Some Very Disturbing Stories on Today's Global PnP List

Russian priest who raped boys at least 46 times

jailed for 17 years

FILE PHOTO. Hieromonk Meletiy leads church service. ©  pravyakutia.ru

A Russian Orthodox priest, who sexually abused boys under the age of 14, has been sentenced to 17 years behind bars. While the priest was convicted of 46 rape counts, he was accused of molesting children nearly 90 times.

The rogue hieromonk Meletiy, Andrey Tkachenko, has served as the director of an Orthodox gymnasium in the Yakutia region since 2010. He was exposed and detained last March, initially facing two counts of sexually assaulting children.

As the investigation unfolded, the case grew to a truly terrifying scale. The priest ultimately faced 87 counts of sexual offences against boys aged below 14. ‘Only’ 46 counts were proven in court, however, which resulted in the sentence of 17 years at a maximum-security prison.

Apart from the jail time, the priest was slapped with a 400 thousand rubles ($6,000) fine and was ordered to get mandatory treatment from a psychiatrist.

Psychiatric help will not be useful to someone so entrenched in paedophilia. 

Orthodox hierarchs of the Yakutia region are considering to strip Meletiy of his priesthood. The decision on the matter will be made following his appeals with higher Russian courts.

“We’re asking God to give the victims strength and patience. The victims and their families will receive all the pastoral care they need. We ask those, who follow the whole situation, to refrain from harsh statements, especially public ones,” the diocese of Yakutia said in a statement.

The Meletiy affair, however, has caused quite a stir on social media, with many demanding a life sentence for the “pedophile priest,” claiming that the sentence was actually too soft.

I'm inclined to agree. The sentence is less than 4.5 months per rape. The children will be challenged to have a normal life for the rest of their lives. They should never have to ever encounter this pervert again. 

Under Russian legislation, however, the priest’s offences could have yielded ‘only’ maximum of 20-years behind bars. Meletiy’s case is not the first that resonated with the public in Russia. Back in January a Russian priest, who was a father of four, was found guilty of sexually abusing underage girls at Orthodox summer camps in Russia and Greece. He was sentenced to 14 years (3rd story on link) in a maximum security prison.

Sexual abuse survivor falls through the cracks, as lawyers accuse Aussie governments and institutions of playing hardball

One Survivor's Story

By Jane Bardon

As Kenneth Stagg walks around the remains of the foundations of Darwin's Retta Dixon home for Stolen Generation children, painful memories of being sexually abused as a young boy flood back.

"There was a lot of sexual abuse here, there was one of the staff members committing sexual abuse against the boys," he said. "No-one wanted to go into cottage number two because they knew what he was doing to the boys here."

Mr Stagg's sister and brother were also abused at the Australian Indigenous Ministries home, regulated by the Federal Government.

They were forcibly taken and kept as mixed-race children when he was two. His brother was one, and his sister was three.

"I remember playing on Fannie Bay Beach with my brother and sister and the welfare taking us from the beach," he said. "We were kept here until we were about 11, and then we were allowed to leave with our aunt."

The siblings publicly revealed the horror of their experiences to the Royal Commission into Responses to Institutional Child Sexual Abuse when it sat in Darwin in 2014.


A dorm room at the Retta Dixon home, where children were sexually abused (Supplied)

Kenneth and his brother Kevin were both sexual abused by staff; their sister Veronica was raped by other children affected by abuse in the home.

But almost a year since the royal commission delivered its final report, the toll on his family has been heavy. Mr Stagg's brother is gravely ill, his sister has now passed away, and he has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. He said he smokes to try to deal with the trauma of what he suffered.

'There is no justice for me'

Mr Stagg had hoped the commission's final report would open the door to compensation for his family.

He decided the Federal Government's national redress scheme, announced in July, offered inadequate compensation and would not provide him with an official government admission of wrong-doing — so he decided to sue in court instead.

But he was so angry with the legal system that removed him from his family and allowed him to be abused that he could not bring himself to sign the paperwork that would have allowed lawyers to access his medical files.

He also felt that if he cooperated fully with the legal process, he would have to agree that the settlement of Indigenous Australia and the child removal policies that resulted from that were legitimate.

So his lawyers Maurice Blackburn had to drop the case.

"I'd like to believe that they continue to fight for fair, but they're trapped in the same sources of law that I'm trying to break free from," Mr Stagg said.

