & Family Services and advised OCFS that we would fully cooperate with them in a shared investigation, which then commenced. The protection of our children is of paramount concern, and we must take every step possible to prevent another tragedy,” Poloncarz said.

http://www.buffalonews.com/feed/state-launching-review-of-county-cps-in-light-of-boys-death-2013092

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California

California Man Indicted for Traveling to Thailand and Sexually Abusing Minor Boys

DOJ Press Release

LOS ANGELES – A resident of Montrose was indicted today in a superseding indictment by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places and sex trafficking of a minor, Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker announced today.

Paul Alan Shapiro, 69, was originally indicted on April 22, 2015, on charges relating to his travel to Thailand and illicit sexual conduct with minor boys.

According to the indictment, in February 2010, Shapiro traveled from Los Angeles to Thailand, where Shapiro paid minors as young as 14 years old small amounts of local currency in order to engage in various sex acts with them. Shapiro also allegedly took photographs of himself engaging in sexually explicit conduct with the boys.

“Child predators cannot flee the United States in the hope of having a safe haven for their criminal conduct,” said United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker. “To protect the most vulnerable among us, my office will pursue Americans who seek to exploit children in other countries.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations is investigating the case. Trial Attorneys Austin M. Berry and Amy E. Larson of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) are prosecuting the case.

“This indictment should serve as a warning to sexual predators who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by exploiting children overseas,” said Joseph Macias, special agent in charge for HSI Los Angeles. “There is no tolerance for the sexual abuse of foreign children by our citizens, and HSI will work closely with our law enforcement counterparts throughout the world to ensure these criminals face justice.”

The charges and allegations contained in an indictment are merely accusations. The defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

Earlier this month, a Northern California man was found guilty in United States District Court in Los Angeles of traveling to Cambodia to have illicit sexual conduct with young girls (see: http://go.usa.gov/cAgP9).

For more info please call the Office of Public Affairs at: 202 / 514-2007

www.Justice.gov

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Pennsylvania

Harrisburg lawmaker's bill would change statutes of limitation on sex crimes

by Ivey DeJesus, Penn Live

A bill that would have eliminated criminal and civil statutes of limitation on sex crimes going forward will not be taken up by the House Judiciary Committee next week.

Instead, Autumn Southard, spokeswoman for committee chairman Rep. Ron Marsico, on Friday told PennLive that the Dauphin County Republican planned to introduce his own legislation on Monday. That legislation will likely eliminate criminal statute of limitation, she said.

Southard said changes to the civil components of the law could be part of Marsico's legislation, but the specifics are not clear. She said committee members were discussing the specifics.

"We'll know Monday the specifics of that portion of the bill," she said.

It keeps happening. So why can't lawmakers fix Pa.'s child sexual abuse laws?

Several bills have been introduced in the state House and Senate to change the statute of limitation laws in child sex abuse cases but they have gone nowhere. Lawmakers supportive of those changes are hoping this latest child sex abuse scandal in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese will be the catalyst they needed to make this change.

Retroactive changes to the law to allow victims who have timed-out of the legal system to seek legal redress are not likely.

PennLive earlier on Friday reported that Marsico was expected to take up HB 655, one of several pending pieces of legislation aimed at reforming the law that impacts victims of sexual abuse. That bill would have eliminated both criminal and civil statutes of limitations going forward.

Demands for reforms to some of the state's sex crime laws have increased in the wake of the grand jury report out of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. The report, released in march, found that diocesan leaders for decades knew about predatory priests but concealed the information. Abuse happened even at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Altoona. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.comIvey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com
Rep. Mark Rozzi, a survivor and advocate for victims of sexual abuse, swiftly welcomed the news, although he has vowed to introduce an amendment to broaden the law for adults who were abused as children

"I'm glad that Chairman Marsico is taking the first steps to introduce a bill that could truly put victims on the same playing field as predators," said Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat. "We know it takes victims of sexual abuse a long time to come forward and report. We know these victims suffer a lifetime. We must do what is right for the children of this commonwealth, past, present and future anything less is justice denied."

A key sticking point in the ongoing debate over the reform of the law has been the proposed two-year window that would suspend the limitations for that period to allow victims to come forward and seek legal redress.

Priests and church leaders sexually abused hundreds of children in Altoona Diocese: AG office

Hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of 40 years by priests or church leaders in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, a grand jury investigation has concluded.

Rozzi earlier this week told PennLive that the general consensus among advocates is the two-year window component may be a deal breaker for some lawmakers. Rozzi said advocates want to reform the law and are willing to compromise.

Demands for reform in the law reached high pitch in recent weeks in the wake of a grand jury report that found that hundreds if not thousands of children in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese had been abused for decades by more than 50 priests. Investigators found that church leaders and officials knew about the abuse but concealed it, and continued to assign abusive priests to posts that would give them access to children.

Victims advocates have in recent years, in the wake of three grand jury reports out of the Philadelphia Archdiocese and the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case, garnered some changes to the law, but they have long been clamoring for additional changes to accommodate victims who fall out of the parameters of the law.

Three religious leaders allowed predator priest to continue abusing children: Attorney General

Criminal charges were leveled on three Franciscan Friars who authorities say allowed more than 80 children to be sexually abused by a priest - and put hundreds more in danger at a high school.

Under current law, victims of child sexual abuse are barred from seeking civil action after they reach the age of 30. That leaves out many of the victims from Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown.

Victims can bring criminal charges against offenders until they reach 50 years of age — but only if the victim turned 18 years old after Aug. 27, 2002. The law allows victims older than that to report until their 30th birthday.

Victims and their advocates, have long pointed to Marsico as being one of the key obstacles in getting reform through the Legislature.

Pennsylvania

5 years ago today: The story that uncovered the Jerry Sandusky, Penn State child sex abuse case

by Megan Lavey-Heaton

Editor's note:

On March 31, 2011, then-Patriot-News reporter Sara Ganim broke the news that Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, was under investigation for alleged child sexual abuse. We are re-running that story in full today, exactly 5 years later.

The New York Daily News notes in a story today that the abuse was "ignored for seven months" after Sara Ganim's initial report in The Patriot-News.

On November 5, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was arrested and charged for 40 criminal counts surrounding child sexual abuse.

On November 7, 2011, former Athletic Director Tim Curley and former Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz surrender on charges that they failed to alert police.

On November 9, 2011, head football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier were both ousted. On January 22, 2012, Paterno died from complications of lung cancer at age 85.

In April 2012, Ganim and The Patriot-News won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the story.

On June 22, 2012, a jury delivered its verdict that Jerry Sandusky is found guilty of 45 of 48 abuse charges.

Below is the full text of the 2011 story that broke the case:

Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State football staffer, subject of grand jury investigation

MARCH 31, 2011

by Sara Ganim, The Patriot-News

Penn State football legend Jerry Sandusky is the subject of a grand jury investigation into allegations that he indecently assaulted a teenage boy.
According to five people with knowledge of the case, a grand jury meeting in Harrisburg has been hearing testimony for at least 18 months about the allegation, which was made in 2009 by a 15-year-old from Clinton County.

The teen told authorities that Sandusky had inappropriate contact with him over a four-year period, starting when he was 10.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley and retired university Vice President and Treasurer Gary Schultz were among those who appeared before the grand jury in January at the attorney general's Strawberry Square office complex, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. Attempts to reach the three for comment were unsuccessful.

It is not clear whether university President Graham Spanier has testified and he declined comment on the matter when questioned earlier this week.

At one time, Sandusky was considered Paterno's likely successor. During his 32 years on the sidelines, the State College man was credited with turning Penn State into Linebacker U., producing such pro football greats as Jack Ham and LaVar Arrington.

Sandusky, 67, retired from Penn State shortly after the Alamo Bowl in December 1999. In his 2000 autobiography, "Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story," he says he decided to leave after he "came to the realization I was not destined to become the head football coach at Penn State."

He spent the next 11 years focused on running The Second Mile, a nonprofit he founded in 1977 that reaches 10,000 Pennsylvania youths a year through summer and year-round camp programs. The charity was honored by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 as a "Point of Light."

Last fall, Sandusky announced that he was retiring from day-to-day involvement in the charity to spend more time with family and handle personal matters.
Since then, rumors of misconduct by Sandusky have lit up Internet comment threads and message boards that are normally havens for Penn State football fan chatter.

Repeated efforts to reach Sandusky over several weeks to comment on the investigation have been unsuccessful. He has not responded to phone calls and other attempts to reach him at his home or through attorney Joseph Amendola in State College.

As is standard policy, the attorney general's office would neither confirm nor deny whether a grand jury was meeting about Sandusky.

The 2009 investigation

The allegations against Sandusky surfaced in 2009, when he was volunteering as an assistant high school football coach at Central Mountain High School in Clinton County.

It was there the 15-year-old student told school officials that Sandusky had touched him inappropriately while they were alone in a gym.

John DiNunzio, Keystone Central School District's interim superintendent at the time, said the boy's mother reported the incident to the school principal and head football coach. At that point, DiNunzio said he was notified.

DiNunzio said he never spoke to the mother or the child. He said the principal and coach told him the boy alleged the "inappropriate" incident happened while the two were alone in a room on wrestling mats.

"It was strictly a touching type of situation," DiNunzio said of the allegations.

DiNunzio, who is now interim superintendent with the Bellefonte Area School District, called Clinton County Children and Youth Services. Once it left his desk, he says, he never heard a word from police.

"It's been a hush-hush situation," DiNunzio said. "I've actually called [the school] — they've said they heard nothing about it."

According to sources, the boy told Children and Youth Services that Sandusky had indecent contact with him several times over four years.

Children and Youth Services investigated the boy's story and sent the case to Clinton County District Attorney Michael Salisbury. His office forwarded it to Centre County, where the incidents were alleged to have taken place.

Then-Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira transferred the case to then-state Attorney General Tom Corbett in March 2009. Corbett, now governor, declined comment through his spokesman.

Kelly Hastings, current superintendent of Keystone Central School District, said she has no first-hand knowledge of the report and that no documents from the school have been subpoenaed by police.

DiNunzio, who has had a long career in education, said he was shocked when he heard the allegation and surprised that he was not contacted again.

"No one has ever called me about it in any way shape or form," he said.

When Sandusky quit as a volunteer in 2009 with Central Mountain High School, he told officials there he was leaving to devote more time to The Second Mile, DiNunzio said. Sandusky retired from The Second Mile about a year and a half later.

Second Mile Executive Director Dr. Jack Raykovitz, wrote in an email: "While we are aware of the rumors circulating regarding Mr. Sandusky, we believe it would be inappropriate to respond to rumors. Futher ... I am aware of no investigation of The Second Mile or our programs."

A Second Mile Board member, who asked not to be named, said Sandusky informed the board of the allegations against him and the investigation. At that point in time, Sandusky distanced himself from the kids but continued fundraising for the organization for a period of time before he finally retired, the board member said.

"We all know there's an investigation going on,'' the board member said.

Earlier allegation

Two months ago, state police at Rockview in Centre County began calling witnesses to a May 1998 report by Penn State University police detailing an earlier allegation of inappropriate contact against Sandusky by another boy.

According to several sources, that boy, who was 12 at the time, alleged he and Sandusky were showering in the football building on Penn State's campus when the incident took place.

The boy's mother told The Patriot-News she was specifically instructed by state police at Rockview not to speak with a reporter. Her name is being withheld by The Patriot-News to protect the identity of her son.

No charges were ever filed against Sandusky.

According to sources close to the investigation, the boy told police in 1998 that Sandusky had showered with him in a locker room of the Lasch Building — home to the football program — during a tour. The boy claimed Sandusky washed his body during the shower, sources said.

As part of the May 1998 investigation, police had the boy's mother call Sandusky to her State College home and confront him while they hid in another room, according to sources.

Another boy, now an adult in the armed forces, was named as a witness in the 1998 Penn State police report and has been contacted by state police, his wife confirmed.

When reached by phone, his mother said she took her son to Penn State police for questioning in 1998 but didn't listen to the interview. She said she never asked her son what happened.

Retired Penn State Police Officer Ron Schreffler handled the 1998 case. When approached recently, Schreffler said he couldn't comment and asked a reporter, "How did you see that report?"

While the grand jury has been hearing testimony, Sandusky has been devoting time to fundraising for The Second Mile.

In January, the organization received the go-ahead from Centre County commissioners to apply for a $3 million state grant to pay for an $8.5 million learning center on 60 acres near the University Park Airport.

The facility would eventually include housing for up to 100 children.

Sandusky's devotion to the program was the reason he gave for turning down job offers for football head coaching jobs at Temple University and the University of Maryland.

In his autobiography, Sandusky wrote, "Any time you deal with young people, there will be extreme highs and lows. There have been moments of frustration, despair and heartache."

In 2007, the statute of limitations for sex crimes against minors was extended so that police have until the alleged victim's 50th birthday to file charges. That applies to any alleged victim of child sex abuse who turned 18 on or after Aug. 27, 2002.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/03/jerry_sandusky_child_sex_abuse_5_years_later.html

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North Carolina

Mom accused of killing child ordered eerie 'afterlife' photos

by Mary Bowerman

A North Carolina woman, charged in the death of her daughter, ordered commemorative photos of her daughter to be made months before she was arrested.

Jeanie Ditty, a soldier stationed at Fort-Bragg, and her boyfriend, Zachary Keefer, were arrested last Thursday and charged with murdering 2-year-old Macy Grace, WCNC-TV reported.

Weeks before the arrest, Ditty hired Pennsylvania-based photographer, Sunny Jo, to create “afterlife” photos featuring Macy.

Jo said Ditty sent him photos that Keefer took of her posing at Macy's gravesite and Jo used Photoshop to superimposeMacy’s image into the photos.

"She found me on Facebook and asked me if I would do it and I said absolutely,” he said.

Jo said he had no idea that Ditty was involved in her daughter’s murder at the time, and even refused to take payment for the photos.

"She seemed like a grieving mother so I didn’t charge her,” he said in a phone interview.

One of the images shows Ditty reading to her daughter at the gravesite. Another photo depicts Macy walking hand-in-hand with her mother.

Jo said he didn't realize that Ditty played a part in Macy's death until several days ago when he began receiving thousands of Facebook messages.

"People were threatening me, cops were calling me,” he said. “I felt terrible, honestly, thinking I was somehow involved in this woman portraying herself as an innocent woman."

Jo said he hasn't been able to sleep and just hopes that at least the little girl finally has been given a voice.

Macy was taken to Cape Fear Valley Hospital on Dec. 2 and died several days later at the UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, WCNC-TV reported.

The 2-year-old was covered in bruises that were consistent with child abuse and was placed on life support. Her father, Kevin Ditty, was called back from overseas to decide whether to take Macy off life support, the Fayetteville Observer reported.

Ditty and Keefer were charged with negligent child abuse and first-degree murder, according to Fayetteville Police, WCNC reported.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/03/31/mom-boyfriend-accused-killing-child-after-life-eerie-photo-shoot/82466196/

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Opinion

Bishops Are Still Betraying Child Sex Victims

by Marci A. Hamilton and Steven Berkowitz

Spotlight is a motion picture with a purpose: to deliver the truth of how every adult who could have halted the sex abuse by Catholic priests in the Boston Archdiocese did not.

Children were betrayed by priests, bishops, parents, lawyers, journalists and the buddy culture of men in power. The message: These kids did not have a chance, and it is no wonder they are angry and suffer from severe post-traumatic stress, among many other related problems.

After one walks out of the theater, the inevitable next thought is: We must do better by our children. The same thought has entered Pennsylvania’s consciousness following the three Philadelphia District Attorney grand jury reports on abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, as well as the attorney general grand jury reports on abuse at Penn State and in the Altoona-Johnstown Archdiocese.

Yet one continues to see deep frustration on the faces of survivors from all corners of Pennsylvania as the bishops hit high-gear lobbying against the victims’ access to justice through statute of limitations reform.

The reports tell us that adults in power shredded children’s lives. True. Only the bishops and their insurers, however, have routinely leveled an additional, knock-out blow to each victim, either through scorched-earth litigation tactics or by lobbying to keep the perpetrators from justice. The trauma these survivors (and their families) already suffered is compounded by the litigation and legislative tactics of the bishops.

The sex abuse alone can cause lifelong debilitating effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression; unemployment; alcohol, drug or sex addiction; and suicide. Children can’t process sex abuse when it happens, and it is simply a scientific truth that multiple factors including shame, guilt and changes in their neurobiology delay victims’ disclosure of abuse until well into adulthood.

The Catholic survivors are subjected to traumatic betrayal twice. First, when the sexual abuse occurs. Second, when society locks them out of the courthouse, and the padlock stays in place because the bishops lobby to keep the doors locked.

When a survivor finally has the support and courage to come forward, it is devastating to check on legal options only to learn that the doors remain padlocked, because elected officials defer to the hierarchy that betrayed the victims in the first place.

This endless betrayal is a potent destroyer that also can and has resulted in the destruction of survivors’ lives, as well as the lives of their families.

Penn State officials’ handling of the sex abuse by Jerry Sandusky is no model of moral best practices except, perhaps, when compared with the bishops’ merciless treatment of abuse survivors who wish to bring predator priests to justice and dare to seek their day in court from all those who caused them to suffer.

Penn State did not respond to learning about Sandusky’s horrific behavior by mounting a public relations campaign to smear victims and hire lobbyists to make sure victims couldn’t get to court. You don’t find Penn State lobbyists lurking at press conferences and hearings backing the bills that would revive expired statutes of limitations. They aren’t quoted about why it is so unfair to hold Penn State responsible for the abuse on its campus and in its showers.

By and large, Penn State sat down and settled with the victims instead of dragging them through the entire legal process. If all responsible institutions were to do that and accept their responsibility for the costs of the abuse (and it is only fair those costs are shifted from victims to the ones who caused the abuse), the survivors would have to deal with only one excruciating round of trauma instead of the relentless triggering that is inherent in the current bishops’ choice of callous disregard followed by either hardball litigation tactics for the small number in statute and cold-hearted lobbying against every other victim’s (whether Catholic or not) access to justice.

The Catholic bishops have locked themselves into a position of rigid opposition to victims in the legislatures and the courtrooms. Who exactly has benefited from that?

To be sure, the insurance industry that enjoyed collecting premiums for abuse that was never disclosed. But the industry also has sunk untold millions into lobbying against legislation that is inevitable instead of using those resources to improve future protection of children.

The irrefutable logic of statute of limitation reform will inevitably work its way through state after state. If the insurance industry were to set and enforce high standards for employers on child protection instead of canceling sex abuse coverage altogether and resisting justice for the abuse that already occurred, we might avoid repeats of these horrific scandals. That is how risk could be managed intelligently.

Right now, the insurance lobbyists are part of the problem as they aid the bishops in their hide-under-a-rock strategy.

So how can we understand the bishops and the legislators who accede control over child protection to them, like Pennsylvania state Representative Ron Marsico? Is their narcissism and sense of entitlement so great that they are willing to continue to traumatize abuse victims for the sake of the church’s reputation and finances? Are these men the paragons of virtue and morality that the church would have us believe?

They are clearly in conflict with Pope Francis’s admonition in Philadelphia when addressing clergy sex abuse victims: “I pledge to you that we will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead. Clergy and bishops will be held accountable when they abuse or fail to protect children.” It is likely that they are, unlike Pope Francis, all too similar to ordinary leaders corrupted by power and tragically blind to their constituents’ pain.

Members seem to fear voter backlash if they side with survivors, but when a poll was conducted in New York asking Catholics and other voters if they favored statute of limitation reform, solid majorities sided with the survivors and statute of limitation revival. The poll numbers are reinforced by the fact that the primary and most vocal window sponsor in New York, Assemblywoman Marge Markey, has been repeatedly re-elected with large margins—despite the bishops’ robo-calls against her.

