At 14 months, Spanish infant Osel Hita Torres was brought by his parents to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama decreed him to be the reincarnation of the recently deceased Lama Yeshe. Torres became Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche, and spent most of his life growing up in a gilded cage in the Tibetan exile capital, venerated as a living deity and isolated from the corrupting influences of the world. But then he escaped. [more inside]
posted by acb on Jun 1, 2009 - 66 comments

The Irish Comission to Inquire into Child Abuse published their full report documenting systematic abuses by Catholic-run industrial schools and schools for the disabled. Collecting data from over 1,500 witnesses, including survivors, government officials, and school staff, the report includes more than 70 years of incidents. It also documents the history of the laws that supported the schools. The executive summary damns both Church organizations and government for the abuse, but gives no names and falls short of recommending criminal proceedings. [more inside]
posted by KirkJobSluder on May 21, 2009 - 78 comments

Johnny Rico, lead character in the hit movie Starship Troopers, is suiting up once again to fight back against the evils of the galaxy. Hollywood actor Casper Van Dien has reprised the combat savvy character for Childhelp to talk about fighting a different war – the war against child abuse. (via Ain't It Cool News, embarrassingly enough.) [more inside]
posted by incomple on Jan 28, 2009 - 72 comments

Russell Tongay cheerfully dropped his preschoolers into the Mississippi River. Two-year-old Kathy made it five miles before he pulled her out. Her five-year-old brother Bubba finally staggered to shore after 22 miles. Merely a warmup, their beaming father told the media gathered on the St. Louis riverbank, for what would be his children's crowning achievement: to swim the English Channel, England to France, a crossing that in 1950 had been completed only four times. And so began the short, sad celebrity of the Aquatots, another chapter in America's morbid fascination with children pushed by parents and coaches beyond overachievement into the realm of abuse and endangerment. [more inside]
posted by stupidsexyFlanders on Sep 5, 2008 - 30 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

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has declared that the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory is a national emergency. He has announced a sweeping takeover of powers from the Territory Government in response to the crisis outlined in the Little Children are Sacred” report [6mb PDF] Some say knee-jerk and ill thought through, some say return to the bad old days of white paternalism, yet say there are many other issues confronting Aboriginal people. Why act now after 10 years in power, and a host of similar reports? Could it be an approaching federal election?
posted by mattoxic on Jun 21, 2007 - 72 comments

Arrest in real-time abuse case. "An undercover police officer in Toronto's child exploitation unit, who says he's seldom surprised what he sees any more, was shaken to the core Sunday when a suspected pedophile he was chatting with on-line allegedly began sexually assaulting a preschooler and sending images of the attack over the internet to him in real time." Detective Constable Paul Krawczyk: "My heart just started going, sweating, and I felt like throwing up." Police tracked down and arrested the man within an hour and a half.
posted by russilwvong on Nov 2, 2006 - 71 comments

Jill Greenberg is a Sick Woman Who Should Be Arrested and Charged With Child Abuse . The "End Times" exhibit in question. And then there is Ms. Greenberg and her husband's response(s). Somebody's over-reacting.
posted by spock on Jun 28, 2006 - 270 comments

How not to get children to go to sleep. In fact, when asked by police how many times he bit the children, he couldn't say for sure, adding that he "bit the s--t out of them,"
posted by 445supermag on Dec 30, 2005 - 38 comments

"A distressing example of the breakdown of moral and social values . . ." 62 of the 66 accused were convicted and sentenced in France's largest child sex abuse case to date. From 1999 to 2002, 45 children in Angers, aged 6 months to 12 years, were prostituted by their own families in exchange for as little as a carton of cigarettes. Most of the families were monitored by social workers and reports of abuse began in 1999, but an in-depth investigation did not begin until three years later.

Each next news article reveals more horrifying details. Three children were raped by over forty adults; parents would be ". . . smoking cigarettes in the next room while men raped their children and the children were crying". And ". . . one girl was forced to perform oral sex so often that she cannot eat in the company of adults".