He is now destitute, on the dole, and facing homelessness.

Children board a bus at the Retta Dixon home in the Northern Territory. Undated. (Supplied)

"I'm the one who will not be recognised. I'm the one who has been put to one side," he said of the Federal Government. "So there is no justice for me. There's no truth being revealed to me, and they're acting in bad faith against me."

But Mr Stagg resigned himself to having slipped through the cracks, partly as a result of his own choices. "My family say that I shouldn't bite the hand that will feed me. But I can't. I just can't put my hand in this cake," he said.

Governments, institutions playing 'hardball'

Mr Stagg welcomed the Prime Minister's apology to survivors in October, but said he is devastated every time he hears about another sexual abuse case in the news.

"I've heard so many times: I'm sorry," he said. "But is it, 'I'm sorry this was done, or I'm sorry this will continue?'"

Mr Stagg was invited to the national apology to victims and survivors (ABC News: Jane Bardon)

The Federal Department of Social Services told the ABC that it could not discuss individual cases. But it said the national redress scheme had been set up to provide an alternative to survivors to going to court, "which can provide access to redress in a timely, simple and trauma-informed way".

Maurice Blackburn would not comment on Mr Stagg's case, but said it had hundreds of clients around Australia who had turned their backs on the national redress scheme because it was viewed as too miserly.

"And that's around the limit or the cap on a redress payment of $150,000 rather than the $200,000 that was recommended by the royal commission," said Michelle James, the company's head of abuse law.

The Social Services Department said the money offered reflected the lower requirements to produce evidence of abuse and "stakeholder feedback was taken into account in the design of the assessment framework".

Maurice Blackburn has also criticised the amounts being offered to survivors to pay for counselling as "callous". "The amount available for psychological counselling is dependent on the nature of the abuse that you suffered," Ms James said. "In particular, whether the abuse was penetrative abuse, contact abuse or exposure abuse."

Unfortunately, the framework of the abuse has a great deal to do with the degree of trauma. In some cases, more than the degree of sexual abuse. Where the abuse was committed by a spiritual authority, a person in charge like a teacher or house warden, whether there was violence, or threat of violence associated with the sexual abuse. Many such things exacerbate sexual abuse of children. Each survivor needs help until they don't. That should be the only criteria.

Children at the front of a building at the Retta Dixon home in the Northern Territory. Undated. (Supplied)

The legal firm said some governments and institutions were playing hardball against survivors who had started to go through the court process.

Ms James said some were requiring survivors to see two doctors to be assessed for psychological damage, and to attend pre-court conferences where they must face representatives of the institutions which abused them.

"It's incumbent on them to really have front of mind that these people are dealing with complex trauma," she said. "They are survivors of child sexual abuse, and this whole legal process can be incredibly retraumatising for them."

Hindu priest charged with sexual assault

at Surrey, B.C. temple

BY LAUREN BOOTHBY

A Hindu priest living in Delta has been charged with

sexual assault dating back to January 2015

SURREY (NEWS 1130) – A Hindu priest, who has been working in Lower Mainland temples for more than 20 years, has been charged with sexual assault.

Rajpal Sharma was kicked out of a Surrey temple by leadership this summer after they learned he apparently sexually assaulted a female worshiper at the temple. He was removed from his position and they brought the allegations to the police. Since then, he’s apparently been operating his own temple out of a garage in his Delta home.

Sharma has worked at two or more temples in Surrey, and one in Abbotsford, since the late 1990s.

Sharma is scheduled to make his first appearance in Surrey provincial court December 14 about an apparent assault that happened in Surrey in January 2015.

UK sex abuse victim 'told to take her son

to see her rapist or face jail'

EXCLUSIVE: The woman, who was just 14 when she was targeted in the grooming scandal, comes days after another brave victim revealed a similarly shocking plight

By Geraldine McKelvie, Mirror

A woman preyed on by paedophiles as a schoolgirl today claims she was ordered to let a man who repeatedly raped her have access to her child.

The woman was 14 when she says she was targeted by a man in the Telford sex grooming scandal.

She fell pregnant twice and says she was warned she faced arrest unless she allowed the man to see the youngster.

Her story comes days after Rotherham mum Sammy Woodhouse told how a man who raped her was also offered parental rights over her son.

Last night, police said lessons had been learned from the Telford victim’s ordeal.

But a second case in only a matter of days will raise concerns as to how many more women and children may have been similarly affected.