It is time for the trauma to end and the healing to begin, and both demand the justice that can only be gained through reviving expired civil statutes of limitations and, going forward, eliminating the criminal and civil statutes of limitation for child sex abuse. Then society can answer the call of Spotlight to actually protect our children.

Editor’s note: The New York Daily News ran two articles here and here that highlight more survivors’ struggles to get justice and the obstacles that short statutes of limitations create.

Marci Hamilton is the Paul R. Verkuil chair in public law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University and the author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty and Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children. She also runs two active websites covering her areas of expertise, the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, RFRAperils.com, and statutes of limitations for child sex abuse, Sol-Reform.com. Hamilton blogs at Hamilton and Griffin on Rights.

Steven Berkowitz, M.D., specializes in child traumatology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

http://www.newsweek.com/bishops-are-still-betraying-child-sex-abuse-victims-441963

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Kentucky

Archdiocese shares tips for child abuse prevention

Parish bulletins around the Archdiocese of Louisville this month will include tips and reminders about protecting children from abuse. The archdiocese provided the bulletin announcements — in Spanish and English — for the month of April, which is Child Abuse Prevention Month.

In a memo sent to parishes, Dr. Brian B. Reynolds, chancellor of the archdiocese, wrote, “Ensuring that our parishes and schools are safe environments for children and youth requires the commitment of all of us.”

The bulletin announcements note that on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 3, “we celebrate the dignity of every human being as a child of God. This dignity is violated by the crime of sexual abuse, and that is why the church seeks to reach out to victims and survivors of sexual abuse with the healing mercy of God who enfolds all in his loving care.”

The announcements also note, “Every adult has a moral responsibility to report suspected child abuse. In Kentucky, state law requires that any person who knows or has reasonable cause to believe that a child is neglected or abused must immediately report the abuse. Sexual abuse of minors is a pervasive societal problem, and only concerted and sustained efforts by all adults in every segment of society can help to protect children and youth.”

Another bulletin announcement notes that the archdiocese has policies, procedures and codes of conduct for employees and volunteers designed to create a safe environment for children.

The announcements also note that the archdiocese offers outreach to victims of sexual abuse as one of its ministries.

“Martine Siegel, the archdiocesan victim assistance coordinator in the Family Ministries Office, provides victims with assistance towards healing,” the announcement said. “If now or at any time in the past someone representing the church has sexually abused you, please contact the police and Ms. Siegel.”

She can be reached at 636-1044 or victimassistance@archlou.org. To report suspected abuse, call the Kentucky Child Abuse Hotline at 877-KYSAFE1 (877-597-2331) or see www.archlou.org/report for a list of reporting contacts organized by county.

For more information, visit www.archlou.org/restoringtrust.

http://therecordnewspaper.org/archdiocese-shares-tips-for-child-abuse-prevention/

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Texas

Freedom Place: Once a Summer Camp, Now a Home for Healing

When Freedom Place opened its doors in 2012, it was Texas’s first residential treatment center for domestic children who are victims of sex trafficking.

by ROXANNA ASGARIAN

THE RANCH SITS JUST OUTSIDE HOUSTON, down a farm-to-market road and off a winding path.

Like most ranches, the entrance is guarded by an unmarked gate. You press a button, explain your business, and the gate opens onto a narrow road flanked by horses munching on grass. Birds chirp as they wind among the loblolly pines that blanket the 110-acre expanse before you. A rooster crows in the distance. Paddle boats and canoes are lined up at the dock on the ranch’s small lake. It feels like a summer camp here; in fact, it once was.

The main building resembles a large log cabin, with rustic wood rocking chairs on the porch and a makeshift soccer field out back. Inside are long corridors of typical teen-girl bedrooms—walls painted in soft colors, piles of clothes—in two separate wings, with a spacious kitchen and living room in between.

You see girls taping up homemade posters on the walls, written in purple and pink and decorated with photos and decals. “Vote Destiny for President,” one says. “Your voice, your choice” reads the cursive script beneath it.

“They are learning about women’s rights,” says Shandra Carter, who runs the ranch. Its name, Freedom Place, cannot be found on any map, which is no accident. The ranch exists for the tranquility, privacy and protection of its residents, underage Texas girls who are victims of sex trafficking.

For Destiny*, it all started one day in 2014 after she missed the bus to school. Normally, the boys in her Northline neighborhood would walk with her to the bus, but she was running late and they didn’t wait. Destiny, who was 15 at the time, dreaded waking up her stepmom and telling her that she’d missed the bus again. Instead, she decided to catch a Metro bus. On her way to that corner, she noticed a truck circling the block—once, twice, several times. The driver looked familiar. He’d asked her before if she wanted a ride.

Destiny turned around and broke into a run, racing back to her subdivision. The truck soon pulled up behind and the man jumped out, grabbing her. She froze.

“I didn’t fight or nothing, you know?” she says now. “I didn’t know what he would do to me, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Her attacker took her to a warehouse filled with lots of other young girls like her, and many men as well. After three or four of them raped her, she recalls, the man who’d abducted her forced Destiny to solicit johns on the street.

“At the time, I didn’t know anything about trafficking, I didn’t know what it was. I really didn’t know what he was going to do to me,” she says. “So I kind of went into survival mode and did whatever I had to do to get out of that situation I was in.”

After she told one of the men on the street what was happening to her, he offered to drive her to a hotel to clean up, and then take her home. “But when we got to the hotel and I got out of the shower and stuff, it’s like his whole demeanor changed,” Destiny recalls.

The man, it turned out, was a pimp who forced her to prostitute herself for several more days, until at last she was saved in an undercover police sting. The police reunited Destiny with her family, who had been searching for her frantically.

When Destiny returned home, her father, Charles, noticed a clear change. “She was always a people person,” he says, noting that his daughter was active in her high school’s debate team. “But we noticed that she was kind of subdued, reserved. Like she didn’t have a trust for mankind.”

It took a week before Destiny could bring herself to tell her parents what had happened. They were horrified. She stayed home from school for three months, and then the family moved, seeking a fresh start for Destiny in a new school. It wasn’t a good fit. She started getting picked on and bullied by other girls. Her father saw her withdraw more and more with each passing day.

“I didn’t like myself, I hated myself,” Destiny recalls. “My self esteem was, like, really, really, really low.” And so she looked online for consolation. “When I first got on the Internet, I started getting attention from men,” she says. “I thought it was because they thought I was pretty or whatever. I didn’t think it was because they wanted sex from me or, you know, they were pimps or anything like that.”

One day last June, she asked one of the men she’d been chatting with to pick her up from school. The man took her to a mall, and then dropped her at what he said was his mother’s house while he went on an errand. Hours later, Destiny was still alone in the unfamiliar house, calling and calling the man’s phone and getting no answer. Suddenly, he burst through the door, grabbed Destiny, dragged her down the stairs and out of the house. He hit her, forced her into the car, and drove her to a hotel to have sex with a john. Once again, she was saved by a sting operation—the john turned out to be an undercover police officer—but HPD was skeptical. They interrogated her for hours at the hotel, Destiny says, not believing her when she said she was 16. Ultimately, she was placed in juvenile detention for three days, and then sent to a psychiatric hospital after she tried to kill herself.

Her father, meanwhile, contacted a lawyer and started looking for a residential treatment center for Destiny. There were county-run facilities, of course, but Charles disliked their strict lock-down policies—he didn’t want Destiny to feel like she was being punished. Then he discovered Freedom Place, where his daughter would be treated not as a criminal but what she was—the victim of multiple crimes.

Not only had Destiny never heard of the ranch, she’d never even heard the phrase “sex trafficking.” Researching the term online, she says, was the first step in her recovery.

“When I was at the psych hospital, girls were asking me what I’m there for. And even though I wouldn’t want to tell them, I would just say, like, prostitution or something like that. And they would look at me, like, eww, why were you out there? But if I say ‘sex trafficking,’ people will want to ask you more about it,” she says. “I started using it instead of ‘prostitution.’ I see sex trafficking more as like being forced or not wanting to do it.”

Charles thought that the soothing atmosphere of Freedom Place was just what his daughter needed to jumpstart the healing process. “I was just trying to find the best care that we could for her,” he says. “So I just reached out.”

Freedom Place started as a kernel of an idea in Nikki Richnow’s mind. The wife of an Episcopal pastor and former head of the White House gifts office under George H.W. Bush, Richnow is a tiny, blond woman who looks much younger than her 72 years. People who know her describe her as a force of nature. In the ’70s, she rose through the ranks as an industrial salesperson, selling wire rope and steel in what was then a virtually all-male industry.

In 2010, after traveling to Thailand with a church group to learn about sex trafficking, Richnow says she was surprised to find that the problem existed right here at home. Accurate numbers are notoriously difficult to come by, but a report by the Texas Attorney General’s Office tallied 764 children who were likely victims of sex trafficking in the state between 2007 and 2014.

Richnow realized that, while there were treatment facilities for adult sex-trafficking victims and for foreign victims, there weren’t any residential treatment centers in Texas for American-born children. She began trying to raise funds and to search for somewhere to build such a center—a long and sometimes discouraging process, she says—until she happened to sit at a luncheon next to Mark Tennant, the founder of Arrow Child and Family Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that’s one of the state’s largest private providers of foster care and adoption services. Today, Richnow sees that chance meeting as a sign from God. When she told Tennant of her plans, he mentioned that he just happened to own a 110-acre ranch outside of town that sat idle most of the year. Richnow took a drive out there the following week.

“The moment I drove in, I knew it was where it was supposed to be,” Richnow says. The ranch already had several buildings on it, having previously been used as a summer camp for foster children, and Tennant had been looking for a year-round use for the land. Richnow’s idea seemed a natural fit, especially because foster kids are much more likely than other children to become sex-trafficking victims. Among the nearly 12,000 runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2015, it is estimated that one in five was likely sex-trafficked. Of those, nearly 75 percent come from the foster care or social services system.

Tennant’s 110 acres—complete with a small lake, a corral for horses, and forests of pine—was just what Richnow had imagined. “The vision God gave for me was always big, it was just big,” she remembers. “Not grandiose, but it wasn’t going to be a little three-bedroom safe house; I knew it was supposed to be more. When we drove in the gate, it matched my vision, and it was just thrilling.

When Freedom Place opened its doors in 2012, it was Texas’s first residential treatment center for domestic children who are victims of sex trafficking. With space for up to 30 residents, the center accepts girls as young as 9 and as old as 18, although most are between 13 and 17. A staff of 30, employed by Arrow, leads the girls—around 12 are in residence at any given time—through weekly therapy sessions, guiding them through the healing process and helping them catch up on academic work (Freedom Place is partnering with a local school district so girls can earn a high school diploma instead of a GED). Although it’s a Christian place run by a Christian organization, Shandra Carter stresses that religion is never forced on the girls. “Our job is to walk with them on their journey, wherever they are at with it right now,” Carter says.

Though still a member of Freedom Place’s advisory council, Richnow says that she prefers spending time with the girls to raising money. She still organizes the annual luncheon at the River Oaks Country Club, however, which typically raises $250,000, and she says she’s still ready to rally her fundraising troops whenever the need arises, as it did with Destiny.

After Charles initially reached out to Freedom Place, the staff met with his daughter and decided that she’d be a great fit for the program. Unfortunately, without help, the family couldn’t afford it. It costs $300 a day to provide the staff, food and resources for one girl at Freedom Place (a cost that adds up to an annual budget of $2.1 million), and while there are state funds available to help offset that cost if a girl comes through the Department of Family and Protective Services or the juvenile justice system, privately referred families like Destiny’s have fewer options.

For a time, Destiny was able to receive a limited amount of funding through the Texas Crime Victims Compensation Program, but that ran out within a few months. Seeing the progress she was making, and knowing how close she was to getting her high school diploma, Richnow and her team sprang into action, finding the money needed to keep Destiny at Freedom Place until graduation. “She needed more time there for schooling, and so I raised funds for her,” Richnow says. “If there’s a need, I’ll raise it.”

In one way, Destiny’s story is atypical. Most girls who are sex-trafficked do not get abducted off the street. Instead, the scenario tends to follow a pattern like the second part of Destiny’s story, in which a girl runs away and ends up in over her head. Traffickers try to solicit young teens online by flirting, complimenting their appearance, and eventually asking to meet. The girls—the average age someone in the U.S. enters trafficking is 12 to 14—often think they have an older boyfriend, someone who cares for them, who buys them clothes and lavishes attention. Sex acts with other paying men will be forced on her bit by bit. Or she might be brutally raped right away, like Destiny was, in an effort to break her spirit and numb her into submission.

The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 defines child sex trafficking as “any commercial sex act if the person is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether any form of coercion is involved.” That last line about coercion is important; often girls who are victims have complicated relationships with their traffickers. Many of the girls, especially those who have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse, view their traffickers as father figures or protectors. Many traffickers target girls who have run away, are in foster care, or are fleeing unsafe homes.

Girls who become trafficking victims are often already involved with the juvenile justice system in one way or another. And until recently, the system thought of them as prostitutes and criminals. That only began to change in 2010, when the Texas Supreme Court ruled that girls under the age of 14 can’t be charged with prostitution. That landmark case, coupled with the 2009 creation of the Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force, which mandated training for police officers in how to identify and properly handle cases of sex trafficking involving minors, accelerated a larger cultural shift away from blaming victims, especially when those victims are children.

Before that, “these girls were seen as criminals and they were charged with a crime,” says Debi Tengler, the national relations officer for Arrow Child and Family Ministries. “And when you’re talking about a 13-year-old charged with a crime, immediately, her future’s not very bright.”

“I just don’t tell my story to anyone, but I tell it to the people that I feel like I could help,” Destiny says. “I feel like if somebody read my story and what I’ve been through here, my journey and stuff, I can probably motivate them, or get them to tell their children about it.”

She is sitting very straight in her chair as she says this. We are in Shandra Carter’s office, which smells like cookie-scented candles, on a bright sunny day earlier this year. Destiny says that she’s nervous, that she’s never told the story all at once before, much less to a stranger. But she wants to help other girls, she wants her experience to mean something.

She tells her story in its entirety, and then goes back over it again, her voice flat and emotionless. She says afterward that she feels anxious because she hates thinking about her experiences, that she felt disconnected to the words pouring out.

“Just six days,” she says, when asked about the period between her abduction and reunion with her family.

“Let’s try that again,” Carter interrupts, looking directly into her eyes. “It wasn’t just six days; it was six long, serious days.”

Destiny nods. It’s clear that she’s still processing the experience, still trying to deal with the shame she feels whenever someone says why didn’t you just run? Or you could’ve fought, or tried to escape.

“I didn’t know how to explain that, you know, to my parents when I got back home,” she says. “I’ve never been put in a situation like that, so it was better for me to just stand there in shock than run or fight or something, because I was so scared. I’m not used to, like, fighting for myself or sticking up for myself.”

“People don’t choose whether they have a fight, flight or freeze response,” Carter tells her. “That’s not a choice that you get to make.”

“Yeah, but my family doesn’t know nothing about it,” Destiny replies. “That’s the first thing that they said, like, ‘you could have ran, you could have fought, you could’—”

“Your brain didn’t give you the choice,” Carter says. “So right now, when the part of your brain that makes good decisions is completely functioning and online, that’s your frontal lobe here.” Carter uses her hand to show Destiny where on the brain she means. “And this makes great choices, because everything is safe. When you’re not safe, this part of your brain—”

“The limbic system?” Destiny offers.

“That’s right!” Carter says. “The limbic system makes the choices. So in the moment this is all about what do I need to do to survive? And your brain said, ‘I’m gonna freeze.’ That’s what you had to do to survive.”

For Shandra Carter, who became Freedom Place’s executive director in March of last year, explaining how the brain operates is an important part of reducing the shame the girls feel about their trafficking experiences. Before that, Carter spent nearly a decade working for the Washington State Department of Corrections, where she led a treatment program for adult sex offenders. She’s also worked in programs for teen girls that take a more traditional approach to treatment, one in which girls who have been victimized often end up treated like criminals themselves.

Since joining the team at Freedom Place, she’s doubled down on a model used across Arrow’s programs called Trust-Based Relational Intervention. Developed at Texas Christian University’s Institute of Child Development in the early 2000s, TBRI is specifically tailored to children who have experienced early trauma, abuse or neglect. As a result, Freedom Place looks different from typical residential treatment centers, Carter says, which rely on techniques that are focused on fixing bad behavior, something Carter sees as merely symptomatic of the larger trauma the girls have experienced.

“Most residential treatment centers are going to be behavior modification, and so what that means is it’s very traditional. It is juvenile detention programming—it’s the privilege-based, incentive-based, punishment-based system,” she says. “But that’s not a trauma-informed system. And so really what we want to do is get away from the punitive-based model and move toward a healing-based model.”

When a girl acts out at Freedom Place, an immediate punishment doesn’t follow. She gets a one-on-one with the staff member she trusts the most—a “time-in,” Carter calls it, admitting that such a move might seem counterintuitive at first. For instance, if a girl kicks a hole in her door, she’s not sent to her room; a staff member she’s bonded with will wait for her to calm down, and then might take her out for ice cream or a walk by the lake. But this approach makes perfect sense, Carter says, when you think of the outburst as a reaction to the pain and confusion the girl is feeling. A typical punishment would only serve to make the behavior worse.

“All their trauma has occurred in the context of a relationship. Their ability to trust has been absolutely demolished. Well, my goal is to heal, so all this healing has to occur within a relationship, and I can’t do that when I’m isolating them, I can’t do that when I’m punishing them,” she says. “If you slow down and think about this particular girl and why she’s doing what she’s doing, her behaviors that are destructive and are violent or aggressive or sabotaging completely make sense. We have to figure out how to hold all that suffering, and not increase shame.”

She tells the story of one troubled young resident who missed her family’s dog. Carter brought Zoey, her Great Dane, to the ranch and went with the girl to walk the dog. Back in her office, Carter made the girl hot chocolate while she petted Zoey. “The hot chocolate is intentional, because it’s sweet, it’s warm, it’s comforting. My dog is a leaner, my dog is warm, my dog wants to snuggle, so she gets a lot of sensory input in that moment,” Carter says. “I told her, ‘I trust you, I care about you, I want to know’—and all of a sudden I have a therapy session of tremendous value. If I just brought her in my office and sat her in my chair and asked her the questions I needed to know, I’m going to get absolutely nothing out of her.”

TBRI is still fairly new, and is currently under peer review. And Freedom Place itself has been running for just four years, which makes quantifying success difficult, Carter admits. “It’s hard to measure the negative in what we do. It’s hard to measure, who isn’t dead because they came to Freedom Place? Or who’s not an addict?” she asks. “But I know we’ve made a difference in that the intervention has decreased risk in these ways.”

The biggest obstacle for Freedom Place, Carter says, is keeping the girls on the premises long enough to make a connection. “It takes about three months for them to really feel safe enough for them to engage—the desire to run is unbelievably powerful for them,” she says. “So if we can get past three months and get them to engage, we can do some pretty good work.”

Still, residents do run away from time to time. “We have an incredible flight risk with this population,” she says. “They have flight response like I’ve never seen. And so when they come in, it really is about hyper-vigilance.” One girl ran away from Freedom Place and went back to working on the street, only to be picked up a few months later by police. She asked to return to the ranch, and the staff says she did exceptionally well the second time around, graduating high school and obtaining her food-safety license.

Despite the obstacles that could cut short a girl’s stay, the goal is to keep each resident at Freedom Place for one year, and then find her a safe and healthy place to live permanently.

“I’d love a year with every girl to really turn that Titanic of trauma,” Carter says.

