Positive stories that could be so much better
Support, Safe-houses and Legislation in D.C.,
but so much more needed
Andrea Powell
At FAIR Girls (a D.C.-based nonprofit I founded in 2004), we have served more than 1,000 girls and young women who experienced human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Our transitional home for young women survivors has also provided safe housing to more than 100 survivors. Unlike the media stereotypes of sex trafficking victims, approximately 90% of the young women and girls we serve are American citizens, often trafficked by American citizen pimps. Approximately 90% of the girls we serve in the nation’s capital are girls of color and 20% identify as LGBTQ.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 1990 – 2010, 1,000 child victims of sex trafficking were arrested each year. One of these young victims was a 13-year-old Montgomery County, Maryland girl, "Madeline," who we served at FAIR Girls.
At 13, Madeline left a broken and abusive home of her own volition — 70 percent of our clients were in the child welfare system and 80 percent experienced homelessness prior to being trafficked — but, within 48 hours, she was lured from a bus station into the home of a sex trafficker posing as a father figure who offered her a false sense of protection that she missed after the death of her own father. Soon, she was forced to make $500 a night being raped by men who bought her just blocks from the nation’s capital. During the time she was there, no one reported her missing: She simply was at the mercy of her trafficker.
Sex trafficking is serial rape for profit. The average sex trafficking survivor at FAIR Girls reports that her exploitation began between the ages of 14- and 15-years-old. The girls and young women with whom we work tell us that, on average, that they were raped 5 times per night, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Our clients further report that they were exploited, on average, for four years before being connected to any social services. That is more than 150 rapes a month for girls who would normally be expected to attend high school, and 7,000 rapes before they receive any assistance as victims of trafficking, during when they might've otherwise have completed the requirements for a high school diploma.
Sex trafficking is serial rape for profit
The man who was convicted of trafficking Madeline and other girls and young women, Shelby Lewis, was a registered foster parent who controlled the girls with weapons and the denial of food. A seasoned D.C. detective finally found young Madeline on the streets, which eventually led to Lewis's arrest, conviction and sentencing. (He received 20 years).
The average person might think that Madeline’s suffering would have ended after a man was convicted of trafficking her. Yet, instead of a chance to safely heal, Madeline was charged with prostitution and sent to a locked juvenile facility for five years.
Like Madeline, more than 50 percent of the young women and girls (aged 11 to 26) who come to us as survivors of sex trafficking also have arrests for a wide range of offenses that often include truancy, absconding or trespass. As juveniles, they are held in detention facilities while awaiting court, after which they are either returned home, placed in foster group homes or assigned to treatment facilities. If they have achieved the age of majority at the time of their arrest, even if they were exploited as teenagers and trafficked as young adults, they are often fined, jailed and thereby denied access to critical housing, jobs and public benefits.
When I met Madeline, she was living in a detention facility and about to be homeless. She needed a job, a place to live, a chance to get her GED and basic things like food, clothing and transportation. FAIR Girls was able to provide her with safe housing, legal advocacy, counseling and access to our 24/7 crisis response services. Her recovery path, like that of so many survivors, is slow and required dedicated and consistent services: Victims of sex trafficking suffer debilitating bouts of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts at exponential rates.
Sadly, traffickers are very skilled at understanding the vulnerabilities of the young people they intend to traffic. They use false promises of love, family or a better life, employ cycles of affection followed by violence, sexual humiliation and shaming, threats to loved ones, denial of food or bathroom use, rape and the withholding emotional and physical intimacy for obedience. Traffickers often initiate a romantic or familial relationship with a vulnerable girl pushed out to the margins of our society, posing as a boyfriend or caring father figure, and then isolate the victim, rendering them economically dependent, homeless and emotionally vulnerable.
Victims of sex trafficking suffer debilitating bouts of
post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and
suicidal thoughts at exponential rates
Sustained levels of heightened stress, instability and mental abuse can lead victims to feel powerless in the face of their trafficker; they are often unsure of who to trust or if the police will really help them. Experiences like Madeline’s demonstrate why those concerns can be well founded.