The victim – who we are calling Alison to protect her identity – said: “This has been happening for years and it’s an absolute disgrace.

"I was forced to take my child to a contact centre to see my abuser, where I had to sit across from him. He wanted to hurt me by targeting the thing I loved most in the world.

"It was just another way of trying to control me. Despite the fact I’d repeatedly tried to tell police and social services what was going on, the court allowed him to see my child.

"I was told I would be held in contempt and arrested if I didn’t take him to the contact centre.

Sammy Woodhouse told how a man who raped her was also offered parental rights over her son (Image: PA)

“They made me feel like I was the one in the wrong. I was terrified I’d go to jail. The whole thing was extremely traumatic. It gave my child nightmares for years.

“It seems like the rights of victims always come second to the rights of perpetrators. The system re-traumatises victims like me. It allows for further emotional abuse.” 

And that is exactly right! A rapist should have no rights to access a child he fathered! What kind of idiotic thinking would ever consider otherwise?

The Sunday Mirror revealed earlier this year that up to 1,000 girls could have fallen victim to Telford abusers over four decades.

Alison, now 48, was one of the first. She was targeted in the 1980s but says police, social workers and even a GP failed to listen to her cries for help.

She alleges she was asked to leave school over fears she was “setting a bad example” by having a baby at 15. She told authorities the father was a Pakistani man aged 19.

He did not sign the birth certificate and took no parental responsibility for the child, who is now 32.

Yet Alison says the man continued to stalk, beat and rape her for more than two years after the child was born. 

She fell pregnant again at 17 and had an abortion – but has no idea whether the father was her original abuser or one of countless more rapists. 

Alison claims she tried to tell police around 30 times about the campaign of terror being waged by her baby’s father. At 18, she was granted an injunction which barred the man from contacting her, but says he violated it “on an almost daily basis”.

She regularly called police but claims they told her they could not intervene.

Despite her repeated complaints, the alleged abuser was not convicted of rape or any sexual offence in relation to Alison.

The man – later jailed for money laundering – sought access when the child was three. Contact fizzled out when the youngster was seven.

Alison is speaking out as she backs a campaign aimed at stopping men gaining access to children conceived through rape. It is being spearheaded by Sammy Woodhouse, 33, who has waived anonymity.

She told how she was 15 when she had a baby fathered by Rotherham paedophile Arshid Hussain.

Hussain, 43, was jailed for 35 years in 2016 after being found guilty of abusing Sammy and a string of other girls.

West Mercia Police’s Assistant Chief Constable Martin Evans said of Alison’s claims: “The case has understandably had a significant and long-lasting impact on the lady involved and her family. We do not underestimate that impact.

“Knowledge and understanding of child sexual exploitation has moved on a long way. I offer my reassurance to any victims who report child sexual abuse, whether it happened recently or some time ago, that they will be dealt with by our dedicated team with respect and dignity.”

Shropshire Council, in charge of Telford social services at the time, did not comment.

Girls At Odisha Shelter Home Allege

Sexual Abuse, Supervisor Arrested

The privately run home is unregistered and is being operated illegally, Odisha Women and Child Development Minister Prafulla Samal said

All India | Press Trust of India 

DHENKANAL/BHUBANESWAR: Girls at a shelter home operating illegally in Odisha's Dhenkanal district have alleged sexual abuse at the centre following which its incharge was arrested on Saturday, police said.

The privately run home is unregistered and is being operated illegally, Odisha Women and Child Development Minister Prafulla Samal said.

The incident came to light when some girls levelled charges against the home incharge as well as its owner recently, they said.

The girls had alleged that the in-charge, Simanchal Nayak, had been harassing them sexually, physically and mentally for the past two years and they did not tell anyone about it out of fear and shame.

An investigation has been initiated into the case and efforts are on to arrest the home's owner and managing director Fayaz Rahman, Dhenkanal Sub-divisional Police Officer Abdul Karim said.

The inmates are aged between 5 and 16 years, said district Child Welfare Committee member, Niranjan Mishra.

Acting on media reports, District Child Protection Officer Anuradha Goswami and members of the CWC had raided the shelter home located at Beltikiri on the outskirts of Dhenkanal town on Friday, a police officer said.

Ms Goswami had also filed a complaint at Sadar police station in this connection and Nayak was arrested, he said.

Minister Samal said the shelter home has 22 branches in the state and the concerned district collectors have been asked to investigate them and shut them down.

