The Beardslee, Shellrude and Darr families left North America for West Africa during the 1950s. They followed what they believed to be “God’s Calling” – to spread Christianity throughout the world. Their children however - starting at the age of 6 – were required to attend the boarding school in Mamou, Guinea, run by the
Christian and Missionary Alliance. Cut off from their families for 9 months out of the year and without any reliable means of communication, the children quietly suffered emotional, spiritual, physical and/or sexual abuse at the hands of the all-missionary staff.
All God’s Children tells the personal story of the first boarding school for children of missionaries to be investigated for abuse at the hands of the parents’ missionary colleagues. The survivors and parents share their journey of
seeking justice, redemption and healing. [more inside]
posted by PeterMcDermott
on Jan 30, 2012 -
9 comments
Caution: Disturbing, potentially triggering and possibly NSFW content: The Meth Project, known for their gritty, confrontational and disturbing
online and
print ads, which graphically depict the effects of methamphetamine drug use, launched a
new, interactive website last week. The revamped site gives visitors an opportunity to
share their own stories. They've also premiered four new 30-second television PSA's by the director of
Black Swan and
Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky:
E.R.,
Deep End,
Losing Control and
Desperate.
(Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 16, 2011 -
103 comments
"On the 28th October 1975 my
mother gave birth to a
heroinhead - that was/is me.
My father was a young Glaswegian junkie nicknamed Puggy. I was born with heroin in my veins. 7 years after my birth, my father was brutally murdered by infamous British serial-killer
Dennis Nilsen.
[more inside]
posted by metaxa
on Oct 10, 2011 -
36 comments
Tennis player and coach Bob Hewitt is a member of the
International Tennis Hall of Fame who has held all the men's doubles and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. Hewitt, who was
born in Australia but became a South African citizen by marriage, also captained the 1974 South African Davis Cup champion team.
The Boston Globe reports that Hewitt's lengthy coaching career in the US and South Africa has long been accompanied by allegations that Hewitt sexually abused
his female students, mostly adolescents but one as young as 10. Hewitt denies the charges.
posted by catlet
on Aug 29, 2011 -
13 comments
The Hardest Cases: When Children Die, Justice Can Be Elusive A joint investigation by PBS Frontline, ProPublica and NPR has found that medical examiners and coroners have repeatedly mishandled cases of infant and child deaths, helping to put innocent people behind bars. (
Via. (Article contains descriptions of children that have been killed by abuse. May be disturbing / triggering to some readers.) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 28, 2011 -
20 comments
Inside the Detainee Abuse Task Force On 28 Jul 2004, the Detainee Abuse Task Force, was formed by USACIDC to investigate all allegations of Iraqi Detainee abuse involving Coalition Forces.
One of the special agents in charge describes the task force as under-resourced and
hampered by a bureaucracy unable or unwilling to facilitate its investigations.
PBS and The Nation investigating journalist
states “One thing that shocked me was that the ID/DATF agents that I interviewed said there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of allegations of detainee abuse and torture that likely didn’t reach them.”
In 2009 President Obama stated “Individuals who violated standards of behavior in these photos have been investigated and held accountable.” and concluded
"I ran for President because I believe that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together."
posted by adamvasco
on May 27, 2011 -
9 comments
The Defense Department forced all "war on terror" detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called "pharmacologic waterboarding". The US military administered the drug despite Pentagon knowledge that mefloquine caused severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and anxiety. The drug was used on the prisoners whether they had malaria or not. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Dec 2, 2010 -
73 comments
How I Got Arrested and Abused at G20 in Toronto, Canada We are thirsty again; it's been 15 hours in police custody. Still 39 guys overcrowded. Getting very scary. Awake for around 30 hours. Had one sip of water and cheese bun. People are detained, kept cuffed in cages for 23 hours with insufficient food, water, hygiene, and space. Many of them just happened to be in the wrong part of Toronto and had no connection to the protest.
posted by Zarkonnen
on Jul 1, 2010 -
110 comments
Three months from today,
Gaile [Part I]
Owens [Part 2] will be dead in Tennessee after 25 years on death row. The mother of two boys went to the rough side of Nashville to find a hitman to kill her abusive and cheating husband. Due to a series of events, the jury never heard of or believed the abuse. She pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence, but will die on September 28.