As a society, we can do better.
In 2014, the District of Columbia passed legislation to protect minor victims like Madeline from arrests for prostitution; as of September 2016, 15 states have passed similar legislation. In D.C., this legislation requires that law enforcement receive training on how to identify child victims of sex trafficking, and the number of child victims of sex trafficking identified and referred out of the criminal justice system to FAIR Girls alone has tripled in the past two years as a result.
In March, the D.C. Superior Court additionally launched a new court treatment program, HOPE Court, for sex trafficked youth in the court system. Until now, many exploited girls and boys were simply sent to the D.C. juvenile detention facility where punishment took precedent over prevention and services. HOPE Court will bring them to FAIR Girls and other core services providers to give them the help they need to recover and stay free from future abuse. In just 10 months, our sole youth case manager has provided 77 unique services to child victims of commercial exploitation who were referred through the D.C. Superior Court to FAIR Girls.
Many exploited girls and boys are simply sent to a juvenile detention facility where punishment takes precedent over prevention and services.
These are all steps toward serving child victims of sex trafficking. However, like in most communities, there is little to no specialized housing for child victims of sex trafficking and service providers like FAIR Girls often struggle to provide the deep level of care each young survivors need.
Madeline has chosen to utilize her trauma and past to help other girls: She has testified before D.C. City Council, shared her story with the U.S. Senate and with national media and advocated for better policies, like Safe Harbor, and support for young victims of sex trafficking.
A safe harbor is a provision of a statute or a regulation that specifies that certain conduct will be deemed not to violate a given rule. It is usually found in connection with a vaguer, overall standard.
We have made steps in the right direction towards serving child victims of sex trafficking in a trauma-informed and meaningful way. However, for these life-saving programs to work effectively, they must be consistently and properly funded. For example, in most communities, there is little, if any, specialized services or housing options for child victims of sex trafficking and service providers like FAIR Girls often struggle financially to provide the deep level of care each young survivor needs.
Madeline’s strength is awe-inspiring. Yet, I can’t help but wonder what her life would be like had she received safe housing and care instead of jail, all those years ago as a 13-year-old sex trafficking victim in America.
Andrea Powell is the founder and president of FAIR Girls, which provides direct services and safe housing to young women and girl survivors of all forms of human trafficking. It is headquartered in the District of Columbia. Follow them on Twitter at @FAIR_Girls.
Canada's Liberal government tables bill to toughen laws on bestiality, should reduce child exposure, maybe
But the real intent is to protect animals, not children
Kathleen Harris · CBC News
Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould tabled legislation today that would strengthen laws around animal cruelty and bestiality.
Bill C-84 responds, in part, to a 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled a convicted sexual offender, identified only as D.L.W. to protect his victims, was not guilty of bestiality following charges stemming from sexual activity involving one of his stepdaughters and the family dog.
In a 6-1 decision, a majority of the justices ruled that the Criminal Code provisions around bestiality did not adequately define which sexual acts with animals are prohibited. In his ruling, Justice Thomas Cromwell urged Parliament to revisit the definition.
Seriously? Are they suggesting some sex acts with animals might be quite acceptable?
Bill C-84 changes the wording in the Criminal Code to clarify that it involves any contact for a sexual purpose between a person and an animal.
Wilson-Raybould said the government had "fairly extensive" consultations with a variety of stakeholders to respond to the court ruling. "It took some time," she said.
A Justice Department summary of the proposed changes says the amendments will protect animals from violence and cruelty and will increase protections for children and other vulnerable individuals who may be "compelled by another person to commit or witness sexual acts with animals."
"Bill C-84 represents a common ground approach to ensuring the protection of children and animals from cruelty and abuse," reads the Justice Department document.
Camille Labchuk, a lawyer and executive director of Animal Justice, said the new law took too long to bring in, and it is too narrow in scope.
"Disappointingly, the new legislation only contains very minor measures related to bestiality and animal fighting. These provisions are welcome, but they should have been introduced as part of a larger package of desperately needed animal cruelty reforms," she said in a release.