Asserting that strict action would be taken against the authorities of the shelter home, the minister said arrests has been made and policemen are looking for more people.

Steps are being taken to shift the inmates to the nearest child care institutions, he added.

DCPO Goswami said the shelter home violated provisions under the Juvenile Justice Act and was operating illegally in a secluded place at Beltikiri.

Nayak has denied the allegations levelled against him by the girls and said they had done so as he had tried to enforce discipline at the home.

Senior district administration officials visited the home and spoke to the inmates. Action will be taken after a thorough investigation, a senior official said.

The centre had directed all the states to inspect child care institutions in the aftermath of the alleged sexual abuse of minor girls at a shelter home in Bihar. A similar case had also surfaced at Deoria in Uttar Pradesh this year.

As many as 539 child care institutions were shut down by the Union Women and Child Development Ministry in different places in the country for various irregularities, the sources said.

Forensic isotope analysis points USA cold case investigation north to Canada

'You are what you eat': Chemical traces in bones, hair may hold the key to cracking decades-old case

Mike Laanela · CBC News 

Investigators used facial reconstruction software to create this image, left, of an unidentified woman whose body was found in Racine, Wisconsin, in July 1999. She was wearing the the grey shirt with red flowers, pictured right, at the time of her death. (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children )

The old saying "You are what you eat" might hold the clue to unraveling the mysterious identity of a woman found dead nearly two decades ago in Wisconsin, who may have been raised in Canada.

The young woman's body was discovered on the edge of a cornfield near Racine, Wis., by a man walking his dog on July 21, 1999, according to Caroline Schweitzer, supervisor of forensic services with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Virginia.

"She had only been there less than 24 hours," Schweitzer said. "She was facially recognizable — if somebody saw her picture they would know who she was."

The woman had many distinguishing features, including curly red-brown hair, ears pierced twice, and a Western shirt embroidered with red flowers she was wearing.

But despite that, nobody came forward to identify her.

And from the beginning there were deeply troubling signs about her origins: Her teeth were in very poor condition and her slight body was obviously malnourished. But even more alarming was the extensive physical abuse that appeared to have taken place over several weeks before her death.

"When she was discovered, she was obviously beaten and horrifically tortured prior to her death," said lead investigator Tracy Hintz, with the Racine County Sheriff's Office. And that led investigators to the conclusion that she might have been held against her will for some time before she was beaten and left for dead.

Stable isotope analysis points northward

Over the years, Hintz and others searched multiple U.S. missing-persons databases, and used facial reconstruction software to create photographs, posters and Facebook posts. But they were never able to crack the case of the woman known only as Jane Doe 1999.

Three years ago, they even exhumed her remains for DNA testing but still came up empty-handed. "We have her DNA, but if we don't know who she is, we are kind of stuck," said Hintz. So the decision was made to send fragments of her bone and hair to researchers at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for a process called stable isotope analysis.

Anthropologists have used stable isotope analysis for years to track the migrations of ancient humans. Criminal investigators also use it to trace the origins of explosives and drugs. And increasingly in cases like this one, it is used to try to determine the origin of unidentified individuals.  

No perfect matches

But unlike DNA analysis, which can provide a near perfect match with an individual, stable isotope analysis cannot identify people. What it can reveal instead are subtle clues about diet, geography and movements of a person in the months and years before their death.

It does this by using a device called a mass spectrometer, which measures variations in the molecular level of elements such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen that are absorbed into our bones, teeth and hair from the food and water we consume.

Mass spectrometers measure the particular ionic signature of chemical compounds. They are used in many different applications. (Nadina Wiórkiewicz/Wikipedia Commons)

"Basically, you are what you eat," says Hintz. "Those stable isotopes stay in different parts of your body as you grow." And, she explains, the levels of these various isotopes will vary depending on where you live in the world. In the case of Jane Doe 1999, those clues led investigators to expand their search area far wider than before.

What they learned was that the young woman, who they believed to be between the ages of 15 and 30, may have been from, or spent several years in, somewhere within a broad stretch of southern Canada between British Columbia and Newfoundland, or possibly even parts of the western U.S. such as Alaska or Montana.

Can't get much broader than B.C. - Newfoundland

Tips are pouring in

While the new clues expanded the search area to a huge swath of new territory, they also helped investigators refocus on new sources for clues.