Nikki Richnow, who spends time each week with the girls at Freedom Place, said even if a girl isn’t ready to begin the excruciating process of healing from the complex trauma she’s experienced, there’s still long-term value to staying at the ranch.

“These girls, they all have so much to give, and yet that damage is just so deep,” Richnow says. “But I know we’re planting seeds, and I believe those seeds will grow, and if they don’t get it now, I think they will.”

Destiny, who is now 17, spent eight months at Freedom Place, where she earned enough credits to graduate high school and worked on her self esteem. A highlight of the experience, she says, came when she was elected student council president, a post that involved acting as a liaison between staff and other residents. “I just feel like I’m stronger, like I can stand up for myself now,” she says.

In addition to her personal and group therapy, she’s been in weekly therapy with her father and stepmother, something that Carter said is only available for about half of the girls—the other half don’t have any family members willing or able to participate. Destiny’s father says that group therapy has helped him and his wife maybe as much as Destiny.

“Me being a father, I question myself—what could I have done differently? I was going through all these emotions. You want to protect your family, and I felt like I wasn’t able to do that,” he says. “We as men feel like we can deal with anything, that we’re invincible. I realized I need to talk about it also, to get the pain and anger out of me.”

Rebecca Bender was 18 and a college freshman when she met the man who would become her trafficker. At the time, she thought of him as her boyfriend. They dated for six months and got serious quickly. When she moved with him to Las Vegas, she was isolated from her friends and family. That’s when he forced her into prostitution. When she tried to escape, she says she was beaten and branded, her face broken in five places. Her young daughter was threatened and she was arrested multiple times for prostitution in the six years she was trafficked. She landed in rehab for a drug addiction.

“There were no services available to me at that time,” she says. “When I got help, I went to rehab for drugs and alcohol. I thought ‘this is my problem.’ When really, that was my coping mechanism, and I didn’t realize that and they didn’t realize that. There just wasn’t a lot of awareness [about sex trafficking], so they treated the leaves on the tree but they didn’t pull the tree out by the root.”

Bender got on her feet and moved with her daughter, who was 8 years old at the time, to the Pacific Northwest. She’s now married with three more children. She went back to college and became the general manager of a local store.

One morning, she woke up early to do some journaling and have some quiet time before work. As the sun started to rise, she felt a cold chill. “What is normally beautiful made my stomach turn,” she says. She felt like she’d been transported back to the days when she’d been under her trafficker’s control, when the early morning meant the end of a long shift. “I heard my trafficker’s voice saying, ‘It’s time to come in.’”

That’s when she realized she needed to do something to help people like her heal. She quit her job at the store, became a Christian minister and started writing a workbook, Roadmap to Redemption, which helps trafficking survivors and their families heal from trauma.

Nikki Richnow leads a group of Freedom Place girls through the workbook each year. Afterward, Bender engages the girls in eight weeks of online mentoring sessions, in which she tries to identify the girls’ goals and dreams for their lives. “Many of these young women have talents and abilities that have been dormant for far too long. Their trafficker was definitely not pulling that out of them,” Bender says. “A lot of them don’t know—do I like to paint, or sew? So this is about giving them an opportunity to explore and find something they are passionate about.”

Being a survivor herself, she understands things about the girls’ experiences that others simply can’t. Girls often have extreme post-traumatic stress disorder, night terrors, or unexpected triggers. Something as simple as negotiating a contract, which Bender does often for her ministry, can instantly take her back to the days when she negotiated prices for sex acts with clients. “I don’t think, unless you’ve been there, you could understand that,” she says.

Bender’s workshops help girls create healthy coping mechanisms for such feelings when they arise. She also focuses on helping rebuild their self-esteem, and getting them to set concrete goals for themselves. They need to be able to see something in their future, she says, to keep them from returning to the dark places they came from.

“Anchoring yourself to a dream is what keeps you holding on when storms come. And I can tell you, living in a group home, storms will come. For them to say, ‘I’m not leaving, I’m not taking myself out, because I have this anchor and this dream’—it keeps their eyes above the circumstance and on the prize.”

On a sunny February day this year, Destiny celebrated her high school graduation in a big conference room at Arrow’s headquarters, which was filled with dozens of supporters. The rest of the girls were there for the ceremony, as were Shandra Carter and her staff. Destiny’s parents sat upright in the front row; Charles wore a suit and tie. Nikki Richnow came, with two women from her fundraising posse in tow.

“Pomp and Circumstance” played through the speakers as Destiny emerged from the doors at the back of the room, beaming, holding a rose. She walked tall, wearing a soft purple eyeshadow to match her bright purple cap and gown. The crowd stood with clasped hands and wet eyes as she walked up the aisle.

After she received her diploma, the principal of the school that Freedom Place partners with said a few words. Then, according to the program, Carter was supposed to move Destiny’s tassel from one side to the other. “You’ve done so much more than just graduate,” Carter said, choking up as she told Destiny that the work that she’d been doing on herself was about empowerment. “So I want you to be the one to move your tassel.”

It was an emotional day; everybody cried. The microphone was opened up so that other Freedom Place residents might congratulate Destiny and say their public goodbyes—she’d be returning home the next day with her parents.

One girl, who looked much younger than Destiny, clasped the microphone with tears in her eyes. “You’ve shown me that no matter what I’ve been through, there’s someone who has been through it and rose above,” she said. “You’re my inspiration to be on this stage one day and to graduate.”

Destiny glowed; she held her head high. She thanked and hugged each girl after they spoke. Then, her father took the stage. He thanked everyone for everything, from the cook who brought the hors d’oeuvres, to Shandra, Nikki, and everyone else in the room. Then he turned to his daughter.

“Daddy loves you, baby. It’s been a long road, but we’re gonna get there, okay?”

*Note: Names of Destiny and her father have been changed to protect the family’s privacy. She is not featured in this story’s photos of Freedom Place.

http://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2016/3/31/freedom-place-healing-home-ranch-victims-sex-trafficking-april-2016

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Pennsylvania

Penn State to host sex-trafficking awareness event April 9

Free event registration deadline is March 31

by Noelle Rosellini

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Each year, nearly two million children are victimized and exploited in global sex trafficking, according to a 2012 United Nations report. Though this serious problem often goes unseen, it is pervasive in places as far as Australia and as close as our own state of Pennsylvania.
This April, during Child Abuse Prevention Month, the Penn State Network on Child Protection and Well-Being is hosting an awareness event to shed light on the global sex trade industry and open a dialogue among survivors, experts and the community.

The event, titled “Sex Trafficking: Vulnerabilities and Solutions,” will take place on Saturday, April 9, and will aim to raise awareness for this prevalent issue while focusing on solutions to curb its growth. The Network is hosting this event in collaboration with the Colleges of Communications, Nursing and Information Sciences and Technology (IST).

“Vulnerabilities and Solutions” will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Founder’s Room at the Bryce Jordan Center on the University Park campus. The event is free and lunch will be provided. The deadline to register is March 31.

The event will feature Pennsylvania Congressman Charles Dent as the keynote speaker. Along with Dent, a panel made up of trafficking survivors, advocates and specialists will discuss the impact of trafficking and actions that can be taken to prevent the growth of this disturbing practice.

“Our scientific methods can uncover the ways in which perpetrators reach children and lure them into a life of exploitation,” said Jennie Noll, director of the Network, professor of human development and family studies, and a presenter at the forum. “When we understand how that works and what makes kids vulnerable, we can raise awareness about what to look out for and how to educate parents and kids about protecting themselves against these vulnerabilities.”

Noll's work specifically focuses on re-victimization of children facing past abuse and says that those children possess a higher risk factor of being exploited into sex trade.

“The advent of the internet and social media has brought about new ways that kids are victimized in terms of getting exploited and involved in things like sex trafficking through online venues,” said Noll, who will discuss these patterns in more depth during her speech.

“When we understand how that works and what makes kids vulnerable, we can raise awareness about what to look out for and how to educate parents and kids about protecting themselves against these vulnerabilities." —Network Director Jennie Noll

The Network’s event comes at a poignant time. According to the New York Times, the U.S. Senate took action earlier this month on a website, Backpage.com, that has been accused of masking the trafficking and prostitution of minors behind adult classified advertisements. Over a number of years, hundreds of instances of trafficking have been traced back to the site.

A team of Penn State IST specialists have been looking at sites of this nature, predation patterns, and ways to increase security measures to protect children from encountering sex traffickers online. The team will present some findings, concerns and proactive steps to take moving forward at the “Vulnerabilities and Solutions” event.

In combining with the Colleges of IST, Communications, and Nursing, Noll said the event aims to show the impact of trafficking from a number of sides. The program will cover technological mechanisms to stop trafficking, legislative aspects of the crime, stories from survivors, vulnerabilities for children and a community discussion about ways in which the $99 billion industry of sex trafficking can be brought to a halt. The program also will feature a brief film, The Turn Out, that highlights the difficult realities faced by underage trafficking victims.

For more information, go to the Network’s website.

http://news.psu.edu/story/400760/2016/03/30/public-events/penn-state-host-sex-trafficking-awareness-event-april-9

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ISU alumna raises awareness on sexual violence through short film

by Alex Connor

It wasn’t until Vanessa McNeal, an ISU alumna, took a human sexuality class in college when she realized she was molested as a child.

“I knew when I was being molested that something wasn’t necessarily right, and that it wasn’t normal per se, but I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was,” McNeal said.

Suffering sexual abuse as a child from her sister and a cousin, McNeal speaks openly about her experiences and she now feels that she is “living out her truth” and doing something that she would never have imagined doing — producing films.

With many ties to Iowa State and a bachelor’s in child, family and adult services, McNeal is now a graduate student in the social work program at the University of Northern Iowa.

For the next few weeks, however, McNeal will travel across Iowa to screen and host panel discussions about her short film titled “We are Survivors.”
“We are Survivors” is a 15-minute film featuring the voices of eight sexual violence survivors and was filmed in Des Moines over the course of one day, with emotions packing the studio.

McNeal, who co-produced the film with ISU alumnus Michael Phipps Quinton Wayne, former ISU student and graduate of the Carolina Film Institute, described the filming to be challenging.

For some of the survivors featured in the film, they had never shared their story before. They felt anxiety, they had lots of nerves, but for some, they also felt relief, McNeal said.

“I think it was as difficult facing their truth as it was for me," McNeal said. "But at the end of the day, I think everyone felt some sort of relief, just some sort of feeling of letting go. They shared something they had essentially been holding in for so long."

In a promo for the short film, “We are Survivors,” the survivors featured are highlighted saying, “I’m OK … I’m nervous … this is one of the first times I’ve ever talked about this stuff so, it’s hard” and “I’m healing. That’s how I’m doing.”

This isn’t McNeal’s first film, however. In 2015, McNeal released “I Am,” an hour-long film that tells her story — one of surviving parental neglect, molestation and sexual assault.

Afterward, several survivors reached out to McNeal to tell their story. It was then when McNeal decided she was going to create another film.

With the help of Jade Jackson, junior in supply chain management who is also a survivor, McNeal and Jackson brainstormed new ideas to tell survivors' stories.

McNeal described all of the survivors featured in the film as unique with unique stories who come from all walks of life.

“[But] they have one thing in common, McNeal said. "They are survivors and they have worked extremely hard to get to where they are today."

For her next project, McNeal said she hopes to work toward erasing the stigma of sexual violence against men and is actively pursuing people who may be interested in telling their story.

The film “We are Survivors” is co-sponsored by Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support (ACCESS); College of Human Sciences' Diversity, Equity, and Community Committee; Human Development and Family Studies; the Margaret Sloss Women's Center; the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART); the YWCA Ames-ISU and the Committee on Lectures.

The short film will be screened at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. After the film, McNeal will join a panel discussion that focuses on ways to support, encourage and empower survivors.

For more information about McNeal and her story, visit her website at vanessamcneal.com.

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/student_life/article_7acf4c7c-f61e-11e5-be98-1f4e8cb6d9c9.html

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Wisconsin

ASTOP shines a light on sexual abuse

by Taima Kern

Why are there denim jeans hanging from the lamp posts on the Johnson Street bridge?

Turns out, they’re there to specifically elicit that question.

In April, denim is used internationally as a symbol for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. In past years, denim displays have gone up in schools, government buildings and in the windows of businesses in Fond du Lac. However, they weren’t raising enough eyebrows. This year ASTOP Inc., a local non-profit devoted to assisting survivors, treatment, outreach and prevention in terms of sexual assault, decided to up their game.

“There was no lack of support or generosity,” said Janette McDonough, of ASTOP. “But it wasn’t as question-provoking.”

Denim became a symbol of sexual assault awareness in 1999 after an Italian sexual assault case made national news when the offender’s appeal went as far as the Italian Supreme Court and the case against the offender was overturned, dismissed and he was released because the victim wore jeans that were so tight that she had to assist him in removing them during the assault, making it, in the eyes of the court, consensual. Enraged people in both Italy and America saw this as a call to action, and Denim Day was born in Los Angeles, Calif., according to denimdayinfo.org.

The victim in the 1999 Italian case was 18, but that is not truly indicative of the age range of those served by ASTOP and the Fond du Lac Police Department in Fond du Lac.

“One in six males will be sexually abused by the age of 18, and the average age of the victims is 4 years old,” said McDonough. “One in four females, will be sexually abused by the age of 18, and the average age of the victims is 11 to 13 years old.”

That statement was compounded by a report from Jeffrey Harbridge, a detective with the City of Fond du Lac Police Department, which detailed that in the City of Fond du Lac, in 2015, of 81 sexual assault complaints, 71.4 percent were juveniles, and 28.6 percent were adults. Harbridge is also the President of the ASTOP Board of Directors, and has taken training that qualifies him to interview children who report sexual abuse. These interviews are recorded and entered as evidence so that the child isn’t made to testify throughout any resulting and ongoing trials.

“It is hard to define the ‘most important part’ of all of this," said McDonough, who remarked that those numbers from Harbridge were just for the City of Fond du Lac, and that ASTOP serves both Fond du Lac County and Green Lake County. “We get an average of a phone call a day, and those are just the people who report it.” Harbridge adds that sexual abuse is one of the most unreported crimes.

In identifying how to combat this issue, there are a lot of aspects that need to be accounted for.

The end of “Stranger Danger”

“Stranger Danger” is a term that many people are already familiar with, and it comes from the iconic idea of a creep loitering at a playground and luring a child away with candy or a puppy, for example. Though this type of interaction with a stranger is still a bad idea, this strategy isn’t widely utilized anymore, McDonough said.

“About 90 percent know the person who victimized them,” said McDonough. “We have to instead teach children to pay attention to whether or not they feel safe, and we have to teach them to identify five people that they can trust.”

Start by believing

The Start by Believing public-awareness campaign is focused on the public’s awareness and response to reports of sexual abuse. If a child comes to you because they see you as a trusted adult, and they confide in you as best as they can that someone has been doing inappropriate things with them, your response to that child is incredibly important, McDonough said.

“A child will, on average, (speak of) abuse seven times before they are believed,” said McDonough.

“For the majority (of children interviewed), I’ve never felt that they were ‘making it up’… when kids give such specific details,” said Harbridge.

To ignore or refute a child’s statement on their experiences with sexual abuse can be damaging, because not only have they been violated, but now the person they trusted doesn’t believe them. Often the disbelief is linked to the identity of the person being accused by the child. The person in question may be a parent, or a parent’s new significant other, a relative, a teacher, or a friend of the family.

“There is no formula for how this happens,” said McDonough.

The internet age

It is no secret that the Internet is a unique spawning point for this type of abuse. Criminals have access to youth via the Internet, often unsupervised, and it becomes much easier to “groom” the child with this type of private communication.

“‘Grooming’ is confusing the child into trusting them,” said McDonough. “It starts with talking, and now the child is getting attention that they otherwise weren’t.” It is through this, McDonough said, that “trust” and a “friendship” of sorts is formed. It then gradually evolved to compliments, little touches and hugs, building over weeks and months. The perpetrator will also begin to sow the seeds to secrecy, suggesting that the conversation is a secret, as is the friendship, as is the ensuing physical contact.

“Kids believe what adults tell them,” McDonough said. “When the child finally realizes what’s happening or can’t take it anymore, they will try to tell someone. And in many scenarios, that is met with disbelief.”

Human trafficking

Another outcome of being groomed online by strangers can sometimes be human trafficking, or forced prostitution. Youth may be abducted, held against their will, terrorized and threatened, hooked on drugs, told that their families don’t care that they’re gone.

This can also be done to young women who start out in an acceptable relationship and suddenly find themselves held hostage.

The Fond du Lac Police Department has held sting operations to find those stuck in situations like this, with some success, proving that the issue and the danger is alive in the area.

Community collaboration

McDonough, who is new to ASTOP, is very excited about the level of communication and collaboration between her organization and local authorities. Both Harbridge and another detective, Kewon Brown, serve on ASTOP’s Board of Directors, as does District Attorney Eric Toney.

“It’s important that they care enough to serve on our board, and that they actually care about what’s happening in the community,” said McDonough.
Harbridge also notes that a protocol is in place at the Fond du Lac Police Department for referring those who report the crime to ASTOP for additional assistance.

“The only way to end violence in our community is to align our resources, and work in partnership with one-another,” said McDonough.
In addition to the Fond du Lac Police Department, ASTOP also works with the Fond du Lac Area United Way.

"United Way has been supporting ASTOP through allocation dollars for over a decade," said Amber Kilawee, of the Fond du Lac Area United Way. "United Way focuses on building a supportive, healthy and educated community through inter-agency collaborations. ASTOP’s Reducing the Incidence of Sexual Assault program meets our priority objective by providing education to promote safety and survive hardship. Every year, more than 12,000 children, youths, teens, adults and seniors are educated on the importance of protective behaviors, which reinforces the message that everyone has a right to be safe. Too often people believe that sexual violence does not occur in their community; ASTOP is there to promote safety to victims of abuse and empower people to take responsibility for protecting citizens of our community."

BBQ fundraiser

ASTOP is a non-profit organization and is funded through grants and donations. They will be holding a fundraiser on May 21 at John and Jennifer Wiltzius’ Breezy Hill Campground (formerly KOA) in Eden.

The fundraiser will feature 25 national competitors from the Kansas City BBQ Society, as well as judges. The event will also feature raffles and vendors selling food. The public is invited. For more information, find them on Facebook by searching “ASTOP Sexual Abuse Center” or visit astop.org.

Crisis management

If you or someone you know is involved in a situation where ASTOP services may be beneficial, or are in an emergency situation, reach out. ASTOP has a 24-hour crisis line, 920-926-5395. ASTOP is located at 21 S. Marr St., inside an Agnesian HealthCare facility. Incidents can also be reported at the Fond du Lac Police Department, located on the corner of Main and Rees streets, 126 N. Main St.

http://www.fdlreporter.com/story/news/local/action-advertiser/2016/03/30/astop-shines-light-sexual-abuse/82344690/

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Indiana

Local groups address sexual assault, child abuse

by Tanae Howard

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- April is sexual assault awareness month, and local groups are tackling this problem head on-- from child abuse to sexual violence.

Two groups we talked to share the same message, everyone has to get involved to end these crimes.

It's a dark topic that many people are afraid to shed light on. Sexual violence in all ages and child abuse for those younger victims who are afraid to speak up.

"There are a lot of people who don't talk about their past or their childhood but this is an issue that is real and it affects real people. And when it happens it's a trickle affect and you have these babies who will become adults," said IU McKinney School of Law student, Johanna LeBlanc.

LeBlanc says she wants to use her platform in the law world to tackle abuse domestically and abroad. This weekend the Indiana University law community will host the Teal Tie Fundraiser to benefit the Child Advocates of Marion County and an organization in Southern Africa in Swaziland to help young girls forced into child marriages.