It can take a lifetime to recover from being raped once. A nine-year-old who's been raped by forty people, including her parents and grandfather? I pray her psychologist is better than her family's social worker.
posted by schroedinger on Aug 7, 2005 - 64 comments

http://www.ritualabusetorture.org/ Personal stories and cartoon self-help tools. "maps" link to adobe bbs
posted by longsleeves on Jul 22, 2005 - 22 comments

Father kills toddler over gay fears a man has appeared in US court accused of killing his baby son because of an irrational fear that he would become gay.
posted by brandz on Jul 18, 2005 - 91 comments

Blogger Steel Turman is losing patience with a world full of senseless crime against children, and wants to become an activist. Any specific suggestions for him?
posted by growabrain on Jul 5, 2005 - 33 comments

In the emotive world of child abuse, Professor Sir Roy Meadow became a celebrity in the last 25 years. He described Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy in which parents were said to have confabulated symptoms in their children in order to obtain medical treatment. Among child and health workers, Police and Social Workers, his eponymous law held that multiple childhood deaths in individual families were indicative of abuse and infanticide.
He was of course a popular forensic expert and his testimony resulted in murder convictions and removal of at-risk children from their families. But the Court of Appeal in UK has found that Prof. Meadow's statistical assertions and scientific reasonings were themselves confabulated and there have been a number of convictions overturned. He is now fighting for his professional reputation before the General Medical Council in London. [More Inside]
posted by peacay on Jun 28, 2005 - 17 comments

A followup to this story from June 10th, The state of Tennessee is FINALLY investigating allegations of child abuse at Refuge, part of Love In Action International, Inc. But will this investigation actually do anything? And what has happened to Zach? No one seems to be talking...
posted by OhPuhLeez on Jun 27, 2005 - 8 comments

KXLY News 4 Mayor Jim West of Spokane Washington has been accused of sexual abuse of a male child. Mayor West announced in the local Spokesman Review newpaper that he plans on staying on as Mayor.
posted by Ignition on May 7, 2005 - 43 comments

Updating this mefi story here where a set of extremely abusive parents who abused their children into their teens were sentenced to only 9 months prison. A judge now deems that sentence "demonstrably unfit" and resentences the mother and father to 5 and 4 years in jail, respectively. Thanks to t r a c y for the update.
posted by shepd on Nov 5, 2004 - 4 comments

Illegally imprison children for 13 years, make them do degrading things, deny them food to the point of degrading them further, force them as teenagers to wear diapers, tie them up, even give them mental problems! Get 9 months in a prison yourself. That's an expense rate of just about 17 : 1! Why not come to Canada and enjoy these exceedingly low rates today before they're gone?
posted by shepd on Jul 6, 2004 - 55 comments

Jesse Friedman's Web Site from the incredibly powerful and amazing documentary Capturing the Friedmans. A "documentary on the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes." When watching the film from start to finish I went back and forth on their guilt or innocence and when the film was over I'm still not sure. In the time of the mass media hysteria and questionable police tactics what would you have done?
posted by suprfli on Mar 26, 2004 - 3 comments

12 year old Aboriginal girl described as being "sexually aggressive" by Judge Fred Kovatch in a Saskatchewan court yesterday. Since the girl was raised in an abusive home, the judge concluded that she was partially responsible for three young white men picking her up, giving her beer and sexually assaulting her on a desolate country road.
posted by KathyK on Sep 12, 2003 - 65 comments

From the NYT (reg req.'d) This is the saddest story I can imagine. "It was only a week ago that the tiny body of Stephanie Ramos was found in a plastic bag in a garbage truck in the Bronx, discarded by a foster mother who told the police that she panicked when the severely disabled girl died. It was an ugly ending by any measure, but particularly cruel in this case because the little girl's life began the same way: wrapped in a plastic bag and discarded on a New York City byway." Has anyone ever been a foster parent? A foster child? Are things often this bad - and this good? (That'll make sense when you read the story.)
posted by Jos Bleau on Jul 18, 2003 - 9 comments

How sick are we as a nation when this is done is public and no one notices. Of course, the coast was clear, as the mom checked before she launched this attack. But then, to read that the family, seeing the videotape of the beating, still protects their daughter, I have to come close to burning rage inside. Enough to make me wish she gets caught and prosecuted in Texas, where she has some links.
posted by Busithoth on Sep 19, 2002 - 50 comments

Parents charged in death of girl forced to drink water - Forcing a 4 year old to consume large amounts of water seems like an odd way to promote family bonding. Death by over watering can happen, but this sounds more like an episode of Law & Order.
posted by MediaMan on Sep 18, 2002 - 20 comments

"A court found 19 inhabitants of the same village guilty of systematically raping or sexually abusing an eleven-year-old girl who had been prostituted by her own father."