Hintz had hoped to receive tips from people north of the border  — and they started pouring in after this information was released, she said. "Yes, I have been very busy," she said Tuesday morning. "[The tips] are all appreciated. They can lead to something or lead to ruling something out."

Hintz says while it will take a long time to prioritize the new tips, and run down every clue, the cold case is one she is devoted to cracking one day. "If it is a sleepless night at home, I will pull out this case and work on it from there," she said.

"This is why I came back to the detective bureau. I specifically asked for this case because she deserves more than this, no matter who she was or where she lived."

Ultimately Hintz has two goals. The first is identifying the young woman found battered and left for dead on the side of the road nearly two decades ago, and give her back a name.

"The other is to bring those who are responsible for this to justice," Hintz said.

Anyone with a tip is asked to call 1-800-843-5678 or contact Hintz directly at (262) 636-3190.

Jerusalem Police Interrupt Extremists’ Wedding
of 13-Year-Old to Another Minor

By David Israel 

Nouveau Haredi women

Israeli police on Thursday night prevented a secret wedding between two minors in the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) neighborhood of Mea Shearim, the Spokesperson for the Jerusalem Police reported.

After identifying the bride as a 13-year-old girl, the police suspect that she was the minor who had been reported missing by her father two months ago.

Police officers searched the Mea Shearim neighborhood following information about a clandestine wedding between two minors, arranged by their families, which was being held on the rooftop of a local building. The police acted to prevent the wedding from being held, and detained for questioning four minors, including the bride, 13, along with the bride’s mother and two other women. The age of the prospective groom was not released.

Police suspect, based on the details of her identity, that the minor bride was reported missing by her father about two months ago, and that her mother had been hiding her until the date of the wedding.

The mother is being investigated for violating a legal order and other offenses and a report on the case has been sent to the welfare authorities. Now police are trying to identify the other women and minors in detention (see picture).

From the picture, it appears that the women are part of the extremist group that have been dubbed “The Taliban Women” and the “Burqa Cult” by other members of the Mea Shearim Haredi community, who have condemned their behavior. The women, who do not follow any mainstream Haredi authorities, cover themselves up from head to toe in black cloaks and have taken on other peculiar customs and behaviors.

Mea Shearim, established in 1874 as one of the earliest Jewish settlements outside the walls of the Old City, is home to a large community of Haredi Jews.

Rise in number of Irish sex offenders released without undergoing treatment programme

BBL treatment is made available to all sex offenders in Ireland, and is based on international best practice

By John Burke

The number of sex offenders who are being released from prison without having undergone the State's main treatment programme has increased.

Out of 135 sex offenders who will be released this year, as few as 17 have taken part in the Building Better Lives (BBL) programme, according to figures obtained by RTÉ's This Week.

There are between 400 and 450 sex offenders in Irish prisons at any one time, including men convicted of crimes ranging from rape, to molestation and child sex abuse.

BBL is the State's main treatment programme aimed at reducing the harm sex offenders may pose after their release from jail.

Sex abusers who undergo BBL treatment are almost four times less likely to reoffend after leaving prison, than those who do not participate in the therapy-based programme.

It is made available to all sex offenders in Ireland, and is based on international best practice.

However, it is voluntary, and it requires participants to admit the offence they caused and the harm done to victims before they can take part.

New figures obtained by RTÉ reveal that fewer sex offenders are now taking part in the programme before their release when compared to just four years ago.

In 2014, the then justice minister Frances Fitzgerald told the Dáil that 21% of sex offenders had taken part in the BBL programme before being released from prison.

However, while the numbers of  sex offenders being released every year has stayed the same, at around 135, the numbers undergoing the main treatment programme fell to just 12% by the time of their release, for this year.

That is despite the BBL programme being expanded to include inmates in both the Midlands Prison, as well as Arbour Hill, since 2016. Around two-thirds of the country's sex offenders are accommodated in Midlands Prison and the remainder in Arbour Hill.

The head of the Irish Prison Service Psychology service, Dr Emma Black, told RTÉ that the recidivism rate for those treated under the BBL programme was much lower than those untreated.

"The recidivism rate for people who have undergone the treatment, over 15 years, is about 5.4%, compared with those untreated at about 19.6%," she said.

Dr Black said that some sex offenders are unsuitable to take part in BBL, while others deny their offences.

She said there was also an apparent increase in sex offenders entering custody who were less socially or mentally stable, and also an increase in younger offenders, making them less suitable for the group BBL sessions as they tended to live more "chaotic" lives.