My concern has to do with how little, almost incidental the measures to protect children from this horrifying form of child sex abuse. In Far-Left Canada, animal welfare seems to trump child welfare.
"Animal Justice will seek amendments to Bill C-84, as it does not currently give judges the ability to ban bestiality offenders from owning animals in the future — something that is standard for other animal cruelty offences under the Criminal Code."In December 2017, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel tabled a private member's bill to amend the Criminal Code to define bestiality as "any contact by a person, for a sexual purpose, with an animal."
The existing definition of bestiality in the Criminal Code is understood to focus on penetration as the essential element involving a person and animal.
In the Criminal Code, offences against animals have not changed substantially since 1892, except for some increased penalties.
Age Verification Technology legislation means millions of porn videos will still be available for child consumption in UK
© Getty Images/RapidEye
The multitude of pornographic content on social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr will still be available to view without any age checks, as they will not be included in the proposed regulations.
Age Verification (AV) rules, that were presented by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to parliament last week, do not include websites where less than a third of content is pornographic and where the site has free access.
The regulations, which were made law by the Digital Economy Act 2017, would require sites providing pornography to implement AV to British users. Failure to do so could see the site blocked by British internet service providers (ISPs).
The policy has been undermined by the DCMS publishing the Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations, last week, which set out the exemption for sites not making pornography available commercially.
The impending rules have lead to a host of private companies attempting to devise solutions with the frontrunner thought to be Mindgeek, the publishers of PornHub.
The exemptions are the latest problem for the policy. The AV rules were delayed by the government earlier this year in order “to get the implementation of the policy right” according to the DCMS. The pledge to bring in a form of AV has been a part of the Tories 2015 manifesto.
The government is now reportedly looking for new ways to regulate what they deem to be pornographic content. A white paper from the DCMS and the Home Office is expected in the coming months, that will propose a number of legislative and non-legislative restrictions.
There should be zero tolerance for pornography available to children. Anything less is a yet another failure to protect children. But then, children don't vote, so who cares?
‘We failed them’: Australia apologises to
child sex abuse victims
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a national apology to thousands of victims of institutional sex abuse Monday, admitting the state utterly failed to stop “evil, dark crimes” committed over decades.
“This was done by Australians to Australians, enemies in our midst, enemies in our midst,” Morrison said in an emotional address to parliament, designed as a belated apology to the 15,000 known survivors of child abuse.
“As a nation, we failed them, we forsook them, and that will always be our shame,” he said, recounting abuse that a government inquiry has shown was rife in schools, churches, orphanages, sports clubs and other institutions across the country over decades.
Morrison’s voice cracked and trailed off as he recounted a history of exploitation, cover-ups and state failure. He declared a new national credo for future allegations: “We believe you.”
The state apology comes after a five-year Royal Commission that detailed harrowing child sex abuse claims involving once well-trusted institutions.
“Today, we say sorry, to the children we failed. Sorry. To the parents whose trust was betrayed and who have struggled to pick up the pieces. Sorry. To the whistleblowers, who we did not listen to. Sorry,” Morrison said.
“To the spouses, partners, wives, husbands, children, who have dealt with the consequences of the abuse, cover-ups and obstruction. Sorry. To generations past and present. Sorry.”
In parliament, lawmakers stood for a moment of silence following the remarks, as hundreds of survivors looked on or watched in official events across the country.
Normal parliamentary business, a session of prime minister’s questions, was suspended in a bipartisan show of respect.
Outside the parliamentary chamber, relatives of victims wore tags with the names of departed daughters and sons, brothers and sisters, for whom the apology came too late.
After meeting some of the victims, Morrison told journalists “I’ve never felt such pain in one room, ever.”
A series of Australian institutions have already apologised for their failings, including Australian Catholic leaders who have lamented the church’s “shameful” history of child abuse and cover-ups.
According to the Royal Commission, seven percent of Catholic priests in Australia were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2010, but the allegations were rarely investigated, with child victims ignored and even punished.