[more inside]
posted by daninnj
on Jun 28, 2010 -
38 comments
"So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they've ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they've ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and professional development, an excellent work/life balance, and good pay. But both of those options demand a lot from you. Besides, your lover (or employee) will stay only as long as she wants to under those systems, and you want to keep her even when she doesn't want to stay. How do you pin her to your side, irrevocably, permanently, and perfectly legally?
"You create a sick system."
posted by Pope Guilty
on Jun 16, 2010 -
163 comments
The
National Labor Committee, a watchdog group that investigates working conditions at foreign factories producing goods for US corporations, has
released a report on the KYE Factory in Guangdong, China. KYE manufactures outsourced products for Microsoft (their biggest customer), HP, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, and ASUS. The report
focuses heavily on the workers producing Microsoft products. In response, Microsoft says they will
investigate the allegations, as their
vendor code of conduct (pdf) bans much of the abuses uncovered by the report.
Photo Slideshow / NLC report summary [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 15, 2010 -
55 comments
A Prison Nightmare. On June 23, 2009, the National Prison Rape Commission released its final
Report and proposed Standards to prevent, detect, respond to and monitor sexual abuse of incarcerated or detained individuals throughout the United States.
More prisoners reported abuse by staff than abuse by other prisoners.
posted by Non Prosequitur
on Jun 25, 2009 -
132 comments
Three years ago, David Nixon took over the principalship at John C. Calhoun Elementary School. "Thirty minutes into his first day of school at John C, a father walked into Nixon's office and said, 'I want to give you the authority to whip my son's butt.' Nixon was surprised, but after he thought it over, he decided to give every parent the same option."
Did corporal punishment save a struggling school? [more inside]
posted by jeeves
on Apr 28, 2009 -
160 comments
Thunderdome Filter: In two separate incidents Texas schools have gotten a jump on any sort of dystopic future scenarios by staging illegal forced fights between those in their care. Corpus Christi State School night-staff made disabled residents get out of bed and then
taped them fighting each other in over 20 incidents during 2008. South Oak Cliff High School had a policy between 2003 and 2005 of settling disputes between troubled students by having them
fight it out in a steel cage in the boy's locker room
while students and faculty looked on. Several arrests have been made in the Corpus Christi case and the South Oak Cliff one is just coming to public attention.
posted by CheshireCat
on Mar 20, 2009 -
66 comments
"I hadn’t gotten beaten by my mom that day, and we hadn’t had any significant arguments over anything. I thought that if I died, I wanted to die without being mad at my mom. So I thought, I might as well take the opportunity to do so before I got back to the house—at which point who knows whether there would be another fight or a beating."
Escaping the Amish.
posted by jbickers
on Jul 16, 2008 -
98 comments
Auroville Funded by Governments all over the world, the city of
Auroville is an ongoing experiment 'whose stated purpose is to realize human unity in diversity' through yoga. Unfortunately, it seems the 'rule free' society has attracted some of the least welcome of humanity's outliers, namely
child sex tourists.
[more inside]
posted by asok
on May 27, 2008 -
16 comments
Bulgaria's abandoned children. This heartrending BBC documentary visits a home for abandoned children in Bulgaria; they are left there by parents who can't - or won't - take care of "defective" children. But poor nutrition and uncaring workers have turned it into a hell on earth for the poor kids as they waste away; some are never taken off their toilets, some are left in bed until their limbs atrophy. Many cannot speak. Only one can write. Most just sit and rock for hours because of the lack of stimulus.
Very hard to watch.
posted by TochterAusElysium
on Mar 16, 2008 -
20 comments