She said that offenders who did not take part in BBL are dealt with through a wide range of other supports and monitoring, in conjunction with An Garda Síochána and the Probation Service. She said this included access for inmates to individual offence-focused and risk-avoidance work by the Psychology and Probation Service.

It also included psychiatric care; pre-release accommodation and resettlement supports; education and training; and close monitoring and supervision after release. She said that a significant number of those with release dates in 2018 who did not participate in BBL have been managed in this way.

However, Dr Black said following their engagement with an international expert earlier this year, the Irish Prison Service was now considering introducing a specialised treatment programme aimed specifically at so-called "categorical deniers" who refused to admit the sexual abuse they engaged in, or that it was harmful to their victims.

She said the prison service would be putting a business case proposal to the Department of Justice for additional resources for the new "deniers" programme, which was based on a model currently in operation in Canada.

Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has acknowledged the importance of the Building Better Lives programme, but said he is satisfied it is not appropriate for everyone.

Mr Flanagan said he is "very keen" to work closely with the Irish Prison Service on the issue. "I believe its important that we further develop and expand the course to ensure that there are a range of psychological services available to prisoners; having regard to the fact that every prisoner will at some stage be reentering the community," he said.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said it is heartening that the Prison Service and Mr Flanagan are conscious of the need for a wider programme.

Noeline Blackwell, CEO of the DRCC, said improvements in the services are in the interests of both the convicted person and society, but added that change has to happen soon.

"It has to be done now, because with every single month, every year, somebody is being released and the chances are they will not have done the work that was necessary to reduce their risk when they come out".

Muslim women facing sexual abuse by family members, fail to raise voice

RASTRIYA SAMACHAR SAMITI

Rupandehi, Nepal
A 32-year-old Muslim woman of Shivagadhiya in Lumbini has been allegedly facing sexual harassment on a regular basis at the hands of her father-in-law.

Once she decided to seek police help, but before she could do anything her father-in-law warned her of dire consequences. Her father-in-law threatened to expel her from home and entire village if she reported the matter to police. Since then, she is continuously facing sexual harassment, but  she has not been able to raise her voice for justice.

Her husband is in Malaysia. Police came to know about her situation, but could not do anything as there was no complaint registered against the accused.

Do we need new laws so that police can intervene when someone is being abused and is too frightened to complain?

Najira Khatun (name changed) of Madhuwani has a similar story to share. Khatun got married to a man from Bethari, Rupandehi, three years ago. She is facing unwelcome sexual advances from her brother-in-law and father-in law. If she speaks against them, they beat her. She shared about it with her husband, but instead of getting moral and other kinds of support from him, her husband beat her up saying that charges were false and she intended to defame his father and brother.

Since then she has been living with her parents, who have not yet filed any complaint against the perpetrators.

These two women are just the examples how women suffer sexual violence within family and get no support for justice. This paints a grim picture of the society. In case of sexual or other sorts of violence in family, Muslim women rarely show courage to speak about it in public or report to police as they fear that it would defame their family and tarnish family’s prestige.

It could be they also fear being beaten half to death and thrown out onto the street.

Police collect data about such violence through several means, but in the absence of written complaints, they cannot respond to such cases. Police concludes that many Muslim women become victims of sexual violence within their family but most of the cases go unreported.

UN Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discriminations against Women considered as a bill of women rights to which Nepal is a state party, defines sexual relations with women against her will, physical touching, teasing, uttering abusive words and winking eye targeting her and showing vulgar pictures and photographs to her and forcing her to keep physical relationship as sexual violence against women.

Police Inspector at Area Police Office Lumbini Shankar Pokharel said only few cases of sexual violence were reported to police due to life threats from perpetrators, who are usually the family members.

District Police Office, Rupandehi, says that in the first four and half months of the current fiscal, 123 cases of violence against women were registered followed by 38 cases of human trafficking, 27 of attempted rape, nine cases of rape, two murder cases and one case of child marriage.

Assistant Sub-inspector of Police Meena Acharya said women did not report cases of sexual violence due to fear and government had failed to guarantee safety and security of women who become the victims of such violence.

According to the police record, women from the Tarai region face sexual violence more. Many VAW cases go unnoticed as many of such cases are solved within family or community, said Inspector Pokharel.