"Child marriage is a global phenomenon that impacts roughly 15 million girls annually. So you're talking about girls as young as age of 7 who are forced into marriage due to lack of economic development but also cultural norms," said LeBlanc.

The Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault is bringing the community together to teal out the canal as a way to show support to survivors. The color teal represents sexual assault.

"Indiana ranks second in the nation for the number of rapes of girls between grades 9 and 12. That's appalling. That's ridiculous and we need to address this," said Interim Director, Tracey Horth-Krueger.

The coalition wants to help statewide and find those pockets in Indiana that don't have resources so if someone reports an assault help is available.

"And the coalition wants to make sure that people are actively involved in primary prevention that addresses the root cause of sexual violence so that we can end it," said Horth Krueger.

The second annual Teal Tie Fundraiser takes place this weekend. For ticket information click here.

The dying of the canal will take place Friday at noon. The event will feature survivor Kirat Sandhu who shared the stage with Lady Gaga this year at the Academy Awards. To learn more about how you can get involved with organizations through the Indiana coalition to End Sexual Assault click here.

http://fox59.com/2016/03/30/local-groups-address-sexual-assault-child-abuse/

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OPINION

Bishops Are Still Betraying Child Sex Abuse Victims

This article first appeared on the Verdict site.

Spotlight is a motion picture with a purpose: to deliver the truth of how every adult who could have halted the sex abuse by Catholic priests in the Boston Archdiocese did not.

Children were betrayed by priests, bishops, parents, lawyers, journalists and the buddy culture of men in power. The message: These kids did not have a chance, and it is no wonder they are angry and suffer from severe post-traumatic stress, among many other related problems.

After one walks out of the theater, the inevitable next thought is: We must do better by our children. The same thought has entered Pennsylvania’s consciousness following the three Philadelphia District Attorney grand jury reports on abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, as well as the attorney general grand jury reports on abuse at Penn State and in the Altoona-Johnstown Archdiocese.

Yet one continues to see deep frustration on the faces of survivors from all corners of Pennsylvania as the bishops hit high-gear lobbying against the victims’ access to justice through statute of limitations reform.

The reports tell us that adults in power shredded children’s lives. True. Only the bishops and their insurers, however, have routinely leveled an additional, knock-out blow to each victim, either through scorched-earth litigation tactics or by lobbying to keep the perpetrators from justice. The trauma these survivors (and their families) already suffered is compounded by the litigation and legislative tactics of the bishops.

The sex abuse alone can cause lifelong debilitating effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression; unemployment; alcohol, drug or sex addiction; and suicide. Children can’t process sex abuse when it happens, and it is simply a scientific truth that multiple factors including shame, guilt and changes in their neurobiology delay victims’ disclosure of abuse until well into adulthood.

The Catholic survivors are subjected to traumatic betrayal twice. First, when the sexual abuse occurs. Second, when society locks them out of the courthouse, and the padlock stays in place because the bishops lobby to keep the doors locked.

When a survivor finally has the support and courage to come forward, it is devastating to check on legal options only to learn that the doors remain padlocked, because elected officials defer to the hierarchy that betrayed the victims in the first place.

This endless betrayal is a potent destroyer that also can and has resulted in the destruction of survivors’ lives, as well as the lives of their families.

Penn State officials’ handling of the sex abuse by Jerry Sandusky is no model of moral best practices except, perhaps, when compared with the bishops’ merciless treatment of abuse survivors who wish to bring predator priests to justice and dare to seek their day in court from all those who caused them to suffer.

Penn State did not respond to learning about Sandusky’s horrific behavior by mounting a public relations campaign to smear victims and hire lobbyists to make sure victims couldn’t get to court. You don’t find Penn State lobbyists lurking at press conferences and hearings backing the bills that would revive expired statutes of limitations. They aren’t quoted about why it is so unfair to hold Penn State responsible for the abuse on its campus and in its showers.

By and large, Penn State sat down and settled with the victims instead of dragging them through the entire legal process. If all responsible institutions were to do that and accept their responsibility for the costs of the abuse (and it is only fair those costs are shifted from victims to the ones who caused the abuse), the survivors would have to deal with only one excruciating round of trauma instead of the relentless triggering that is inherent in the current bishops’ choice of callous disregard followed by either hardball litigation tactics for the small number in statute and cold-hearted lobbying against every other victim’s (whether Catholic or not) access to justice.

The Catholic bishops have locked themselves into a position of rigid opposition to victims in the legislatures and the courtrooms. Who exactly has benefited from that?

To be sure, the insurance industry that enjoyed collecting premiums for abuse that was never disclosed. But the industry also has sunk untold millions into lobbying against legislation that is inevitable instead of using those resources to improve future protection of children.

The irrefutable logic of statute of limitation reform will inevitably work its way through state after state. If the insurance industry were to set and enforce high standards for employers on child protection instead of canceling sex abuse coverage altogether and resisting justice for the abuse that already occurred, we might avoid repeats of these horrific scandals. That is how risk could be managed intelligently.

Right now, the insurance lobbyists are part of the problem as they aid the bishops in their hide-under-a-rock strategy.

So how can we understand the bishops and the legislators who accede control over child protection to them, like Pennsylvania state Representative Ron Marsico? Is their narcissism and sense of entitlement so great that they are willing to continue to traumatize abuse victims for the sake of the church’s reputation and finances? Are these men the paragons of virtue and morality that the church would have us believe?

They are clearly in conflict with Pope Francis’s admonition in Philadelphia when addressing clergy sex abuse victims: “I pledge to you that we will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead. Clergy and bishops will be held accountable when they abuse or fail to protect children.” It is likely that they are, unlike Pope Francis, all too similar to ordinary leaders corrupted by power and tragically blind to their constituents’ pain.

Members seem to fear voter backlash if they side with survivors, but when a poll was conducted in New York asking Catholics and other voters if they favored statute of limitation reform, solid majorities sided with the survivors and statute of limitation revival. The poll numbers are reinforced by the fact that the primary and most vocal window sponsor in New York, Assemblywoman Marge Markey, has been repeatedly re-elected with large margins—despite the bishops’ robo-calls against her.

It is time for the trauma to end and the healing to begin, and both demand the justice that can only be gained through reviving expired civil statutes of limitations and, going forward, eliminating the criminal and civil statutes of limitation for child sex abuse. Then society can answer the call of Spotlight to actually protect our children.

Editor’s note: The New York Daily News ran two articles here and here that highlight more survivors’ struggles to get justice and the obstacles that short statutes of limitations create.

23-month-old victim contracted HIV, herpes, chlamydia

from Eye Witness News 7, Los Angeles

HOUSTON -- David Wilson was found guilty of child sex assault in a Houston court.

Wilson, a previous sex offender, was accused of molesting two young girls. The jury deliberated about an hour.

Wilson was found guilty of the sexual assault of a child in 2005 and sentenced to four years in prison. Six years later, Wilson has been found guilty again in a case that has lifelong consequences for two more children.

He was charged with super aggravated sexual assault of a child. The enhanced charge is because of the age of the victim. She was only 23 months old at the time. We have also been told that the child is Wilson's niece.

A court document states that the assault occurred last year. The toddler's parents are said to have lived out of state, had drug problems and sent their daughter to live with family in Houston. The child is the daughter of Wilson's sister.

Last November, the toddler was taken to a doctor, where she was diagnosed with HIV, genital herpes and chlamydia. Reconstructive surgery was performed because of infection to her private parts. A doctor told investigators that she had to have been sexually abused because of the sexually transmitted diseases that were detected.

Four people in the home where the child lived were tested. Only one tested positive for HIV. It was David R. Wilson. It's unclear why Wilson was not arrested at the time.

A 14-year-old girl spoke to the Children's Assessment Center, telling a caseworker she had been having sex with a man for two years. She identified the man as David R. Wilson and said she was pregnant. An exam of the girl showed that she was HIV positive, had herpes and chlamydia.

http://abc7.com/news/man-convicted-in-sex-assault-of-toddler-niece/1250949/

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Letter and article both below

Letter from Horace Mann teachers

The Riverdale Press

To The Horace Mann Record and administration:

When your old students — forever young to you — step up to call their alma mater to account, you must celebrate the justice of their cause and stand right there beside them.

Recent letters in The Horace Mann Record by distressed alumni, Marc Fisher’s article in The New Yorker, Amos Kamil’s 2012 New York Times Sunday Magazine and New York Magazine articles and now the publication of his “Great Is The Truth” document the revelations of sexual abuse at Horace Mann. All call on the school to abandon its misguided and heartless institutional defense and to do the right thing: embrace an independent investigation of what happened in its formerly hallowed halls.

As former teachers at Horace Mann in the dark then about decades of abusive faculty, our colleagues and predecessors, and sickened by the harms chased to ground by committed alumni, brave survivors and their friends, we are eager for the school to make public how it was possible for years of rampant sexual abuse by scores of predatory faculty to take place.

For instance, a male teacher in his forties brings a girl student to a faculty party: this is an enormous red flag, yet the abuser was not reprimanded by the department head or by faculty members or by anyone in the administration. How could this happen? What kind of school culture existed that prevented people from doing then what was morally right and from protecting our students, Horace Mann’s greatest asset? Why wouldn't the school and its board want to hear all the truth, to look underneath that rock, to ensure it is doing now what is morally right? Its cornerstone will only become more secure when the rot is exposed.

The school’s current stonewalling, its retreat from a public airing of this miserable history, is a position difficult to justify when it insists at the same time on its good stewardship of the current student body. Willful, self-serving ignorance cannot be bliss nor bland, uninformed assurances reliable guarantees. But Horace Mann can be a great school when it not only gives its students an extraordinary academic education in a safe environment, but also when it examines and corrects the prevailing atmosphere that enabled these events to occur.

Publication of this letter is a strong step in the right direction.

Horace Mann faculty:
Maryanne Bonello Boettjer (1970 to 1978)
Joyce Fitzpatrick [Leana] (1974 to 1983)
Jo Anderson Strouss (1968 to 1984)
Gary J. Tharp (1968 to 1975 Barnard, English Department head; Horace Mann, 1975 to 1981)
Bruce Weber (1978 to 1981)
Cynthia Rivellini D’Urso (1978 to 1987)
Genevieve Castelain [Vergerio] (1983 to 1984)
Richard Warren (1965 to 1979)
Elisabeth Sperling (1990 to 2004)
Ricki Ivers Lopez (1970 to 1973)
Carmen San Miguel (1968 to 1971, 1987 to 1999)
Jane Genth (Horace Mann, 1987-1999; Riverdale Country School, 1962 to 1964; Fieldston, 1967-1983)
David Rocks (1983 to 1984)
Michael Passow, HM ’66 (1976 to 1985)

The signatories sent this letter to Horace Mann’s student newspaper, The Horace Mann Record, on Jan. 27, but received no confirmation it was published and editions posted online since then do not include the letter.

http://riverdalepress.com/stories/Horace-Mann-teachers-demand-justice,59458

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Former Horace Mann teachers call for probe

by Isabelle Angell, The Riverdale Press

Nearly four years after the news of widespread sexual abuse at Horace Mann became public, a group of former faculty members have added their voices to the call for the school to cooperate with an independent investigation into the scandal.

An investigation commissioned by the Horace Mann Action Coalition that proceeded without help from the school identified 64 credible victims of abuse at the school between 1962 and 1996. The report implicated 22 staff members.

In what was originally a letter to the editor of student newspaper The Horace Mann Record, 14 former teachers urged the school to provide a path to healing for the community and open itself up to an investigation.

“I can't speak for the other signatories, but it seemed important to give support to those who have spoken up already,” said Joyce Fitzpatrick, who wrote an early draft of the letter. She taught at Horace Mann from 1974 to 1983.

“There have been letters in The Record from our students who are now adults, and that was part of the impetus,” she said.

However, it appears the letter was not published in The Record. Ms. Fitzpatrick said she emailed the letter to the paper’s staff on Wednesday, Jan. 27. The following Friday paper, Issue 16, is not available in the online archive. The letter does not appear in any of the subsequent issues.

Horace Mann staff did not respond to inquiries asking why Issue 16 was not made public, or if it was ever published in the first place.

In a phone interview last week, Ms. Fitzpatrick said she did not know if The Record published the letter because she never received a response from the newspaper staff. She noted she had never submitted a letter to the paper before, so she does not know what its policy is for communicating with letter writers.

“I couldn't speculate if [the letter] might not be to the school’s taste,” she said. “But I cannot imagine the earlier letters from alumni were any more palatable and they were published.”

In the Nov. 6, 2015 issue, The Record published a letter to the editor from two alumni who had been abused during their time at Horace Mann. The survivors, Jon Seiger and Joseph Cumming, had been incorrectly named as proponents of renaming the school’s sports field as “Alumni Field” in an article. Known most recently as “Main Field,” for many years it was called “Clark Field” in honor of longtime headmaster R. Inslee Clark, who has since been named as a perpetrator of abuse.

Their letter addressed the inaccuracy, called on the school to meet with survivors and advocated for the independent investigation.

“There is a constructive way to move forward toward healing and eventually to an on-campus memorial. Since the abuse was revealed publicly in 2012, many in the HM community, including the Survivors’ Group, the Alumni Council, and The Record’s former Editor-in-Chief (in a May 2014 opinion piece), have called upon the school’s leadership to provide a public accounting and acknowledgment of what happened, based on the memories of current and former school personnel and based on the school’s own files,” Mr. Seiger and Mr. Cumming wrote in their letter.

Exonerating effect

In a phone interview Tuesday, Mr. Seiger, who was allegedly abused by eight teachers at Horace Mann including Mr. Clark, said he was aware of the letter signed by the former teachers and that their support was important.

“It’s not at all surprising that there were good people mixed in with the bad people, but it’s nice to know that there’s that many of them,” he said.

He noted that several teachers had tried to report abuse cases while they were happening, but they took their complaints to Mr. Clark — himself an abuser.

“The ones who tried to say stuff back then were completely shut down,” he said.

Mr. Cumming said the chief concern of the survivors has been an independent investigation done with the school’s cooperation to determine who knew what, and when, and to have former faculty sign a letter supporting such action was validating.

“It’s important to remember that the large majority of teachers were completely innocent. It has been very painful for current and retired faculty who have felt discredited by a cloud of suspicion. Some of the teachers who signed the letter were my best teachers at Horace Mann. They have the right to have their names cleared,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday. “One of the things an independent investigation would achieve is it would exonerate the innocent.”

Mr. Seiger said that while an independent investigation would force the school to admit it covered up the abuse at the time, he personally also sees other ways for survivors like himself to heal. He mentioned last year’s Hilltop Cares benefit concert, which raised money for survivors’ therapy bills, and his own communications with current Head of School Thomas Kelly.

“We are working on a path forward and talking about starting to get together with Tom Kelly, the school and survivors,” he said.

http://riverdalepress.com/stories/Horace-Mann-teachers-demand-justice,59458

Commentary

Phila. archdiocese committed to preventing abuse, aiding survivors

by Charles Chaput, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia - Philly.com

Adults have a duty to love and protect children. Yet not a day goes by when we don't hear a story about children abused by someone they know and trust. Perpetrators cover a very wide spectrum, from parents to coaches to teachers to clergy. But especially bitter for the statewide Catholic community is a March 1 grand jury report detailing historical abuses that took place in Western Pennsylvania's Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

This news brings back ugly feelings for so many within our archdiocese, which learned its own lessons about child sexual abuse the hard way. The most important lesson is that the persons who suffer most in these tragedies are the survivors and their families. I've met personally with many survivors over the years. Their stories and experiences are intensely painful. I am deeply sorry for all they've endured, for the past failures of the Church, and for the role it has played in their suffering.

When I arrived here more than four years ago, we committed the archdiocese to do all it can to support survivors on their path toward healing and to create Church and school environments to protect our young people and keep them from harm.

My predecessor, Cardinal Justin Rigali, had already started by hiring respected professionals - experts from the victim-services and law-enforcement communities - to establish and implement best practices. Their charge was based on two simple requirements: Law-enforcement authorities must be notified immediately and properly when any allegation of abuse is made; and survivors need to be cared for professionally and with compassion.

We've made progress. Today, the archdiocese has a zero-tolerance policy for clergy, lay employees, and volunteers who engage in misconduct with children, and it takes immediate action when an accusation is made. Any allegation of abuse must be reported immediately to law enforcement, and any substantiated allegation against a member of the clergy results in immediate removal from ministry.

Every year, our Victim Assistance Program offers substantial support to individuals and families. During the 2014-2015 fiscal year alone, the archdiocese dedicated more than $1.7 million to underwrite counseling, to provide medication, to eliminate barriers to receiving support such as travel and child care, and to provide other forms of support to survivors and their families.

Parents and families need to have confidence that their children are protected. To meet that need, members of our archdiocese play an important role every day in creating safe environments for anyone who participates in our parish, school, service, or recreational activities. Our Office for Child and Youth Protection provides mandatory training and educational efforts to clergy, staff, and volunteers on how to recognize improper conduct and report abuse or inappropriate behavior.

Since 2003, more than 92,000 adults in our archdiocesan community have received training to recognize, respond to, and report child abuse. And every year, more than 100,000 children receive age-appropriate abuse prevention education. These efforts are constantly reviewed, improved, and built upon. Next month, we launch a new education program in our diocesan schools, grades 9-12, focused on healthy relationships called "TeenTalk: Lessons to Empower Youth in a Modern World."

We know that preventing new cases of abuse requires vigilance. We're blessed by the dedication of more than 280 designated safe environment coordinators who work in our parishes, schools, and ministries to ensure compliance with laws and our own archdiocesan policies. Even before Pennsylvania law recently changed as a result of the work of the Task Force on Child Protection, the archdiocese had already required all people working with children, including volunteers, to undergo background checks and child-abuse clearances, attend safe environment and mandated reporter training programs, as well as report any suspicions of child abuse to the proper legal authorities.

This is a huge task, and I'm grateful to all of our safe environment coordinators and everyone in our parishes and schools for the work they do on the front lines, for their valuable input to our Office for Child and Youth Protection, and most importantly for their advocacy on behalf of our diocesan children. Their efforts have woven safety, prevention, and healing into the fabric of our diocesan life.

As part of our continued efforts, next month we will join with many others to mark Child Abuse Prevention Month with special events and education programs. But our work of helping survivors heal, protecting our people, and purifying the Church will go on - permanently.

Charles J. Chaput is archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. commof@archphila.org

The archdiocese encourages anyone who needs to make a report of sexual abuse of a child by an archdiocesan priest, deacon, lay employee, or volunteer to contact their local law enforcement agency and/or the Archdiocesan Office of Investigations at 1-888-930-9010.

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160318_Commentary__Phila__archdiocese_committed_to_preventing_abuse__aiding_survivors.html

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Pennsylvania

Protect public-school students from sex abuse, too

by Rick Hinshaw, Philly.com

The problem with Pennsylvania Rep. Thomas P. Murt's House Bill 951, which would open a two-year window for sexual-abuse victims who missed the statute of limitations to file civil claims, is that it affords no protection for children abused in public school settings ("Change the law in Pa. to hold child abusers accountable," Monday).

Public schools and public school personnel are protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which shields government entities from civil suits in most instances.

This injustice is even more egregious in Pennsylvania. In 2014, Drive West Communications, which tracks this issue nationwide, found that Pennsylvania has the second-worst record in the country in terms of children being abused by public school teachers. Any legislation purporting to protect innocent children must end this shameful double standard, which targets private and religious entities while protecting abusers in public schools and discriminating against their child victims.