Third-world litany? Try Belgium.
posted by donkeyschlong on Sep 3, 2002 - 42 comments

'"Would you state your name for the record?'' the man whose visage has now graced the cover of every national newsweekly was asked at the start of yesterday's session. 'Yes,'' the cardinal said. ''My name is Bernard Francis Law.'' Wonderfully written analysis on yesterday's deposition from my favorite paper.
posted by luser on May 9, 2002 - 5 comments

Infant kept on life support for the sake of the father. Moises Ibarra is being held in jail on child abuse charges and if his 7 month old son is taken off LF, Ibarra will be charged with murder (doctors say the son is basically brain dead and will not recover from his injuries). Meanwhile, the mother wants her son off LF so he can "go to heaven." (Looks like a real life soap!)
posted by Why on May 3, 2002 - 7 comments

Veganism nearly kills baby? A New york couple is charged with reckless endangerment after there baby is taken to the hospital underdeveloped and near death. The article doesn't specifically say veganism was the reason for the baby's poor health but strongly impies it. [link via plastic]
posted by drezdn on Apr 30, 2002 - 55 comments

In one of the worst cases of child abuse in Canadian history, Tony and Marcia Dooley stand trial for the second-degree murder of Tony's son Randall, who was 6 at the time that he was killed.

The autopsy found that he had 14 broken ribs, a lacerated liver and multiple head wounds. The coroner has said that the wounds inflicted are consistent with being stomped on by an adult.

I don't understand how people like this can be allowed to have children in their custody. The case both saddens and sickens me, and (without starting a huge debate on the merits on capital punishment - that's old hat) sometimes makes me wish we were a little harder on our criminals up here in Canada.
posted by PWA_BadBoy on Apr 17, 2002 - 38 comments

Carmelite nuns in Indy respond to the child sex abuse cases currently plaguing the Church. (from NPR) Great to see the perspective of the other half of the Holy Orders - these nuns are ballsy and discard the notion of the (Roman Catholic) Church as a superpower. The dedication of nuns always blows my mind - and breaks the mean-ol'-bitch stereotypes that linger in my head... ...meanwhile the Archdiocese of New York gives a D. A. abuse accusation records from the past 30 years (from NYTimes - requires login, etc.)
posted by ao4047 on Apr 4, 2002 - 9 comments

"I heard them talk about having sex with young girls," he says. "Some of them talked about how [the children] were hairless [in their pubic area]. It was disgusting. My impression is that the behavior was pretty well-known. It was kind of a joke."
posted by tankboy on Mar 5, 2002 - 19 comments

Damn, that's just sad. 13 kids. 4 moms. 1 dad. No dairy products, no sunshine, and apparently no clue. One child is dead of malnutrition, others have ricketts, and none of the adults are cooperating with authorities.
posted by ilsa on Feb 11, 2002 - 25 comments

Another stupid parent story, without which your day just wouldn't be complete. Mother and Stepfather, who lobbied for a stricter definition of 'rape' in Ohio, are charged with raping their daughter (via artificial insemination). I hate people.
posted by mudbug on Jul 27, 2001 - 22 comments

Father forgot boy for two hours in mid-80s heat, San Jose police say.
posted by christina on Jul 24, 2001 - 43 comments

A frustrated housewife stabs a 7 year old. After her arrest, the assailant blamed it on her bad mood.
posted by modularette on Jun 21, 2001 - 13 comments

The Thoughts of Anonymous Pedophiles While researching an unrelated topic, I found a site called The Pedophilia Survey. This survey asks people who have sexual desires involving children to submit a paragraph or two on their feelings on the topic.
 
One of the respondents said: 'Pedophilia is a legitimate sexual orientation.' But, is it? Pedophilia seems so widespread that should, perhaps, we be researching the causes of pedophilia instead of just condemning it?
posted by wackybrit on Jun 5, 2001 - 46 comments

Spare the rod? Heck no! God says beat and pimp your child! "House of Prayer" cult encourages group beatings of children in church. "Reverend" encourages marriages of 14-year-olds to "prevent potential whores." He also discusses genitalia and hikes up skirts during services. He's not the unaspanker, he's much worse.
posted by darren on Mar 29, 2001 - 13 comments

"The Bible says to let a secret between friends die with you. You make it your business to keep your mouth shut." Perhaps they missed the part about the Bible not recommending you kill your three year old. (Sorry if someone already posted this, but I went back to the 14th, and saw no mention of it, so here it is now.) This really isn't the kind of thing I know how to comment on, but I thought it needed mentioning. It supposedly has something to do with email snooping, but I haven't been able to find out how.
posted by Ezrael on Jul 20, 2000 - 14 comments