According Area Police Office, Butwal, chief Dil Bahadur Malla, victims tolerate the violence silently fearing shame. According to him, lack of support from family is one of the major factors that discourages women from seeking police help.

Human rights activists Indira Acharya said role of family and society would be important to ensure justice and create safe environment for victims to raise their voice against injustice.

Besides monetary aspect, complex legal procedure, lack of support from family and fear of shame compel victims to keep mum and tolerate pain in isolation.

And the insane part of this is - if a woman or girl goes to the police and tells them she has been raped by someone in the family, it is she who will suffer the consequences of bringing shame on the family. Not the rapist(s), the victim. How crazy is that? 

Rupandehi district, Nepal

Bengal Shelter Home Employees Arrested

For Sex Abuse of Disabled Girls: Police

KOLKATA: Three employees of a childcare centre in West Bengal's Howrah district have been arrested for sexually abusing differently-abled girls, the police said on Saturday.

According to police sources, based on information shared by government officials, a police team had visited the child care centre.

"Three of the identified persons have been arrested and there will be further arrests if anyone else is involved," a senior police official said.

They interacted with the girls with the help of an interpreter and identified the culprits. One of the girls is a minor.

"We had no idea about the incident and will make sure that all the culprits are arrested," Sukumar Sau, General Secretary of the centre said.

Baby rapists, incestuous Christian baby rapists, priests, teachers among the evil faces that lay bare Australia's paedophile crisis

A child-abusing teacher who dressed as a super-hero and a monster who raped his girlfriend's two-year old daughter are among Australia's worst paedophiles to have been jailed this year.

In 2017, 666 criminals were sentenced for child sex offences in New South Wales alone, Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data showed.

It marked a sharp 35 per cent rise from 2013, when 494 child sex predators were jailed, with those figures in Australia's biggest state not including criminal convictions in every other state and territory. 

In the last year alone, a new batch of Australia's worst paedophiles have been put behind bars for their vile acts, with predators hailing from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane.

A child-abusing teacher who dressed as a super-hero (Shane Andrew Matthews pictured) is among Australia's worst paedophiles to have been jailed this year

Shane Andrew Matthews 

Primary school teacher Shane Andrew Matthews, 31, was sentenced to 12 years jail in September after pleading guilty to 33 counts of child sex abuse, possessing child pornography and grooming underage children between 2012 and 2015.

The paedophile had sexually abused students as young as 10 in the classroom and would go home at night and send vile text messages about his victims to other men.

Sentencing him at Campbelltown Local Court in September, magistrate Jennifer English said that Matthews had acted like a 'predator'.

Court documents seen by Daily Mail Australia show how Matthews would approach parents at Wattle Grove Public School, in Sydney's south-west, and ask to give one-on-one tutoring to their children.

It was during these one-on-one sessions at lunch and recess that he would abuse his victims.

Child rapist Jason Daron Mizner this year pleading guilty to raping a two-year-old girl

Jason Daron Mizner

Convicted child rapist Jason Daron Mizner made national headlines in October this year after pleading guilty to raping a two-year-old girl.

Brisbane District Court judge Leanne Clare was so shaken by the evidence that she adjourned the case for three days to ensure a fair sentence.

Justice Clare viewed a portion of one of dozens of Mizner's home-made rape tapes. 

'I think it would be best to put some distance between the viewing of that tape and the delivery of the judgment so that it does not overwhelm the sentence,' she said.

His vile acts dating back to the early 2000s included more than 30 counts of rape and videotaping the assaults.

The 44-year-old paedophile was sentenced to 19 years behind bars for repeatedly sexually abusing the girl, who was still wearing nappies, and filming the sick attacks.

Grinning predator Ruecha Tokputza, an Adelaide man who groomed Australian and Thai children for sex

Ruecha Tokputza

Grinning predator Ruecha Tokputza, from Adelaide, groomed Australian and Thai children for sex and has pleaded guilty to 51 charges.

Tokputza, 30, violated 11 boys and babies, with some as young as 15 months of age, and also filmed their torment.

Adelaide Magistrates Court documents revealed Tokputza had a collection of up to '12,500 image files' and '650 video files'.

Included in the predator's sickening film library was boys changing at an Adelaide swimming pool — the location of which has not been disclosed.

Tokputza admitted he indecently filmed the boys, under the age of 17, on May 21, 2017. He will face sentencing in January.