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160317_Letter__Protect_public-school_students_from_sex_abuse__too.html

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Attorney General to announce criminal charges in Johnstown Tuesday

by Ron Musselman, WJAC

Attorney General Kathleen Kane will be in Johnstown Tuesday morning to announce criminal charges related to a major investigation.

Pennsylvania's top prosecutor has not said what the announcement is about, but it's widely speculated the charges are related to findings from a grand jury report released by Kane two weeks ago.

That 147-page report claimed two Roman Catholic bishops in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by over 50 priests or religious leaders over a 40-year period.

Kane has said none of the alleged criminal acts can be prosecuted because some abusers have died, statutes of limitations have run their course and victims are too traumatized to testify.

Tuesday's news conference will be held at Pitt-Johnstown's Heritage Hall at 10:30 a.m. You can watch the news conference, in its entirety, on-air on 6News, and here online.

http://wjactv.com/news/local/attorney-general-to-announce-criminal-charges-in-johnstown-tuesday

Los Angeles Man Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison for Sexually Abusing Minors in Russia

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/los-angeles-man-sentenced-150-years-prison-sexually-abusing-minors-russia

Modern methods allow the Islamic State to keep up its systematic rape of captives under medieval codes.

by RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

DOHUK, Iraq — Locked inside a room where the only furniture was a bed, the 16yearold learned to fear the sunset, because nightfall started the countdown to her next rape.

During the year she was held by the Islamic State, she spent her days dreading the smell of the ISIS fighter’s breath, the disgusting sounds he made and the pain he inflicted on her body. More than anything, she was tormented by the thought she might become pregnant with her rapist’s child. It was the one thing she needn’t have worried about.

Soon after buying her, the fighter brought the teenage girl a round box containing four strips of pills, one of them colored red.

“Every day, I had to swallow one in front of him. He gave me one box per month. When I ran out, he replaced it. When I was sold from one man to another, the box of pills came with me,” explained the girl, who learned only months later that she was being given birth control.

It is a particularly modern solution to a medieval injunction: According to an obscure ruling in Islamic law cited by the Islamic State, a man must ensure that the woman he enslaves is free of child before having intercourse with her.

Islamic State leaders have made sexual slavery as they believe it was practiced during the Prophet Muhammad’s time integral to the group’s operations, preying on the women and girls the group captured from the Yazidi religious minority almost two years ago. To keep the sex trade running, the fighters have aggressively pushed birth control on their victims so they can continue the abuse unabated while the women are passed among them.

More than three dozen Yazidi women who recently escaped the Islamic State and who agreed to be interviewed for this article described the numerous methods the fighters used to avoid pregnancy, including oral and injectable contraception, and sometimes both. In at least one case, a woman was forced to have an abortion in order to make her available for sex, and others were pressured to do so.

Some described how they knew they were about to be sold when they were driven to a hospital to give a urine sample to be tested for the hCG hormone, whose presence indicates pregnancy. They awaited their results with apprehension: A positive test would mean they were carrying their abuser’s child; a negative result would allow Islamic State fighters to continue raping them.

The rules have not been universally followed, with many women describing being assaulted by men who were either ignorant of the injunction or defiant of it. But over all, the methodical use of birth control during at least some of the women’s captivity explains what doctors caring for recent escapees observed: Of the more than 700 rape victims from the Yazidi ethnic group who have sought treatment so far at a United Nationsbacked clinic in northern Iraq, just 5 percent became pregnant during their enslavement, according to Dr. Nagham Nawzat, the gynecologist carrying out the examinations.

It is a stunningly low figure given that the normal fertility rate for a young woman is between 20 percent and 25 percent in any given month, four to five times the rate that has been recorded so far, said Dr. Nezar Ismet Taib, who heads the Ministry of Health Directorate in Dohuk, which oversees the clinic where the victims are being treated.

“We were expecting something much higher,” he said.

The captured teenage girl, who agreed to be identified by her first initial, M., has the demeanor of a child and wears her hair in a bouncy ponytail. Shewas sold a total of seven times. When prospective buyers came to inquire about her, she overheard them asking for assurances that she was not pregnant, and her owner provided the box of birth control as proof.

That was not enough for the third man who bought her, she said. He quizzed her on the date of her last menstrual cycle and, unnerved by what he perceived as a delay, gave her a version of the socalled morningafter pill, causing her to start bleeding.

Even then, he seemed unsatisfied.

Finally he came into her room, closed the door and ordered her to lower her pants. The teenager feared she was about to be raped. Instead he pulled out a syringe and gave her a shot on her upper thigh. It was a 150milligram dose of DepoProvera, an injectable contraceptive, a box of which she showed to a reporter.

“To make sure you don’t get pregnant,” she recalled him saying.

When he had finished, he pushed her back onto the bed and raped her for the first time.

Ensuring Availability

Thousands of women and girls from the Yazidi minority remain captives of the Islamic State, after the jihadists overran their ancestral homeland on Mount Sinjar on Aug. 3, 2014. In the months since then, hundreds have managed to escape, returning to a community now living in tents in the plains of the yellow massif, hours from their former homes.

Many of the women interviewed for this article were initially reached through Yazidi community leaders, and gave their consent. All the underage rape victims who agreed to speak were interviewed alongside members of their family.

In its official publications, the Islamic State has stated that it is legal for a man to rape the women he enslaves under just about any circumstance. Even sex with a child is permissible, according to a pamphlet published by the group. The injunction against raping a pregnant slave is functionally the only protection for the captured women.

The Islamic State cites centuries-old rulings stating that the owner of a female slave can have sex with her only after she has undergone istibra’ — “the process of ensuring that the womb is empty,” according to the Princeton University professor Bernard Haykel, one of several experts on Islamic law consulted on the topic. The purpose of this is to guarantee there is no confusion over a child’s paternity.

Most of the Sunni scholars who ruled on the issue argued that the requirement could be met by respecting a period of sexual abstinence whenever the captive changes hands, proposing a duration of at least one menstrual cycle, according to Brill’s Encyclopedia of Islam.

In its own manual, the Islamic State outlines the abstinence method as one option. But it also quotes the minority opinion of a Tunisian cleric who in the 1100s argued that it was enough to fulfill merely the spirit of the law. That opens the way for other means, including modern medicine, to circumvent the waiting period.

A total of 37 women abducted by the Islamic State who agreed to be interviewed over three trips to northern Iraq described an uneven system:

Some fighters insisted on double and even triple forms of contraception, while others violated the guidelines entirely. Although it remains unclear why some hewed closely to the regulations while others flouted them, one emerging pattern was that women held by senior commanders were more likely to be given contraception, in contrast to those held by junior fighters, who perhaps were less versed on the rules.

J., an 18yearold, said she had been sold to the Islamic State’s governor of Tal Afar, a city in northern Iraq. “Each month, he made me get a shot. It was his assistant who took me to the hospital,” said J., who was interviewed alongside her mother, after escaping this year.

“On top of that he also gave me birth control pills. He told me, ‘We don’t want you to get pregnant,’” she said.

When she was sold to a more junior fighter in the Syrian city of Tal Barak, it was the man’s mother who escorted her to the hospital.

“She told me, ‘If you are pregnant, we are going to send you back,’” J. said. “They took me into the lab. There were machines that looked like centrifuges and other contraptions. They drew three vials of my blood. About 30 or 40 minutes later, they came back to say I wasn’t pregnant.”

The fighter’s mother triumphantly told her son that the 18yearold was not pregnant, validating his right to rape her, which he did repeatedly.

When that fighter tired of her, he gave her as a gift to his brother. Yet the brother did not take her back to have another blood test, forcing her to have sex without ascertaining whether she was carrying another man’s child. Several other women reported a similar set of circumstances, including being given birth control by some of their owners but not by others.

However, the low pregnancy rate, say medical professionals, is evidence that the rules intended to avoid pregnancy were more likely to have been applied than not.

In his office in Dohuk’s Ministry of Health Directorate, Dr. Taib, the physician tasked with overseeing the treatment of the hundreds of victims, was initially puzzled by the low pregnancy rate.

In other conflicts where rape has been used as a weapon of war, it has led to waves of unwanted pregnancies — either because the attackers did not use birth control or, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia, because they purposefully tried to impregnate their victims. One medical study of 68 Croatian and Bosnian rape victims found that 29 had become pregnant.

With more than 700 cases of rape recorded so far, Dr. Taib’s center has treated only 35 pregnancies. He expected to see at least 140. “Even higher than that, if you consider that these women had multiple partners and were raped every day over many months,” Dr. Taib said.

“I concluded that either they did an abortion before they came back or they used contraception. And if there were abortions, then there would have been physical signs,” which would have been noted by the gynecologist treating the returnees, he said. “There were no signs.”

A Fragile Protection

The prohibition surrounding pregnancy is perhaps the only instance when the codes that the jihadists were applying lined up with the concerns of their victims, who dreaded carrying their rapists’ children.

Ahlam, a middleaged woman who was kidnapped with her six children, said she had been not raped because she had been deemed unattractive.

Because she spoke Arabic, the Islamic State used her as an interpreter. One day, she was asked to chaperone a group of young Yazidi women to the hospital in Tal Afar, where each woman was given 150 milligrams of Depo Provera.

Over the months that followed, she said, she escorted in all around 30 victims to get the injection both in Tal Afar and later in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Twice she was asked to escort her own teenage daughter, who was raped by multiple fighters.

She explained the conflicted feelings she had at the time. “ISIS took our girls as slaves, only for sex,” Ahlam said, but the insistence on birth control brought some relief. “No one wants to carry the child of their enemy.”

Others described how the fighters so opposed pregnancy that some tried to force young women to abort.

Abdal Ali said his sister, 20, was in her second trimester at the time of her capture in 2014. Still, one commander so urgently wanted her as his slave that he tried to end the pregnancy by giving her pills that would cause her to miscarry.

“She hid them under her tongue, and then when they weren’t looking, she spit them out,” said Mr. Ali, who related the story on behalf of his sister because she is undergoing medical treatment abroad for the injuries she suffered. “They wanted to get rid of the child so that they could use the woman.”

A 20yearold who asked to be identified only as H. began to feel nauseated soon after her abduction. “The smell of rice made me gag,” she said.

Already pregnant at the time of her capture, she considered herself one of the fortunate ones. For almost two months, H. was moved from location to location and held in locked rooms, but she was spared the abuse that was by then befalling most of the young women held alongside her.

Despite being repeatedly forced to give a urine sample and always testing positive, she, too, was eventually picked.

Her owner took her to a house, shared by another couple. When the couple was present, he did not approach her, suggesting he knew it was illegal.

Only when the couple left did he forcibly have sex with her, and when he did he appeared drugged.

“I was telling him: ‘I'm pregnant. In your book it says that you can't do this.’ He had bloodshot eyes. He acted like he was high,” she said.

Eventually he drove her to a hospital with the aim of making her have an abortion, and flew into a rage when she refused the surgery, repeatedly punching her in the stomach. Even so, his behavior suggested he was ashamed:

He never told the doctors that he wanted H. to abort, instead imploring her to ask for the procedure herself.

When he drove her home, she waited until he left and then threw herself over the property’s wall. “My knees were bleeding. I was dizzy. I almost couldn't walk,” she said.

Weeks later, with the help of smugglers hired by her family, she was spirited out of Islamic State territory. Her belly was sticking so far out that she could no longer see her toes when she finally crossed to safety.

Her first child, a healthy baby boy, was born two months later.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/world/middleeast/to-maintain-supply-of-sex-slaves-isis-pushes-birth-control.html?_r=0

Legislators call on DAs to be aggressive going after abusive priests, Penn Live

by Ivey DeJesus

Fallout from the findings of a grand jury report released last week showing that the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese for decades knew and concealed the sexual abuse of hundreds of children at the hands of priests spilled into the Capitol on Wednesday.

Three state legislators called on all district attorneys across the commonwealth to aggressively pursue abusive Catholic priests.

They also took their gloves off after years of fighting to reform laws designed to empower victims of child sex abuse and vowed to once and for all advance reform legislation.

At a news conference in the state Capitol, state Reps. Mark Rozzi (D-Berks) and Tom Murt (R- Montgomery/Phila.) urged district attorneys throughout the state to pursue every possible lead that may lead to evidence in the investigation and prosecution of abusive priests.

Frank Burns, (D-Cambria), who was also scheduled to participate in the press conference, was unwell and unable to attend.

The legislators urged the local top law enforcement officials to, if necessary, subpoena records in child sex abuse cases, as well as conduct grand jury investigations wherever multiple allegations arise.

Their call for more aggressive efforts on part of law enforcement comes at the heels of a grand jury investigation report that details widespread abuse of hundreds of children over four decades by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

The two-year investigation yielded 115,042 documents - including handwritten notes, letters and personnel files - that showed that diocesan officials knew about the abuse and concealed it.

The report also implicated local law enforcement officials - including police officials and district attorneys - who at times looked the other way and failed to execute the full weight of their office in investigating allegations of abuse.

Rozzi urged district attorneys to investigate multiple allegations of clergy sex abuse, and even launch their own grand jury investigations.

"Not only a child was abused, the law was abused." - Rep. Mark Rozzi

"I don't think we are asking for too much here," said Rozzi, who is a survivor of clergy sex abuse. "I don't think we are asking DAs to do anything outside of the law."

He urged district attorneys to "uphold the law" and follow any evidence they have in order to expose abusive priests.

"How could any child ever get justice in that diocese," Rozzi said. "Not only a child was abused, the law was abused."

In an unequivocal show of determination, Rozzi and Murt took turns at the podium to say they would do all possible to advance legislation designed to protect and serve victims of child sex abuse.

Rozzi has for years sponsored legislation that would reform the statute of limitations and offer victims of child sex abuse a window of opportunity to come forward and seek justice.

His legislation - and a handful of other similar pieces of legislation both in the House and the Senate - have languished or failed to advance at every turn.

A current bill - House Bill 951, sponsored by Murt - would provide a two-year window for victims to seek civil action against abusers.

"The laws need to be change because the laws were abused," Rozzi said.

Such a measure was recommended not only by the grand jury in the Altoona-Johnstown case, but as well, the 2003, 2005 and 2001 grand juries out of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia clergy sex abuse case.

Yet another bill, introduced in the past, supports the complete elimination of criminal statutes in child sex abuse cases.

Rozzi said he and Murt were within "days or weeks" in seeking a discharge resolution, which would move the bill out of the House Judiciary Committee. Rozzi's previous proposed bills languished in the judiciary committee, which is chaired by Rep. Ron Marsico (R-Dauphin).

"We are giving Ron Marsico time to do what is right," Rozzi said. "We urge the chairman to do what is right."

Rozzi vowed to "take action" to ensure the bill advanced. He said that Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Wednesday assured him that the provisions of the bill were constitutional.

Shortly after the conclusion of the press conference, Marsico issued a statement in regard to the Altoona-Johnstown report and pending legislation.

"All of the members of the Judiciary Committee are horrified to learn of the recent allegations of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and our prayers go out to the victims and their families," he said in the statement.

Marsico said support abolishing the criminal statute of limitation for future criminal prosecutions.

"In addition, I further believe there should not be any differences between public or private entities in these situations," he wrote.

He said the judiciary committee planned to "work expeditiously to move legislation to strengthen our laws already in place" and send it to the House floor for a full vote.

Advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse have long contended that Marsico, among several lawmakers, are beholden to the powerful lobbying might of the Catholic Church, whose legislative branch in the Pennsylvania is the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference.

Officials from the conference have long said a major reform to the statutes would create an "unworkable situation." They point out that cases involving allegations from 30, 40 and 50 years ago would be difficult to try given that memories fade, evidence may be lost and perpetrators or witnesses may be deceased.

Rozzi on Wednesday said: "Our memories don't fade."

Murt said he had "engaged" Marsico in conversation about the legislation many times, even pleading with him. He said his entreaties had been "rebuffed with extreme prejudice."

Murt, who speculated that there may be "thousands, maybe millions" of victims of child sex abuse, noted that the average age of victims who come forth is 42. Many, he said, do not come forward and deal with the trauma of their abuse silently, often in destructive ways.

"Why would they?" Murt said. "The statute of limitations has expired. They can't charge their abuser criminally and they can't go after them in civil action."

The current proposed bill would give abuse victims up to age 50 to file a civil action against their abuser. Currently, that age limit is 30; the age limit for criminal prosecutions in these cases is 50.

Rozzi said that in recent days since the release of the grand jury report out of Altoona, he has been inundated with calls from victims of clergy sex abuse in that diocese.

Rozzi added that he gets calls from victims from all diocese, including Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

"We are very very passionate about this issue," he said. "This issue is about justice.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/03/altoona_diocese_priests_cathol.html

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Sexual Abuse Survivor Breaks Silence

by Kristen Dickerson

Tulsa, Oklahoma — The flag outside the state capitol was fluttering only half as hard as the heart of the woman sitting in the gallery for the meeting of the House committee on Criminal Justice and Corrections.

"I was extremely nervous, I really was," said Virginia Lewis.

A school teacher for 20 years, she's normally calm in front of a room full of people.

"Recognize Representative Rousselot for House Bill 2292," said Representative Pam Peterson.

But this was no ordinary room. Today she would be both teaching and testifying about sexual abuse.

"This is the first time I have gone public with my story," Virginia testified.

A story which begins 34 years ago with an 11-year-old girl known as Ginger.

"I was probably like every other little girl. I adored my Dad," she said.

The smiles in the pictures from her childhood are genuine. But these photos were all taken before it began.

"The sexual abuse began when I was eleven years old and continued for five years, on a nearly daily basis. Usually, a horrifying visit in the early morning hours as the rest of the family slept," she said.

The room sat in a stunned silence, that would someone grow louder when she read some quotes from a handwritten letter.

"I knew what I was doing was wrong and was criminal but I did it anyway. I knew you trusted and adored me and I exploited that so I could keep on doing it without getting caught or without having to figure out what was wrong with me. I was satisfying my own sexual needs at your expense." Those are the words of my father, George Michael Lewis, written to me," testified Virginia.

It's a letter signed "Love, Dad" and she has preserved it like evidence for a case that never came to be.

Michael Lewis received what's called a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, requiring an "acknowledgment of his misconduct," and "psychotherapy." In exchange, he would never face criminal charges. But, says Virginia, even if he hadn't gotten that deal...

"Even if he hadn't, he would probably still be free anyway because of the statute of limitations," she said.

Which is what House Bill 2292 is all about, extending the amount of time that child victims of sexual abuse have to come forward from 12 to 18 years.

"There is no time table on my recovery, there's no statute of limitations on my recovery, and there should not be any statute of limitations on the time in which an individual has to come forward," she said.

And that is the main theme of her new role as an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, launching her website ToPrevail.org in conjunction with her testimony before the House.

"I welcome the opportunity to speak to any group, schools, churches, anybody who wants to hear my story," she said.

As for Michael Lewis' story? His life as a high-powered attorney would take a turn recently as Tulsa's Channel 8 launched an investigation. On Friday, March 4th, he was scheduled to teach a class called the Ethics of Representing Children for the organization Tulsa Lawyers for Children whose mission statement is "Protecting Rights of Abused Children."

When Tulsa's Channel 8 contacted TLC and informed them of Virginia's testimony, they replied; "Mr. Lewis is a well-respected attorney and supporter of TLC. In light of these allegations, he has voluntarily removed himself as lecturer for the March 4th TLC training,"- Elizabeth Carroll Hocker, Executive Director

When we reached out to Mr. Lewis himself he emailed that he "would appreciate it if you could put off airing this story for a couple of days..." Shortly after that, his profile page on his law firm's website was removed. And when we then contacted Doerner Saunders, Daniel & Anderson, they told us "Mr. Lewis is on an indefinite leave of absence from the firm." Mr. Lewis then emailed us again only to say he had no comment on his daughter's testimony.