Some senior members of the church in Australia have been prosecuted in relation to the abuse.
Power of apology
The Australian government has previously issued formal apologies for the mistreatment of Aboriginal Australians, for forced adoptions and homosexual convictions.
There are growing calls for an apology for the military’s treatment of gay, bisexual and transgender personnel.
For many Australians there will still be questions about how the child sex abuse and cover-ups took place.
And for some of the victims, the government’s atonement rings hollow — a step short of removing public funding for offending institutions, or far-ranging legal reforms.
At an event attended by the leaders of both major political parties, protestors shouted demands that the government do more to punish the guilty and dig into the past of other institutions like the military.
“Today’s apology to victims of institutional child abuse highlights the power of a public apology to heal past wounds,” said Professor Noah Riseman of the Australian Catholic University.
“But in the midst of today’s acknowledgement there was a reminder that other victims of institutional trauma remain unacknowledged.”
Indian govt orders ban of 827 websites with porn material amid claims it incites rape
The Indian government is going tough on porn, ordering internet service providers (ISPs) to ban hundreds of websites hosting such content. It comes amid claims it’s encouraging rape as it “flourishes unabated.”
A high court imposed a sweeping order which will ban people from accessing a whopping 827 porn websites.
ISPs have been told to take “immediate necessary action” to block the websites after the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) issued the Department of Telecom (DoT) with a notice to do so, Indian news agency Press Trust of India (PTI reports).
All providers must immediately remove pornography so they can comply with the “Hon'ble High Court order,” issued at the end of September, the DoT said in its instructions for the servers.
The judges at the Uttarakhand High Court had originally been stricter as they sought to eliminate 857 websites, but further review from the ministry allowed for 30 websites to be spared as they were found to be free from pornographic content.
It comes just after Nobel laureate and prominent Indian rights activist Kailash Satyarthi called for a strong legislation to crackdown on online child pornography amid concerns it may encourage sexual abuse offences.
In a bid to exemplify the grave repercussions of online pornography, he described how a 12-year-old boy and his friends had watched a porn movie the night before they gang-raped his sister.
“The business of online pornographic films is flourishing unabated,” Satyarthi, who previously blasted child pornography for “creating so many evils in India,” said.
Certainly, porn and child porn contribute to the many evils that afflict women and children in India. But it didn't 'create' those evils; they have existed for hundreds of years, if not thousands.
Nevertheless, I am happy to see this backlash happening, I just wish I knew if it included only child porn sites or all porn sites. I think the latter, but it is not all that clear to me.
India has long been grappling with the issue of sexual violence against women and children. It gained international attention in 2012 with the high-profile case of a 23-year-old student who died after being gang-raped in a bus in New Delhi. Four of the adult defendants in the case were found guilty of rape and murder and were sentenced to death.
The fifth, because he was a minor, is already out of prison and free, even though he did the most horrific acts upon the poor woman.
Numerous other cases have also triggered outrage among the local population, causing thousands-strong protests decrying sexual attacks.
And yet, they continue unabated. Maybe this will help some. I pray that it will.
Global task force helps save 240 child sex victims
Afp, The Hague
A special task force has helped law officers around the world to rescue more than 240 victims of child sex abuse and bring almost 100 offenders to justice since 2014, Europol said yesterday.
Europe's policing agency for the first time released the figures as its fifth annual Victim Identification Task Force wound down following a two-week operation.
"As a direct outcome of the previous four Victim Identification Task Forces, we have been able to identify and rescue 241 victims around the world," said Fernando Ruiz, operations head at Europol's Cyber Crime unit.
"Some 94 offenders have been prosecuted in 28 countries" since the task force was established four years ago, Ruiz told AFP.
AFP was given access deep inside the heart of Europol's EC3 Cyber Crime Centre, where detectives were hard at work scanning their computer screens for possible evidence of child sexual abuse.
This year, 27 police detectives from 20 countries including EU member states, Australia and the United States, took part.