So-called 'good Christian' Cornelus Bezuidenhout (pictured), 75, sexually assaulted a kindergarten girl and claimed she 'knew exactly what she was doing' and 'wanted it'

Cornelus Bezuidenhout

Elderly Melbourne-based pervert Cornelus Bezuidenhout, 75, sexually assaulted a kindergarten girl and claimed she 'knew exactly what she was doing' and 'wanted it'.

The so-called 'good Christian' made the vile comments to police in January after the girl pleaded with her parents to keep him away.

The South African national - a father of five - had been looking after the girl after befriending the parents of his niece's friend.

He had repeatedly molested the child after collecting her from kindergarten, taking her on trips to the park and playing dolls in a bedroom.

On one occasion he touched the little girl while he shared a meal with her parents.

The devout Baptist earlier this month pleaded guilty to two charges of sexually assaulting a child aged under 16. 

County Court of Victoria Judge Gabriele Cannon condemned his 'gross breach of trust' and labelled his comments to police as 'repugnant'.

She sentenced the civil engineer to 22 months in jail, with a non-parole period of 10 months.

With time served, Bezuidenhout will likely be deported back to South Africa in a little under seven months.

Australia's worst paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale (pictured) spent three decades sexually abusing vulnerable children in unprecedented offending

Gerald Francis Ridsdale

Australia's worst paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale spent three decades sexually abusing 65 vulnerable children in unprecedented offending.

Ridsdale's offending took place over such a long period of time, involved so many people and destroyed so many lives that the interests of justice demand a sentence that could properly be called unprecedented, crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams told the Victorian County Court in August last year.

The paedophile priest, now 83, used his position as a parish priest to befriend the children and their devout Catholic families in parishes in western Victoria, telling some of his victims 'it's our little secret' and one that 'it's part of God's work'.

The former Catholic clergyman has been in jail since 1994, serving an effective total sentence of 28 years with a 25-year non-parole period for similar offences.

He had pleaded guilty to 23 charges of abusing 11 boys and one girl between 1962 and 1988 and was last year given 11 years more jail time so he would not be eligible for parole until 2022.

Violent career criminal Jacob Michael Smith (pictured) was jailed for 25 years in April for murdering a Brisbane other before raping her daughter

Jacob Michael Smith

Violent career criminal Jacob Michael Smith was in April jailed for 25 years for using bedding to murder a Brisbane mother before he raped her daughter.

In the early hours of August 26, 2014, he attacked the mother as she slept on a mattress alongside her two ill daughters in the living room of their home.

The makeshift bedding was so they could lay and watch TV as they dealt with gastro. (???)

Smith, who was 41 at the time of his sentence, crept behind the mother and attacked, using a white sheet to kill her.

He smothered and strangled the mother, who can't be identified, then pulled the arms of her 12-year-old daughter to wake her up and told her she was going to become a woman.

He was sentenced to at least 25 years jail, with Justice Martin Daubney saying: 'You mouth regret but you demonstrate no remorse.'

Vile paedophile Leigh Norton (pictured), 52, photographed himself abusing a baby girl and was only caught after police found the pictures and were able to zoom in on his fingerprints

Leigh Norton  

Vile paedophile Leigh Norton, 52, photographed himself abusing a baby girl and was only caught after police found the pictures and were able to zoom in on his fingerprints.

The man from the NSW central west had brutally attacked a nine-month-old girl and took photographs of the despicable acts.

Norton in April was sentenced to 11 years jail, with police using the fingerprint in the abuse photo as evidence of the crime.

The former chemist and social worker was found with 33 images of the child - all taken on a mobile phone.

A born-again Christian from Mackay in north Queensland repeatedly raped his young children after luring them into bed with the film Frozen (stock image)

Frozen film lure

A born-again Christian repeatedly raped his young children after luring them into bed with the film Frozen.

The paedophile, from Mackay in north Queensland, encouraged his two daughters and son, aged between five and ten, to engage in group sex with each other and with him.

His worst crime was raping his six-year-old daughter, a judge said. He also abused one of the girls in the bathroom on Christmas Day in 2016.

The father, in his 40s, was jailed for eight years after pleading guilty to four counts of rape and 15 counts of indecent assault at Mackay District Court in May.

Except for Risdale and Smith, all the sentences are unfortunately too light for the heinous evil they inflicted on small children. Most of those children will bear emotional and psychological scars for the rest of their lives. They should never have to worry about ever seeing their abusers again.