But Virginia's testimony has received comments from survivors of sexual abuse.

"Even just since Wednesday I've heard from several survivors who have told me their story for the very first time," she said.

After her testimony at the capitol...

"I just, you're a modern day hero so thank you," said Rep. Peterson.

Lawmakers voted unanimously to pass the bill on to the next stage, as Virginia contemplates the next stage of her life.

"Well, I can tell you this, I'm in the best spot I've ever been," she said.

UPDATE : Tulsa's Channel 8 has received an email from Doerner Saunders, Daniel & Anderson stating the Mr. Lewis has resigned from the firm.

http://ktul.com/news/local/sexual-abuse-survivor-breaks-silence

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Startling Fact: Women in Prison Are More Likely Than Men to Have Been Abused and More

Women behind bars are more likely than men to have experienced child abuse, substance abuse, or have a family member in prison.

by Susan Buttenwieser

Since 1985, the number of women in prison has been increasing at nearly double the rate of men. A growing number of advocates and scholars—including formerly incarcerated women—are taking a closer look at the reasons, and what can be done to stem the tide. What's more, women of color are significantly overrepresented. In 2010, African American women were incarcerated at nearly three times the rate as white women, and Latina women were incarcerated at 1.6 times the rate.

A majority of women in prison have a history of abuse. This includes physical as well as sexual abuse, often occurring during childhood, as well as intimate partner violence.

“The rates of incarceration have been going up for women. …Why is that happening? What has led to this?” said Roberta Meyers, director of the National H.I.R.E. Network, which advocates for employment opportunities for people with criminal records. “Substance abuse has been a big part of this, as well as a women's history of victimization, trauma, and violence.”

Women behind bars are more likely than men to have a family history of substance abuse and felony convictions, to have an unstable childhood home life, and to originate from a low-income family.

“If you can't talk about what has happened in women's lives before they became involved in the criminal justice system, then you won't get a full picture that's needed to develop positive and effective solutions. The question about a history of abuse has to be asked and has to be part of assessment at the earliest stages of the criminal justice system and beyond,” said Meyers. “Over the past five years, there is more of a discussion about trauma and how trauma impacts women. From a policy standpoint, there has been a shift. When there is a discussion about incarceration and arrest rates and gender, trauma now comes up in the conversation, and looking at what women need, and that's critical.”

Advocates for incarcerated and abused women have been pushing for these kinds of questions to be considered in criminal justice reforms, and they're starting to find traction. In New York State, the proposed Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act would allow judges to give lower sentences or community-based alternatives to incarceration to survivors of domestic violence. “Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women have played a central role in advocating for this bill,” said Gail Smith, director of the Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association. “Women nationwide are often incarcerated if they fail to protect their children from their abusers. If they harm their abusers to save their children, they are prosecuted, but if they fail to do so, they are incarcerated for allowing the children to be injured.”

Other states have passed legislation that can help women who have been abused. “Several states build in the defendant's experience of abuse as a mitigating factor in their sentencing laws,” said Cindene Pezzell, legal coordinator for the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women. “Alaska has such a law that was passed in 1991. Some states have probation/parole provisions for survivors. California's 2002 habeas law provides relief (usually a new trial) for incarcerated domestic violence victims who didn't have relevant expert testimony on battering and its effects presented at their trials. Georgia has a pending bill that would give judges the discretion to deviate from mandatory minimum sentences if the defendant can show she's a victim of abuse.”

Women are more likely than men to be incarcerated for crimes associated with substance abuse. “There is a direct correlation between women's childhood victimization and adult addictions,” said Julie Rosenzweig, an expert in trauma stress and professor emerita of social work at Portland State University. “Addictions are often used as a coping strategy to manage trauma. Property crimes and sex work can be a way of supporting the addiction, and may also be a part of intimate partner violence.”

Women often begin their entry into the criminal justice system when they are girls. In fact, the number of girls in the juvenile justice system has been increasing steadily over the past two decades. Girls of color are also overrepresented in the juvenile justice system. For example. African American girls constitute 14 percent of girls in the US, but make up one third of detained and committed girls. And Native American girls are 1 percent of the general population of girls but 3.5 percent of detained and committed girls.

A 2015 University of Texas at Austin study found that girls are often held in juvenile facilities for less serious offenses—running away, truancy, and curfew violations—than boys and for longer periods of time. Girls are also more likely than boys to have been abused.

“Trauma causes girls to enter the system in the first place, keeps them there, and needs to be addressed in order to help them,” said Lisa Pilnik, deputy executive director of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. “Trauma is often the reason we see girls committing offenses. Many have experienced trauma or may even have post-traumatic stress disorder and are reacting to that. Traumatized girls might just be trying to protect themselves, but it can come off as disrespectful or misinterpreted as aggressive.”

Locking up girls with a history of abuse in juvenile facilities instead of providing them with treatment and services can have devastating impacts. “When law enforcement views girls as perpetrators ... the cost is twofold,” states The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls' Story, a 2015 report by the Human Rights Project for Girls, Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, and the Ms. Foundation for Women. “[G]irls' abusers are shielded from accountability, and the trauma that is the underlying cause of the behavior is not addressed.”

Incarcerated women also have greater incidences of mental health problems and serious mental illness than men. Women's Pathways to Jail: Examining Mental Health, Trauma and Substance Use, a national 2013 study by Shannon Lynch, Dana DeHart, Joanne Belknap, and Bonnie Green, found that a majority of incarcerated women had at least one mental health disorder, and 82 percent had a lifetime substance use disorder. Most of the women experienced multiple types of adversity and interpersonal violence in their lives.

“Multiple forms of violence and chronic violence is poly-victimization—which means it happens so much that your basic expectation is that there are few if any safe places, and that can contribute to making bad or illegal choices as an adult,” said Shannon Lynch, department chair and professor of clinical psychology at Idaho State University.

But the reasons why women and girls might become involved with illegal activity are still usually not addressed when they come into contact with the criminal justice system. “One of the most harmful aspects of our system is that we tend to criminalize women's survival strategies—the ways they cope with abuse and trauma,” said Dana DeHart, assistant dean for research at the University of South Carolina College of Social Work. “So girls may run away from home or use drugs as a means of escaping abuse—escaping physically or mentally. Then these same behaviors are considered delinquent or criminal acts. Systems are starting to change, so many states are enacting juvenile justice reform so that children are not labeled delinquents and are instead connected with the services they need. Similarly, we often see women incarcerated for assaults against abusive partners, when ideally it would have been preferable to stop the woman from being assaulted through legal action against the abuser. This is not to say that women are not culpable when they assault someone without provocation, as there are other ways of addressing relationship violence, but our systems often fail these women when they reach out for help.”

Prosecuting and incarcerating women with a history of abuse can have negative implications that last even after they have completed their sentences. “Women's experiences throughout the criminal justice system, from prior to arrest, through to charging, through to the conviction, during incarceration, and upon reentry, are often re-traumatizing for women,” said Julia Yoshimoto, attorney and director of the Women in Prison Project and Reentry Law Project at Oregon Justice Resource Center. “If the criminal justice system is re-traumatizing them in great and small ways throughout the process, then they are returning to the community with more to overcome than before they entered the system and not well-equipped to be successful in the community.”

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/startling-fact-women-prison-are-more-likely-men-have-been-abused-and-more

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Pennsylvania

Sexual Violence Awareness Week set to start Monday

by Alison Kunitz

One in 16 male college students will be personally affected by sexual violence, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. For female college students, the figure narrows to one in five reported cases of sexual assault.

Though Sexual Assault Awareness Month will shed light on these statistics in April, Jennifer Pencek, programming coordinator at the Center for Women Students, said Penn State is getting a head start on education and advocacy programming.

Organized by the University Park Undergraduate Association's Sexual Violence Awareness and Prevention Roundtable, various events will be hosted across campus beginning today through April 1 as part of Sexual Violence Awareness Week.

“While this is just a week, I think it's definitely an important tool that we can all use so there's always that opportunity to raise awareness,” said Pencek, who is a representative on the roundtable. “I think it just adds to everything that Penn State and the Center for Women Students does throughout the year in terms of education, getting people involved and trying to make sure that people are aware of all the great resources, as well.”

Men Against Violence Coordinator and roundtable representative Tim Donovan said he is “first and foremost” excited for Walk a Mile in Her Shoes.

The event, which kicks off Sexual Violence Awareness Week at noon today in Alumni Hall, will primarily feature men walking up and down Pollock Road in “giant” red heels.

“It's difficult for men to walk in heels because they've never done it before,” Donovan (graduate-higher education) said. “That's easy compared to what someone who's affected by sexual assault goes through.”

Donovan said the event, though silly at first glance, serves as a good metaphor.

The male participants strive to take a stand against sexual violence and advocate for consensual sex, Donovan said.

Even as more Penn State students become aware of the issues surrounding sexual assault, Donovan said he worries people still may not realize the majority of incidents occur in familiar settings and not in the dark alleys seen in movies.

“People are being harmed physically and mentally by this, and we wouldn't stand around if we could see the problem so blatantly,” he said.

Another highlight of the week will feature a keynote address given by Eve Ensler, the founder of the “Vagina Monologues” and “V-Day.”

Pencek said Ensler will discuss topics that are “definitely” relatable to college students during her speech at 6:30 p.m. tonight in Alumni Hall.

“For [Ensler's] keynote, she's going to talk about the impact of violence against women and against all victims globally,” Pencek said. “She'll also talk about how important it is to get involved with issues like this and probably talk about her journeys as well.”

Besides attending Ensler's event, Pencek said she is looking forward to the Vulnerable Art and Trauma Survivorship at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Palmer Museum of Art.

“A feminist art education researcher will do a presentation on how sexual violence and trauma is kind of depicted in art over the years, but really relate that to what's going on currently,” she said.

Film screenings will also take place during the week, followed by conversations related to sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention, Donovan said.

“Tough Guise 2” will be shown at 8 p.m. tomorrow in the Freeman Auditorium and the “Pursuit of Truth: Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Seeking Justice” will be shown at 8 p.m. Thursday in Waring Commons.

“[Tough Guise 2 is] important because it shows how masculinity feeds into this culture where sexual violence is accepted and perpetrated,” Shannon Rafferty, a former representative on the roundtable, said.

The week will culminate with a gala at 6 p.m. Friday in the Hintz Family Alumni Center, with all proceeds benefiting the Centre County Women's Resource Center.

Rafferty (senior-history and political science) said in addition to a reception area, part of the Hintz will be set up as a “walkthrough of survivors' experiences.”

“It's broken up into four or five different scenes,” she said. “The first one is a party scene where the victim and the perpetrator first meet. They're drinking together and the victim gets more drunk. It's kind of inferred that the rape then occurs.”

Pencek and Donovan said they hope students will become more involved in sexual violence activism after attending the events scheduled throughout the week.

“Overall, I just want students and the community just to see how there's a lot of help out there for people both before something happens and after,” Pencek said. “We all just need to care about each other. Even if you don't know the person standing next to you, look out for them.”

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_5022c418-f461-11e5-a1c7-8b8c79229a73.html

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Connectivcut

Boy Scouts Gear Up for Conn. Supreme Court Battle in Challenge to $12 Million Sex Abuse Verdict

Organization gears up to challenge Conn. sex abuse verdict

by Christian Nolan

A Connecticut Boy Scout who claimed he was sexually abused by his troop leader in the mid-1970s was awarded $12 million after a trial in late 2014. The verdict is believed to be the largest compensatory damages award against the Boy Scouts of America and the first Boy Scout sex abuse case to go to a jury verdict in the Northeast.

Now the national organization is asking the state Supreme Court justices to reverse the jury's decision. In a case schedule for oral argument April 1, BSA officials are arguing that they should not be held liable for the actions of the Scout leader, because they were unaware of his propensity for sexual misconduct. The national organization argues that, if courts hold it liable for all similar instances of abuse, it very well could go out of business.

The ultimate ruling by the Connecticut justices could affect how Boy Scout sex abuse cases are handled going forward, not only in Connecticut but nationally. That's the opinion of three advocacy groups—the National Center for Victims of Crime, the National Crime Victim Law Institute and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests—who have joined forces to submit an amicus brief.

"The jury awarded damages to [the victim] in this case based on evidence that the physical and emotional injuries inflicted on him resulted in a lifetime of impaired function, including the inability to effectively work or maintain relationships, and behaviors which led to incarceration," wrote lawyers for the three groups. "This court's determination of the issues present in this appeal will have a substantial impact on the ability of child abuse victims to hold accountable the youth-serving organizations responsible for their abuse."

In 2010, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) were hit with the largest verdict to date in a sexual abuse case. An Oregon man, Kerry Lewis, who had been abused as a 12-year-old Scout, was awarded $18.5 million.

That case revealed the existence of the organization's "Ineligible Volunteer Files" (IVFs), which have come to be known as the "perversion files." The secret files indicated that the BSA knew it had problems with pedophiles among scoutmaster ranks as far back as the 1920s. Between 1960 and 1985, the names of at least 26 Connecticut scoutmasters were placed in those files.

After the existence of the files became public in 2012, dozens of lawsuit were filed against the BSA nationwide. That same year, Oregon's Lewis and five other sexual abuse victims settled with the Boy Scouts for an undisclosed amount. Lewis' lawyers said, by settling, they were avoiding several years of fighting appeals.

Because the large Oregon verdict was never formally challenged, there is no appellate case law on whether the BSA can be held liable for the action of individual scoutmasters. And so attorneys across the country are looking at how the Connecticut Supreme Court rules.

Wesley Horton, of Horton, Shields & Knox in Hartford, is handling the appeal for the Boy Scouts. Horton, who declined to comment for this story, suggests in court documents that the Boy Scouts of America might have to stop providing the activities that for decades have benefited America's youth, if the organization is held liable for decades-old sexual abuse by individual Scout leaders.

"The organization had no inkling that the perpetrator would abuse anyone, and there is no proof that the organization had an abuse problem any greater than society in general, and, indeed, it was actually ahead of the curve in creating the IVFs to keep abusers out of its programs," Horton wrote. "The plaintiff has not explained how the BSA would have prevented [the troop leader] from abusing the plaintiff. One possible response would be suffocating supervision … or without it, parental withdrawal of their children from Scouting programs. … Neither alternative would provide societal benefits that would come close to offsetting the resultant costs."

Paul Slager, of Silver, Golub & Teitell in Stamford, handled the Waterbury trial that resulted in the $12 million verdict, along with Jennifer Goldstein of the same firm. Though he declined to be interviewed, Slager argues in is Supreme Court briefs that public policy dictates that the BSA be held liable, especially in light of its "secret hoard of information about sexual abuse."

"BSA had long been aware of widespread sexual abuse of boys during Scouting activities across the country, including throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and as of the 1970s BSA had more information about child sexual abuse and how and when it occurred than any public police department, municipality or law enforcement agency," Slager argues.

The plaintiff's lawyers argue that, rather than using the information in the confidential files to inform and educate local troop leaders, parents and young Scouts about sexual abuse, the national organization hid the information, partly out of concern for protecting its image.

"Despite knowing of youth-on-youth and other widespread sexual abuse in Scouting, BSA placed the plaintiff in a program that put him alone in isolated overnight situations with his patrol leader, a leader whom BSA made an important authority figure and whom BSA instructed plaintiff to trust and obey," continued Slager. "BSA's actions created a power relationship that placed the younger vulnerable plaintiff at risk. [The] molestation of plaintiff was both predictable to and preventable by BSA."

Slager contends that the BSA's arguments that it might have to curtail activities, if it is held liable in sex abuse cases, "are transparent attempts to appeal to popular anti-litigation bias as a way of avoiding its legal responsibility."

The $12 million verdict stemmed from a trial on the complex litigation docket in Waterbury. The jury awarded the plaintiff $7 million in compensatory damages, then a judge later awarded $5 million more in prejudgment interest, attorney fees and other costs.

The plaintiff, referred to as John Doe throughout the case, was a member of a New Fairfield troop during the mid-1970s. He testified during the trial that he was sexually molested three times by Siegfried Hepp, a long-serving troop leader from New Fairfield. Doe said the abuse has led to an adult life full of substance abuse problems.

Evidence revealed that another boy in the troop also claimed to have been molested by Hepp around the same time. In 2000, years after the abuse at issue in this trial, Hepp pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual touching of a minor and received a seven-year suspended sentence and 20 years of probation. He's now a registered sex offender.

The victim filed his civil suit against the Boy Scouts of America and the Connecticut Yankee Council, the oversight body for the BSA in New Haven and Fairfield counties. The jury ultimately found that the local chapter was not responsible for the abuse. •

http://www.ctlawtribune.com/id=1202753252544/Boy-Scouts-Gear-Up-for-Conn-Supreme-Court-Battle-in-Challenge-to-12-Million-Sex-Abuse-Verdict?mcode=1202617073650&curindex=0

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Italy

Nun recounts rape, abuse by priest in memoir backed by Catholic Church

by Josephine McKenna

ROME — The Catholic Church, under scrutiny for its response to clergy sex abuse scandals, is backing the publication of an Italian nun's shocking account of her rape as a teenager and years of subsequent abuse by her parish priest in Milan.

The 40-year-old nun, who has not been identified, claims the unnamed priest raped her when she was 14 and continued to abuse her for another seven years.

The sensational book is titled, “Giulia and the Wolf: A Story of Sexual Abuse in the Church,” and it is due to be published in Italy on March 31 by Ancora, a Catholic publishing house.

The memoir is also being published with the backing of the Archdiocese of Milan, one of the largest and most influential in Italy. A priest, the Rev. Hans Zollner, who is a member of Pope Francis' panel on fighting clergy sexual abuse, has written the preface.

Graphic excerpts of the woman's abuse have been published in the Italian media. The nun, who goes by the name of Giulia — or Julia, in English — recounts her story in the first person to Italian journalist Luisa Bove.

“He had a kind and paternal way,” says the nun in one excerpt. “He invited me to undo my pants and then helped me take them off. He did the same with his underwear. I was ashamed, I was tense and I didn't know how to behave.”

The nun lives in a convent and has never before revealed the abuse she suffered.

“He was my spiritual guide. In the face of all his requests I didn't know how to say no. I know that something in me was dead, because he succeeded to do to me whatever he wanted,” she said.

The idea to publish the book came after Boston Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, head of the Vatican anti-abuse panel, spoke about clerical sexual abuse on a visit to Milan.

According to reports, the abusive priest worked for years in the Milan archdiocese and died recently.

The nun wrote that she encountered him several times as an adult. “He said to me ‘I have never forgotten. I hope you have forgiven me.' I replied impulsively, ‘Certainly many years ago.'”

But, she adds: “I discovered that forgiveness never occurred because I realized that we had never been two lovers, but a victim and a tormentor. Our relationship was one of abuse and violence. How was it possible to forgive him then? I never did, not even today.”

According to Italian media, the nun divulged her story to Church officials last year.

Despite his personal endorsement of the book, Zollner stressed that the Vatican had not officially backed its publication.

But Zollner, who also heads the Centre for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, told RNS that the book was significant.

“This is the first time a full story about clerical sexual abuse has been written in Italian by an Italian,” he said. “This is the first courageous statement of that kind. This should not be surprising when you see what Pope Francis did when he invited abuse victims into his home to meet them.

“It is not extraordinary that representatives of the Church endorse it. It should be honored and encouraged.”

Zollner's preface in the book is headlined “Victims must be heard,” and he congratulates the nun for her courage and resilience in telling her story.

Francis met victims of clerical sexual abuse at the Vatican and in Philadelphia during his visit to the United States in September. He set up the Vatican Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2014.