The detectives scanned hundreds of thousands of pictures and eventually came up with 91 so-called "series" of images depicting child abuse. A single series can link from two to more than 5,000 pictures.
"The likely countries of production have been determined and these countries informed, so that they can start their own investigations," Ruiz said.
He declined to name specific hotspots around the world but said "there could be more victims in countries where children are less protected."
Europol also praised the efforts of the public and collective groups who helped the agency track child sex victims or offenders through Europol's website called "Stop Child Abuse - trace an Object".
Launched last year, the site shows everyday objects spotted in the background of child sex abuse images to help police pinpoint the location of where the crime might have taken place.
"We've had this site up for one year and received 22,000 emails in response. We didn't expect this reaction," said Europol's deputy director Wil van Gemert.
"Because of this seven children have been saved," he told AFP.
"Saved" might be the wrong word here. They have already been abused, so I think 'rescued' might be more appropriate.
Europol in 2016 warned that online child pornography including the live-streaming of child sexual abuse was on the rise.
Dutch police last year for the first time called the scourge of child sexual abuse "a national threat."
While I applaud this initiative, as I do every initiative that rescues children, for a global endeavour to rescue 241 kids in 4 years, it's pretty disappointing. That works out to about one child every 6 days. That is a minuscule number in the face of the millions of children being sexually abused online.
27 detectives are just not nearly enough. They also need the best computers and programs which I doubt seriously that they have. Perhaps if the EU and other global communities really took the suffering of children more seriously we could get reports like this every 4 weeks rather than every 4 years.
NZ CSA & Domestic abuse survivor rises
above her dark past with 40kg weight loss
Marlene Singh
Kristel Blase at 104kg, she was threatened and never allowed to exercise, wanting to go for a walk meant she was selfish.
She's a devoted mum and a fitness enthusiast, but she's also survived 18 years as a domestic abuse victim.
Kristel Blase, 41, of Massey East was only four when she became the victim of sexual assault.
While her dark past was a curse, it also motivated her to lose 40 kilograms and helped her get her life back on track.
"I started off using a broken cross-trainer I picked up from the local dump and some old weights."
Blase began to drop more weight when she gradually forced herself to wake up at 4.30am, seven days a week, and go on bike rides.
It's been a huge change from what was once a rocky life.
Her mother died of cancer when she was 11, so growing up without a female figure was difficult.
During her teenage years Blase was raped on three different occasions by three separate men.
She admitted that from a young age, she was a very angry person.
At 15, she moved out of home and by 17 she had had her first child.
"I tried to get ahead financially by becoming a prostitute at an Auckland club."
She found herself caught in a rough relationship, recalling several failed attempts to leave a former abusive partner.
"He would physically block the door, hide my car keys, hide my phone, restrain me, slap my face, yell and insult me."
Women's Refuge chief executive Dr Ang Jury said there was no one way to survive abuse.
She said the process of recovery was unique to each woman and it could take some time before they reached a point where they felt completely disentangled from their experience.
"It is important that people, especially family members, support their friends and family in a non-judgemental way," Jury said.
A police spokesperson said police attended over 120,000 events of family harm each year and around 300 family harm events each day, that was one approximately every five minutes.
It was only when she was introduced to Results for Fitness for Women that Blase truly found a place that revitalised her confidence and raised her self-esteem.
It was a breakthrough of sorts for Blase because when she was in a relationship, she was forbidden from exercising.
In October 2016, Blase, her middle son and her daughter moved to Auckland.
Blase had met in secret with Work and Income and Women's Refuge to secure a place.
After attending gym and rebuilding her stamina and confidence, Blase started to live freely again, speak without thinking about the repercussions, go wherever she pleased, and eat whatever she craved.
The self motivator's dark past led her to go from being 104kg (230lbs) on her wedding day to now a 64kg (140lbs) woman working on her mental wellbeing.
Blase is looking forward to becoming a personal trainer but for now she was focused on her children and building a stronger mentality.
She's lived a dark past but now she's fit for the future.
Good for you, Kristel. Be defined by your future, not your past.