But Francis has continued to face criticism for not moving more quickly to discipline bishops suspected of covering up for abusers and for not yet establishing universal policies for churches to follow around the world.

http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/03/21/nun-recounts-rape-abuse-by-priest-in-memoir-backed-by-catholic-church/

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Oregon

Linn County Child Abuse Prevention Summit Friday

by Alex Paul

Virtually every person in Linn County can do something positive to held reduce child abuse, according to members of Linn County Child Abuse Network (CAN).

Linn County ranks seventh in the state in child abuse cases. In 2014, there were 363 confirmed cases of abuse in the county.

The third annual Child Abuse Prevention Summit will be held from 9 a.m. until noon on April 1 at the River Center in Lebanon.

In addition to information about developing a 90 by 30 program to reduce child abuse and neglect by 90 percent by 2030, there will be free showings of the “Darkness to Light” sexual abuse and awareness training.

The event is free.

Register at: www.unitedwayoflinncounty.org

Linn County CAN's motto is “Show a Child They Matter.”

“People from every single community in Linn County, from Mill City and Sweet Home to Albany, can play a major role in our goal of reducing and eliminating child abuse,” said Greg Roe of United Way of Linn County.

Linn County District Attorney Doug Marteeny said the group wants to “attack the root” of the child abuse problem and to shed light on it.

“There is a lack of priority when it comes to laws that protect children and behaviors toward our children,” Marteeny said. “We need to change that and put children first.”

Marteeny said the group is encouraging people to upload short videos to the Linn County Child Abuse Network Facebook page showing things they do to support children and let them know adults care about them.

Linn County CAN offers the following suggestions on how to do something positive in combating child abuse:

— Ask a school principal to host a Community Resource Night, so you and other parents can see what help your community offers.

— Join and participate in a support group.

— Be an ally for a new parent.

— Provide emotional support for someone in need.

— Plant a pinwheel awareness (child abuse prevention) garden.

— Organize a weekly or monthly play group.

— Join a “new parent” group.

— Offer to watch someone's child for a night.

— Create a local child abuse prevention group within your community.

— Create a “new parent kit.”

— Find a way to make services more accessible.

— Provide a listing of free family events in your area.

— Promote well-being and early intervention for children.

— Offer diversity training to promote cultural inclusion.

At schools:

— Promote prevention and wellness within schools.

— Hold class discussions on difficult topics such as bullying, stress, mental health and abuse.

— Organize a school-wide assembly about child abuse prevention.

— Plant a pinwheel garden.

http://democratherald.com/news/linn-county-child-abuse-prevention-summit-friday/article_36114262-91fb-587b-8bd1-d179050a8368.html

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New York

Child abuse can occur in several forms

by Dennis Nayor

One of the most heartwrenching components we deal with in law enforcement occurs when we respond to instances of child abuse and neglect. As police officers, we accept the fact that we are exposed to varying degrees of pain, suffering and tragedy on a daily basis. In order to properly function and perform our duties, we do our best to develop a thick skin and remain somewhat detached as we assist victims. When it comes to cases of child abuse, however, this becomes much more challenging.

Child abuse takes many forms. It can be physical abuse, emotional abuse and/or sexual abuse. In either situation, the effects will have a long-lasting impact on the life of a child, so we do our best to look hard at situations in which this may be occurring.

When we receive a report of suspected child abuse or neglect, we are trained to look for certain things. We look for physical signs of abuse such as bruising, scars, malnourishment, extreme fear, social withdrawal, etc. We also conduct interviews of those who may be involved or who may have direct knowledge. If we feel that abuse of any kind is occurring, we will notify Child Protective Services, which will assign a case worker to work collaboratively with us as we investigate the incident.

In cases of suspected long-term emotional, physical or sexual abuse, or in cases where outwards signs may not be readily available, we conduct forensic interviews of the child victim. These interviews are conducted in a safe and dedicated location known as a Child Advocacy Center and by trained members of law enforcement who have specialized knowledge concerning the proper techniques for interviewing child victims.

The objective of these interviews is not only to determine if abuse is occurring, but also to make certain that further traumatization of the child does not occur through the investigative process. The ultimate goal is to seek justice for the victim and to make sure that the abuse ends. Depending on the circumstances, sometimes this includes the removal of the child from the home in which the abuse is occurring.

Sadly, many instances of abuse go unnoticed or unreported, and as a result, the victimization continues. Oftentimes the ripple effect becomes long-term psychological problems, addiction and a continuation of abuse toward others. When we witness adults who continually break the law or commit violent acts, we realize that the behavior is likely rooted in the prior victimization of the offender, but unfortunately at that point the damage has been done. Clearly this is no longer an individual problem, but a societal one.

Another form of child abuse that society is realizing much more frequently involves human trafficking. This occurs for the purposes of sexual exploitation, labor or other illegal purposes. Through the use of fear, coercion and psychological manipulation, the victims oftentimes are stuck in this captivity, essentially being deprived of their lives. At every major police conference that I attend, the topic of human trafficking is discussed, so it is highly relevant.

As law enforcement officers, we (along with school employees, medical personnel, social service workers, day care providers, etc.) are mandated reporters. This means that we are required by New York State Social Service Law to report instances of suspected child abuse. Most mandated reporters report to us as police, and we as police report to Child Protective Services. This, however, does not preclude anyone who suspects child abuse from contacting the authorities.

I strongly feel that the driving force behind what we do in law enforcement is to protect people and help victims. Child victims are truly the most innocent of victims and need our help the most. If you suspect a child of being abused, please contact us at the Oneonta Police Department or your local law enforcement agency to investigate.

If you would like more information on this topic, please visit the state Office of Children and Family Services webpage at www.ocfs.ny.gov and click on the link that indicates “Report and Prevent Child Abuse.” You can also call toll-free at (800) 342-3720. We all have a duty to protect those who can't protect themselves and sometimes the life of a child may depend on it.

Dennis Nayor is police chief of the city of Oneonta.

http://www.thedailystar.com/opinion/columns/dennis-nayor-child-abuse-can-occur-in-several-forms/article_9db1219d-dbfd-5fc5-80b3-4dbbeec796dd.html

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Israel

Efforts to combat child sexual abuse are being stepped up

by JPost

Just by listening to the intensity with which Manny Waks talks, one begins to appreciate the ardor with which he approaches his work of tackling child sexual abuse within Jewish society.

Waks was a victim of such abuse growing up in the Chabad community of Melbourne in the late 1980s and early '90s, and this experience along with the obstacles he encountered bringing his story to light led him to become a leading activist for dealing with the problem as it manifests inside Jewish communities around the world.

“Those who experience sexual abuse themselves are often the ones most passionate about dealing with it because others don't fully understand or get it,” he told The Jerusalem Post last week. “The impact is profound and long term from a number of perspectives, and so often we are the ones who end up taking the mantle.”

In 2012, Waks established Tzedek, an Australia-based support and advocacy group for Jewish victims of child sexual abuse. He recently moved to Israel, and is setting up an organization called Kol V'Oz, to act as a central body for organizations throughout the Jewish world dealing with the issue.

Waks notes that there are numerous organizations facing the scourge in Jewish communities, and that the local groups are often best placed to deal with the particular concerns and incidents.

Kol V'Oz is designed to provide support, guidance and assistance to such organizations, helping them with professional development, offering best practice materials, and advising on policies in communal institutions such as schools, synagogues, mikvaot and sporting clubs in their relevant languages.

“This issue is rampant in society today and it's not unique to any particular segment of society,” he said, citing a figure that one in five children in the Western world will experience some form of child sexual abuse before age 18.

One area of focus which Waks has been trying to draw attention to is child sexual abuse within the haredi community.

He emphasized again that the phenomenon crosses all societal divides, but that different aspects of it are more pronounced in different communities, and that ultra-Orthodox society has its own unique problems concerning the issue.

“In the haredi community, the fact that they don't talk about child sexual abuse, and don't even talk about the issue of sex, increases vulnerability in that community,” he said.

The trust factor in the ultra-Orthodox community toward people with a significant communal profile is also an important factor.

“They trust a fellow Jew who has a big beard and prays three times a day and knows Torah, such a person has their full trust, and no one sees any reason to suspect that someone like that will harm kids,” he said.

During a meeting last week with Kulanu MK Yifat Shasha-Biton, the chairwoman of the Knesset's Special Committee for the Rights of the Child, Waks and other activists sought to emphasize the importance of tackling the issue within the haredi community.

The meeting was designed to lay the groundwork for a full committee hearing in the summer session of the Knesset to face this aspect of the problem.

Shasha-Biton and her committee have been active on the issue, and the MK highlighted another concern that can hinder efforts to help victims and prosecute offenders.

A concept of Jewish law which is often observed within haredi communities is that of “moser,” an injunction against cooperating with nonreligious law enforcement authorities instead of dealing with such issues in the rabbinical courts.

Shasha-Biton noted that in dealing with some cases of child sexual abuse, she had been made aware that the victim had been accused of “moser” and that they and their families had been subsequently subjected to various social exclusion practices.

The MK said that the committee was working on ways to deal with the phenomenon, legislatively and on the ground, including approaching wives of prominent rabbis to enlist their help in both raising awareness and combating child sexual abuse in the community.

She also mentioned a rabbinical declaration that was issued last year by haredi rabbis in the US, stating that it is an obligation of Jewish law on all Jews to immediately notify law enforcement officials when a reasonable suspicion is raised.

The declaration was seen as a rejection of the concept of “moser” for child sexual abuse issues.

Shasha-Biton said that a similar declaration needs to be heard from rabbis in Israel and that this is one of the goals of the committee.

Also present at the meeting was Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, the outgoing director of the National Council for the Child. Kadman said that despite the obstacles in haredi society, there is a new openness within the community to address the issue.

He also emphasized the importance of adjusting the approach taken to the characteristics of haredi society, saying that it was vital to be tolerant of the differences in attitude to such issues.

Research conducted in 2010 showed that 1.7 per thousand of Israeli children up to age 14 have been victims of sexual abuse. Figures for predominantly ultra-Orthodox towns and neighborhoods vary. In the same year Modi'in Illit had a rate of 0.7 per thousand, and Betar Illit of 1.7, whereas the rate in Elad was 4.3.

For Waks, the efforts of the Special Committee for the Rights of the Child and its willingness to cooperate with him and his organization are crucial developments in his struggle to help victims of abuse, to raise awareness of the problem, and its possible prevention as well.

“It's so gratifying to see that all the hard work by so many people is being vindicated,” said Waks. “It's very empowering and it feels like change is in the air.”

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Efforts-to-combat-child-sexual-abuse-are-being-stepped-up-449354

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Ohio

Nord Center offers Stewards of Children sexual abuse prevention training

by The Morning Journal

The Nord Center, 6140 S. Broadway in Lorain, is offering the Stewards of Children sexual abuse protection prevention program in conjunction with the Lorain County Children and Families Council and Darkness to Light, which is an award winning nonprofit that offers programs intended to protect youngsters.

The Stewards of Children teaches children to recognize, prevent and react to child sexual abuse. The training is proven to increase knowledge, improve attitudes and change child protective behaviors, according to a news release from The Nord Center.

Stewards of Children is intended to be used by schools, communities, parents and youth serving organizations to prevent the sexual abuse of children before it occurs; train adults who work with children to recognize, react and respond to child sexual abuse; and enhance the educational policies and procedures that protect children.

The program includes facts about the problem of child sexual abuse, the type of situations in which it can occur, strategies for protecting children, the importance of discussing the prevention of sexual abuse with children and adults and signs of sexual abuse.

Training is free and includes 2.5 continuing education credits.

For more information, contact Becky Opel at 440-204-4188 or at ropel@nordcenter.org.

http://www.morningjournal.com/general-news/20160327/nord-center-offers-stewards-of-children-sexual-abuse-prevention-training

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United Kingdom

Britain's uncomfortable extremes in dealing with past sexual abuse

The value of three investigations is called into question

by The Economist

IT CAN seem as though Britons have only two attitudes to paedophiles. One, the kind of cosy hypocrisy which helped Jimmy Savile, a television personality, abuse perhaps 400 children in the 1970s; the other, an incoherent hysteria which led a mob, in 2000, to daub “paedo” on the house of a hospital paediatrician. As Britain's police seek to right long-ago wrongs, they are struggling to find a middle ground.

The explosive revelations surrounding Savile, following his death in 2011, kicked off three major investigations into past incidents of child sexual abuse. The largest, Operation Yewtree, has so far made six arrests which led to convictions. Yet the project has also been beset by blunders. Fewer than half those accused (their names splashed in the papers) were convicted. Freddie Starr, a comedian, was arrested four times before being told he would not be charged. Another comic, Jim Davidson, and Paul Gambaccini, a radio presenter, were left on bail for many months but never charged.

Other projects have fared little better. Operation Fairbank, an investigation into an alleged Westminster paedophile-ring, dealt with 400 allegations and convicted just three people. But it is Operation Midland, a six-month investigation which closed on March 21st, that seems to have been the most overwrought. It was based on the claims of just one witness: that a paedophile-ring involving MPs and the security services abused and murdered children in the 1970s, including at Dolphin Square (pictured), a block of flats popular with politicians. No charges were brought, but several were investigated: the late Lord Brittan, a former home secretary; Field Marshall Lord Bramall; Harvey Proctor, a former MP; and, most explosively, the late Sir Edward Heath, prime minister in 1970-74. All names found their way into the public domain—at least one through deliberate leaking by the police—and all were eventually cleared.

If detectives' apparent lack of zeal in uncovering such crimes in past years has given way to an excess of it, that is understandable. The fact that an investigation turns up nothing does not mean that it was a mistake to launch it. But police could take more care with the reputations of those who have yet to be charged, let alone proven guilty—especially in those cases where the allegation comes from a single, uncorroborated source. And the more high-profile cases collapse, the more likely it will be that the accusations of real victims are dismissed. There is no shortage of them: between 2009/10 and 2014/15 the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a charity, recorded a 128% increase in those reporting sexual abuse on its helplines.

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21695759-value-three-investigations-called-question-britains-uncomfortable-extremes

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Ohio

Directly Accountable

A stark Ohio case shows how tort reform harms victims of sexual assault.

by Nora Caplan-Bricker

In the early 1990s, Brian Williams, a youth pastor at Delaware Grace Brethren Church in Ohio, allegedly tried to put his hand down the pants of a teenage girl named April Jokela. Years later, Jokela's mother testified in court that when she complained to church officials, they told her, “Let's just keep this quiet to protect our brother.”

In the early 2000s, Williams allegedly told 18-year-old Robin McNeal, during a meeting in his office, that “most men view women as a thing to be fucked.” She said he also told her that “he probably could get away with having sex with me right then and there in his office.” The woman, whose married name is Robin Weixel, testified that she reported Williams to church officials but that they made no record of it.

In 2004, the leadership of Delaware Grace started a second church, Sunbury Grace Brethren Church. They chose Williams to be its senior pastor.

A bill to remove caps in cases of rape and assault found 38 Democratic co-sponsors but not a single Republican.

In 2008, according to court testimony, Williams forced 15-year-old Jessica Simpkins to perform oral sex during a counseling session in his office. Then he blocked the door and vaginally raped her. Williams subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Like many sexual assault victims, Simpkins also pursued a civil suit against the church. In a criminal case, “the perpetrator is only going to be held accountable to the state, not the victim,” says Joanne Doroshow of the Center for Justice and Democracy at New York Law School. “Sometimes, the civil justice system is the only way for a perpetrator to be held directly accountable to the victim for the trauma and the pain that they've caused.”

The jury that heard Simpkins' case awarded her more than $3.6 million, $3.5 million of which was intended to compensate her for depression, PTSD, and other “pain and suffering” that she experienced as a result of the rape. There was just one problem: In Ohio, non-economic damages—which compensate for things such as disability, disfigurement, and trauma—are capped in most cases at $250,000. Now, Simpkins and her lawyer are trying to get the caps declared unconstitutional as they apply to minors who are victims of sexual abuse. Their latest brief argues, among other things, that the limits are “arbitrary and unreasonable, and thus a denial of due process,” and that “the effect of the statute is to clearly alter the jury's finding that she suffered a catastrophic injury. … By arbitrarily overruling that finding, [the cap] violates Jessica Simpkins' right to a trial by jury.” Ohio's Supreme Court is expected to rule any day now.

These caps weren't designed with victims like Simpkins in mind. They're a central tenet of the tort reform movement, a pet cause of many Chamber of Commerce–style Republicans. Alongside Ohio, Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin also impose varying caps on non-economic damages, according to the American Association for Justice, which represents plaintiffs' lawyers. (Idaho does, too, though they don't apply in cases that involve a “felonious act.”) They protect insurance companies who cover doctors charged with medical malpractice, for example, or pharmaceutical companies accused of making bad drugs.

But as more and more victims of sexual assault are taking their cases to the civil justice system, the caps are having unforeseen consequences. “If you rape a child, you get the benefit of tort reform,” says Simpkins' lawyer John Fitch. Tort reform, he adds, “makes it financially impractical for children like this to hold those responsible accountable in the legal system.”

The civil justice system contains obvious benefits for victims seeking restitution after sexual violence. Ellen Bublick, a legal scholar at the University of Arizona, has compared the number of sex crime–related tort cases in the early 1970s with the prevalence of such cases in the early 2000s. She found that “over this 30-year time frame, reported state supreme court decisions in sexual assault cases rose by more than 1,000 percent.” She concluded that the increase at the trial court level must be even steeper. The civil system operates by a “preponderance of evidence” standard rather than one that demands “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”; in the slippery context of sexual assault, juries are often faster to assign civil “liability” than criminal “guilt.” Even in cases like Simpkins', in which the rapist is convicted in criminal court, the civil system makes it possible to hold a third party—such as the church—accountable. As Simpkins told me, “I understand that the actual act of it is on him, but they're the ones that allowed it to happen.”

But for victims whose states impose caps on damages, this route may be closed. Plaintiffs' lawyers generally work on contingency, taking one-third of whatever judgment they win for their clients, and potentially, recompense for expenses. (Fitch wouldn't discuss his agreement with Simpkins, but he said his firm has already spent tens of thousands on expert witness testimony and other aspects of her case.) “Once a cap is in place, lawyers may factor it into their willingness to even bring certain cases,” says Lucinda Finley of the University at Buffalo Law School.

The American Association for Justice also believes that its members are bringing fewer cases involving trauma and other non-economic damages in states that have caps. (It points to data from the National Center for State Courts, which show that tort filings declined by roughly 25 percent between 1999 and 2008.) Pro-caps Republicans try to paint torts claims as “ambulance chasing,” and it's true that the AAJ's advocacy is in its members' pecuniary interest. But, as AAJ President Larry Tawwater points out, lawyers simply can't afford to take the cases in which a low cap guarantees that the damages won't begin to pay for their time. The biggest losers are the victims who have suffered the greatest harm—whose suffering, like Simpkins', was valued in the millions by juries, only to be whittled down by a factor of ten.

When tort reform reconfigures a state's legal landscape, women are the most affected. “[W]hile overall men tend to recover greater total damages, juries consistently award women more in noneconomic loss damages than men,” Finley has written. “Noneconomic loss damage caps therefore amount to a form of discrimination against women and contribute to unequal access to justice or fair compensation for women.” Republican legislators and courts generally don't limit “economic damages,” which compensate victims for lost wages or concrete medical expenses—but that category only serves to replicate the wage inequalities that women, and people of color, already suffer in the marketplace. Meanwhile, a deeper gender divide is also at work. Finley argues:

Several types of injuries that are disproportionately suffered by women—sexual assault, reproductive harm, such as pregnancy loss or infertility, and gynecological medical malpractice—do not affect women in primarily economic terms. Rather, the impact is felt more in the ways compensated through noneconomic loss damages: emotional distress and grief, altered sense of self and social adjustment, impaired relationships, or impaired physical capacities, such as reproduction, that are not directly involved in market based wage earning activity. Many of these most precious, indeed priceless, aspects of human life are virtually worthless in the market. … [N]oneconomic loss damages become the principal means by which a jury can signal its sense that these types of harm are serious and profound and provide a woman plaintiff with what it regards as adequate compensation.