Delhi Police employing various techniques to deal with victims of child sexual abuse
By: PTI 
On an average two children are raped daily in the national capital, according to data released by the Delhi Police recently.
This is full-blown rape, not just minor touching!
According to the data, 739 cases of child rape have been reported until October 15 this year, while 921 such cases were reported in 2017. Investigating cases of child rape and interacting with children require a great deal of sensitivity, Madhur Verma, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) said.
Recalling an incident in his district where a Class 2 student of a New Delhi Municipal Council-run school in the upscale Gole Market area was allegedly raped by an electrician on the institute premises in August, Verma said such children are often in a traumatic situation.
So the police take professional help to extract details from them. Child counsellors have a lot of patience and are trained in dealing such cases, he added. Utmost care is taken while interacting and extracting details from the child since the police need to ensure that the victim does not revisit the trauma, the senior officer said.
Child counsellors usually interact and counsel the victim about good and bad touch and use various story-telling techniques to gather input from the child, Verma said. The child is quizzed about the suspects by various methods in order to establish the identity of the culprit. Children are often quizzed about the accused on the kind of clothes they were wearing, have they spotted the accused before in the neighbourhood.
Where and when did you spot him? What did that uncle tell you? All these questions are asked in a very special manner so that the child gets comfortable in sharing the details and does not get traumatised, the officer added.
In the NDMC school rape case, police said they were able to extract a lot of details from the child who gave them information about the kind of clothes worn by the accused who had even earlier tried to approach the victim.
A woman officer, who has investigated cases of child rape, said they ensure they are dressed in civil clothes while attending to the child, adding that they try their best to keep children away from the police station while extracting information.
“We dress like their mother and try to comfort them. Offer their favourite food items and toys to distract their mind and make them comfortable since they have already been through a traumatic situation,” she said, requesting anonymity.
The children are usually taken to a one-stop centre that are set up in hospital where the woman officer in the presence of the child’s mother and a counsellor try to extract details, the woman officer said.
“The room is quite lively with toys and the ambience tries to distract the children. We even make them sit on our lap and try speaking to them so that they can open up without fear,” the woman officer added.
In another incident, in October, a 79-year-old man was arrested for allegedly raping an eight-year-old girl on the pretext of giving her a chocolate in northeast Delhi’s Khajuri Khas. In this case, the accused was the neighbour of the victim.
The police said in most cases, the accused are known to the victim. Terming each case of child rape different in its nature depending on the situation, the police said in cases where the victims are infants or toddlers, they said crime scene plays a vital role in extracting information and accordingly, they prepare of a list of their suspects, another senior police officer said.
In Januray, an eight-month-old girl was allegedly raped by her cousin in northwest Delhi’s Subhash Place.
The identification of suspects mainly depends on the crime scene, police said, adding if the child was raped inside a school, the suspects could range from teachers, employees of school and other students. And in cases where the child was raped inside or near their house, the accused could be in the vicinity including a relative, friend, enemy or anyone known, the senior officer said.
The background of the crime plays a vital role in collecting primary data in such cases, he said. Police said children are easy targets and in most cases, the accused persons usually set their target in their vicinity so they need not travel kilometres to fulfil their task and instead wait for an opportunity to execute their crime.
In October, a Class 10 student of a government-run school was allegedly raped by four men who lured her with an offer to buy her a pizza in east Delhi’s Kalyanpuri.
Good start, but...
Advocate and child rights activist Ananth Kumar Asthana said that even though the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act requires female police officers to play a crucial role in child sexual abuse cases, as of now the number of female police officers is very inadequate and stressed on the need for special skills in dealing with children in such cases.
“There is a need for regular training and sensitisation programmes for police. And all cases of child sexual abuse must be reported to Child Welfare Committees and in turn the committee must provide assistance to such children,” he added.
He also asserted that even if legal provisions in this regard are in place but its implementation is still lacking to the extent required.
No kidding! It obviously hasn't made any reduction yet in the number of child rapes, but it is a start.
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