Fitch cites Finley's research in his brief to Ohio's Supreme Court and hopes that his arguments will induce the judges to throw out the caps as they apply to sexually abused minors. It's not impossible: The AAJ counts at least nine states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin) whose courts have struck down cap laws, though sometimes only in part, or only in cases of medical malpractice. (In Florida, the caps have been declared unconstitutional solely in cases of wrongful death, but the state Supreme Court will soon hear arguments to strike them down more broadly.)

Still, there's reason to think that the caps retain powerful partisan support in Ohio. In 2014, a Democratic state representative named Connie Pillich introduced a bill that would have removed them solely in cases of rape and assault; she found 38 Democratic co-sponsors but not a single Republican.

The only exceptions to Ohio's caps are for plaintiffs with a “permanent and substantial physical deformity, loss of use of a limb, or loss of a bodily organ system.” Simpkins is angry about these specifications. “There's nothing there for an effect of emotional damages,” she says. “Just because I didn't lose a limb and because I can carry on a life, they're saying it basically doesn't affect me.” She argues otherwise: “Every week, two to three times a week, a tape of the whole day will play in my head,” she says. When this happens, “I'll have to freeze.”

Simpkins says that court psychiatrists have told her she should be in counseling, but she doesn't have the money to pay for it—and, after legal fees and taxes are paid, she doesn't see $250,000 in damages as nearly enough to provide help over the course of her lifetime. She considers the $3.6 million that the jury awarded her to be a fit punishment for the Delaware Grace church. She filed her first civil suit in 2009; meanwhile, her rapist is due to be released this summer. After everything, Simpkins worries that if the church only pays the capped amount, “the justice won't be there for them. … They won't feel held responsible for it. They won't lose anything.”

In 2004, the leadership of Delaware Grace started a second church, Sunbury Grace Brethren Church. They chose Williams to be its senior pastor.

In 2008, according to court testimony, Williams forced 15-year-old Jessica Simpkins to perform oral sex during a counseling session in his office. Then he blocked the door and vaginally raped her. Williams subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Like many sexual assault victims, Simpkins also pursued a civil suit against the church. In a criminal case, “the perpetrator is only going to be held accountable to the state, not the victim,” says Joanne Doroshow of the Center for Justice and Democracy at New York Law School. “Sometimes, the civil justice system is the only way for a perpetrator to be held directly accountable to the victim for the trauma and the pain that they've caused.”

The jury that heard Simpkins' case awarded her more than $3.6 million, $3.5 million of which was intended to compensate her for depression, PTSD, and other “pain and suffering” that she experienced as a result of the rape. There was just one problem: In Ohio, non-economic damages—which compensate for things such as disability, disfigurement, and trauma—are capped in most cases at $250,000. Now, Simpkins and her lawyer are trying to get the caps declared unconstitutional as they apply to minors who are victims of sexual abuse. Their latest brief argues, among other things, that the limits are “arbitrary and unreasonable, and thus a denial of due process,” and that “the effect of the statute is to clearly alter the jury's finding that she suffered a catastrophic injury. … By arbitrarily overruling that finding, [the cap] violates Jessica Simpkins' right to a trial by jury.” Ohio's Supreme Court is expected to rule any day now.

These caps weren't designed with victims like Simpkins in mind. They're a central tenet of the tort reform movement, a pet cause of many Chamber of Commerce–style Republicans. Alongside Ohio, Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin also impose varying caps on non-economic damages, according to the American Association for Justice, which represents plaintiffs' lawyers. (Idaho does, too, though they don't apply in cases that involve a “felonious act.”) They protect insurance companies who cover doctors charged with medical malpractice, for example, or pharmaceutical companies accused of making bad drugs.

But as more and more victims of sexual assault are taking their cases to the civil justice system, the caps are having unforeseen consequences. “If you rape a child, you get the benefit of tort reform,” says Simpkins' lawyer John Fitch. Tort reform, he adds, “makes it financially impractical for children like this to hold those responsible accountable in the legal system.”

The civil justice system contains obvious benefits for victims seeking restitution after sexual violence. Ellen Bublick, a legal scholar at the University of Arizona, has compared the number of sex crime–related tort cases in the early 1970s with the prevalence of such cases in the early 2000s. She found that “over this 30-year time frame, reported state supreme court decisions in sexual assault cases rose by more than 1,000 percent.” She concluded that the increase at the trial court level must be even steeper. The civil system operates by a “preponderance of evidence” standard rather than one that demands “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”; in the slippery context of sexual assault, juries are often faster to assign civil “liability” than criminal “guilt.” Even in cases like Simpkins', in which the rapist is convicted in criminal court, the civil system makes it possible to hold a third party—such as the church—accountable. As Simpkins told me, “I understand that the actual act of it is on him, but they're the ones that allowed it to happen.”

But for victims whose states impose caps on damages, this route may be closed. Plaintiffs' lawyers generally work on contingency, taking one-third of whatever judgment they win for their clients, and potentially, recompense for expenses. (Fitch wouldn't discuss his agreement with Simpkins, but he said his firm has already spent tens of thousands on expert witness testimony and other aspects of her case.) “Once a cap is in place, lawyers may factor it into their willingness to even bring certain cases,” says Lucinda Finley of the University at Buffalo Law School.

The American Association for Justice also believes that its members are bringing fewer cases involving trauma and other non-economic damages in states that have caps. (It points to data from the National Center for State Courts, which show that tort filings declined by roughly 25 percent between 1999 and 2008.) Pro-caps Republicans try to paint torts claims as “ambulance chasing,” and it's true that the AAJ's advocacy is in its members' pecuniary interest. But, as AAJ President Larry Tawwater points out, lawyers simply can't afford to take the cases in which a low cap guarantees that the damages won't begin to pay for their time. The biggest losers are the victims who have suffered the greatest harm—whose suffering, like Simpkins', was valued in the millions by juries, only to be whittled down by a factor of ten.

When tort reform reconfigures a state's legal landscape, women are the most affected. “[W]hile overall men tend to recover greater total damages, juries consistently award women more in noneconomic loss damages than men,” Finley has written. “Noneconomic loss damage caps therefore amount to a form of discrimination against women and contribute to unequal access to justice or fair compensation for women.” Republican legislators and courts generally don't limit “economic damages,” which compensate victims for lost wages or concrete medical expenses—but that category only serves to replicate the wage inequalities that women, and people of color, already suffer in the marketplace. Meanwhile, a deeper gender divide is also at work. Finley argues:

Several types of injuries that are disproportionately suffered by women—sexual assault, reproductive harm, such as pregnancy loss or infertility, and gynecological medical malpractice—do not affect women in primarily economic terms. Rather, the impact is felt more in the ways compensated through noneconomic loss damages: emotional distress and grief, altered sense of self and social adjustment, impaired relationships, or impaired physical capacities, such as reproduction, that are not directly involved in market based wage earning activity. Many of these most precious, indeed priceless, aspects of human life are virtually worthless in the market. … [N]oneconomic loss damages become the principal means by which a jury can signal its sense that these types of harm are serious and profound and provide a woman plaintiff with what it regards as adequate compensation.

Fitch cites Finley's research in his brief to Ohio's Supreme Court and hopes that his arguments will induce the judges to throw out the caps as they apply to sexually abused minors. It's not impossible: The AAJ counts at least nine states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin) whose courts have struck down cap laws, though sometimes only in part, or only in cases of medical malpractice. (In Florida, the caps have been declared unconstitutional solely in cases of wrongful death, but the state Supreme Court will soon hear arguments to strike them down more broadly.)

Still, there's reason to think that the caps retain powerful partisan support in Ohio. In 2014, a Democratic state representative named Connie Pillich introduced a bill that would have removed them solely in cases of rape and assault; she found 38 Democratic co-sponsors but not a single Republican.

The only exceptions to Ohio's caps are for plaintiffs with a “permanent and substantial physical deformity, loss of use of a limb, or loss of a bodily organ system.” Simpkins is angry about these specifications. “There's nothing there for an effect of emotional damages,” she says. “Just because I didn't lose a limb and because I can carry on a life, they're saying it basically doesn't affect me.” She argues otherwise: “Every week, two to three times a week, a tape of the whole day will play in my head,” she says. When this happens, “I'll have to freeze.”

Simpkins says that court psychiatrists have told her she should be in counseling, but she doesn't have the money to pay for it—and, after legal fees and taxes are paid, she doesn't see $250,000 in damages as nearly enough to provide help over the course of her lifetime. She considers the $3.6 million that the jury awarded her to be a fit punishment for the Delaware Grace church. She filed her first civil suit in 2009; meanwhile, her rapist is due to be released this summer. After everything, Simpkins worries that if the church only pays the capped amount, “the justice won't be there for them. … They won't feel held responsible for it. They won't lose anything.”

The jury that heard Simpkins' case awarded her more than $3.6 million, $3.5 million of which was intended to compensate her for depression, PTSD, and other “pain and suffering” that she experienced as a result of the rape. There was just one problem: In Ohio, non-economic damages—which compensate for things such as disability, disfigurement, and trauma—are capped in most cases at $250,000. Now, Simpkins and her lawyer are trying to get the caps declared unconstitutional as they apply to minors who are victims of sexual abuse. Their latest brief argues, among other things, that the limits are “arbitrary and unreasonable, and thus a denial of due process,” and that “the effect of the statute is to clearly alter the jury's finding that she suffered a catastrophic injury. … By arbitrarily overruling that finding, [the cap] violates Jessica Simpkins' right to a trial by jury.” Ohio's Supreme Court is expected to rule any day now.

These caps weren't designed with victims like Simpkins in mind. They're a central tenet of the tort reform movement, a pet cause of many Chamber of Commerce–style Republicans. Alongside Ohio, Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin also impose varying caps on non-economic damages, according to the American Association for Justice, which represents plaintiffs' lawyers. (Idaho does, too, though they don't apply in cases that involve a “felonious act.”) They protect insurance companies who cover doctors charged with medical malpractice, for example, or pharmaceutical companies accused of making bad drugs.

But as more and more victims of sexual assault are taking their cases to the civil justice system, the caps are having unforeseen consequences. “If you rape a child, you get the benefit of tort reform,” says Simpkins' lawyer John Fitch. Tort reform, he adds, “makes it financially impractical for children like this to hold those responsible accountable in the legal system.”

The civil justice system contains obvious benefits for victims seeking restitution after sexual violence. Ellen Bublick, a legal scholar at the University of Arizona, has compared the number of sex crime–related tort cases in the early 1970s with the prevalence of such cases in the early 2000s. She found that “over this 30-year time frame, reported state supreme court decisions in sexual assault cases rose by more than 1,000 percent.” She concluded that the increase at the trial court level must be even steeper. The civil system operates by a “preponderance of evidence” standard rather than one that demands “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”; in the slippery context of sexual assault, juries are often faster to assign civil “liability” than criminal “guilt.” Even in cases like Simpkins', in which the rapist is convicted in criminal court, the civil system makes it possible to hold a third party—such as the church—accountable. As Simpkins told me, “I understand that the actual act of it is on him, but they're the ones that allowed it to happen.”

But for victims whose states impose caps on damages, this route may be closed. Plaintiffs' lawyers generally work on contingency, taking one-third of whatever judgment they win for their clients, and potentially, recompense for expenses. (Fitch wouldn't discuss his agreement with Simpkins, but he said his firm has already spent tens of thousands on expert witness testimony and other aspects of her case.) “Once a cap is in place, lawyers may factor it into their willingness to even bring certain cases,” says Lucinda Finley of the University at Buffalo Law School.

The American Association for Justice also believes that its members are bringing fewer cases involving trauma and other non-economic damages in states that have caps. (It points to data from the National Center for State Courts, which show that tort filings declined by roughly 25 percent between 1999 and 2008.) Pro-caps Republicans try to paint torts claims as “ambulance chasing,” and it's true that the AAJ's advocacy is in its members' pecuniary interest. But, as AAJ President Larry Tawwater points out, lawyers simply can't afford to take the cases in which a low cap guarantees that the damages won't begin to pay for their time. The biggest losers are the victims who have suffered the greatest harm—whose suffering, like Simpkins', was valued in the millions by juries, only to be whittled down by a factor of ten.

When tort reform reconfigures a state's legal landscape, women are the most affected. “[W]hile overall men tend to recover greater total damages, juries consistently award women more in noneconomic loss damages than men,” Finley has written. “Noneconomic loss damage caps therefore amount to a form of discrimination against women and contribute to unequal access to justice or fair compensation for women.” Republican legislators and courts generally don't limit “economic damages,” which compensate victims for lost wages or concrete medical expenses—but that category only serves to replicate the wage inequalities that women, and people of color, already suffer in the marketplace. Meanwhile, a deeper gender divide is also at work. Finley argues:

Several types of injuries that are disproportionately suffered by women—sexual assault, reproductive harm, such as pregnancy loss or infertility, and gynecological medical malpractice—do not affect women in primarily economic terms. Rather, the impact is felt more in the ways compensated through noneconomic loss damages: emotional distress and grief, altered sense of self and social adjustment, impaired relationships, or impaired physical capacities, such as reproduction, that are not directly involved in market based wage earning activity. Many of these most precious, indeed priceless, aspects of human life are virtually worthless in the market. … [N]oneconomic loss damages become the principal means by which a jury can signal its sense that these types of harm are serious and profound and provide a woman plaintiff with what it regards as adequate compensation.

Fitch cites Finley's research in his brief to Ohio's Supreme Court and hopes that his arguments will induce the judges to throw out the caps as they apply to sexually abused minors. It's not impossible: The AAJ counts at least nine states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin) whose courts have struck down cap laws, though sometimes only in part, or only in cases of medical malpractice. (In Florida, the caps have been declared unconstitutional solely in cases of wrongful death, but the state Supreme Court will soon hear arguments to strike them down more broadly.)

Still, there's reason to think that the caps retain powerful partisan support in Ohio. In 2014, a Democratic state representative named Connie Pillich introduced a bill that would have removed them solely in cases of rape and assault; she found 38 Democratic co-sponsors but not a single Republican.

The only exceptions to Ohio's caps are for plaintiffs with a “permanent and substantial physical deformity, loss of use of a limb, or loss of a bodily organ system.” Simpkins is angry about these specifications. “There's nothing there for an effect of emotional damages,” she says. “Just because I didn't lose a limb and because I can carry on a life, they're saying it basically doesn't affect me.” She argues otherwise: “Every week, two to three times a week, a tape of the whole day will play in my head,” she says. When this happens, “I'll have to freeze.”

Simpkins says that court psychiatrists have told her she should be in counseling, but she doesn't have the money to pay for it—and, after legal fees and taxes are paid, she doesn't see $250,000 in damages as nearly enough to provide help over the course of her lifetime. She considers the $3.6 million that the jury awarded her to be a fit punishment for the Delaware Grace church. She filed her first civil suit in 2009; meanwhile, her rapist is due to be released this summer. After everything, Simpkins worries that if the church only pays the capped amount, “the justice won't be there for them. … They won't feel held responsible for it. They won't lose anything.”

When tort reform reconfigures a state's legal landscape, women are the most affected. “[W]hile overall men tend to recover greater total damages, juries consistently award women more in noneconomic loss damages than men,” Finley has written. “Noneconomic loss damage caps therefore amount to a form of discrimination against women and contribute to unequal access to justice or fair compensation for women.” Republican legislators and courts generally don't limit “economic damages,” which compensate victims for lost wages or concrete medical expenses—but that category only serves to replicate the wage inequalities that women, and people of color, already suffer in the marketplace. Meanwhile, a deeper gender divide is also at work. Finley argues:

Several types of injuries that are disproportionately suffered by women—sexual assault, reproductive harm, such as pregnancy loss or infertility, and gynecological medical malpractice—do not affect women in primarily economic terms. Rather, the impact is felt more in the ways compensated through noneconomic loss damages: emotional distress and grief, altered sense of self and social adjustment, impaired relationships, or impaired physical capacities, such as reproduction, that are not directly involved in market based wage earning activity. Many of these most precious, indeed priceless, aspects of human life are virtually worthless in the market. … [N]oneconomic loss damages become the principal means by which a jury can signal its sense that these types of harm are serious and profound and provide a woman plaintiff with what it regards as adequate compensation.

Fitch cites Finley's research in his brief to Ohio's Supreme Court and hopes that his arguments will induce the judges to throw out the caps as they apply to sexually abused minors. It's not impossible: The AAJ counts at least nine states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin) whose courts have struck down cap laws, though sometimes only in part, or only in cases of medical malpractice. (In Florida, the caps have been declared unconstitutional solely in cases of wrongful death, but the state Supreme Court will soon hear arguments to strike them down more broadly.)

Still, there's reason to think that the caps retain powerful partisan support in Ohio. In 2014, a Democratic state representative named Connie Pillich introduced a bill that would have removed them solely in cases of rape and assault; she found 38 Democratic co-sponsors but not a single Republican.

The only exceptions to Ohio's caps are for plaintiffs with a “permanent and substantial physical deformity, loss of use of a limb, or loss of a bodily organ system.” Simpkins is angry about these specifications. “There's nothing there for an effect of emotional damages,” she says. “Just because I didn't lose a limb and because I can carry on a life, they're saying it basically doesn't affect me.” She argues otherwise: “Every week, two to three times a week, a tape of the whole day will play in my head,” she says. When this happens, “I'll have to freeze.”

Simpkins says that court psychiatrists have told her she should be in counseling, but she doesn't have the money to pay for it—and, after legal fees and taxes are paid, she doesn't see $250,000 in damages as nearly enough to provide help over the course of her lifetime. She considers the $3.6 million that the jury awarded her to be a fit punishment for the Delaware Grace church. She filed her first civil suit in 2009; meanwhile, her rapist is due to be released this summer. After everything, Simpkins worries that if the church only pays the capped amount, “the justice won't be there for them. … They won't feel held responsible for it. They won't lose anything.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/03/tort_reform_harms_victims_of_sexual_assault.html

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Mississippi

New bill could make it easier for kids to 'divorce' from parents

by Yolanda Cruz

MISSISSIPPI (WDAM) - A bill passed by the Mississippi House of Legislature could redefine terms to terminate parental rights in cases of child abuse.

House Bill 1240 would broaden what is defined as child abuse, thus giving more instances for the Department of Human Services to take custody of a child away from his or her natural parents.

According to the Mississippi Bar Association, under the current law, some instances that would require the termination of parental rights are a "series of abusive instances," which could be physical, mental or emotional, or a parent having a severe mental illness that interferes with the care of the child.

Under the new changes, just one instance of abuse could warrant termination of parental rights, and a parent's mental illness need only be moderate. The bill would also require the state to comply with the federal Indian Child Welfare Act.

Sen. Chris McDaniel said the bill could endanger parental protections.

"The bill would expand the definition of 'unfit' parent to be usable in any case in which social workers and/or an expert witness forecast that leaving a child with his or her parent poses a 'substantial risk of compromising' a 'child's ... welfare' based on misinterpreting or assuming the worst about the parent's 'past or present conduct,'" McDaniel said.

"If this bill passes, though, it will enable DHS/child protective services to pull more decent parents into the court system," he added.

The bill must now make it's way to the Senate for a vote.