Belgian woman kidnapped, kept as sex slave
by group of migrants for months in Italy
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / baytunc
Italian police are investigating a nightmarish case of a Belgian woman, who was kidnapped by a group of Tunisian migrants, Italian and Belgian media report. The captors had allegedly been raping her for two months.
The horror story unfolded back in early 2017 when a Belgian woman, 32, was abducted by six Tunisians in the north-western Italian sea resort of Sanremo, not far from the French border. The victim, residing in the French Riviera, allegedly approached one of her future captors in the street seeking to buy drugs, according to media reports.
The Tunisians forcibly took her to a house, where one of the migrants lived, where she said she had been tied to a bed with ropes and repeatedly raped. One of her captors also always stood guard in the house to prevent her escape.
At some point, the six men went from just taking turns in raping her to inviting some other people to the house and letting them rape her as well for money. The chilling ordeal ended when the woman was suddenly released by her tormentors after spending some two months in captivity – January and February 2017.
The police detained all six suspects, described as Tunisian migrants aged between 23 and 50 by the media, who were charged with kidnapping, group sexual violence, rape and forcing a person into prostitution. No further details about the case have been revealed. There is no information on the citizenship status of the suspects or whether they are in Italy legally.
The pre-trial hearing of the case will be held on January 25. The case of the Belgian woman, whose identity has not been revealed, comes on the heels of a tragic incident that shocked Italy.
An Italian girl, Desiree Mariottini, 16, was raped by a group of migrants in Rome as she also sought to buy drugs in October 2018. The girl died from a drug overdose the same night as the migrants drugged her unconscious before sexually assaulting her.
Three migrants from Senegal and Nigeria were arrested in that high-profile case, which split Italy as it led to yet another rise of anti-immigrant sentiments but also prompted many to accuse Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing anti-immigrant Lega party, of capitalizing on the issue.
Of course, left wing nut jobs would accuse anyone of taking advantage of the situation when, in reality, they were simply responding to the situation, instead of burying their heads in the sands as most of far-left Europe has done.
Migrant gang rapist pleads guilty for role in
violent kidnapping and torture in Canada
Kevin Martinviolent kidnapping and torture in Canada
Calgary SUN News Crime
Convicted gang rapist Abdifatah (Diggy) Ibrahim pleaded guilty Thursday to a series of new charges connected to his involvement in a violent kidnapping.
Ibrahim pleaded guilty to July 17, 2017, charges of kidnapping with a firearm, extortion with a firearm and aggravated assault in a case in which the victim was tortured.
According to a statement of agreed facts made an exhibit, Ibrahim was part of a group of men who attacked Ethan Doucette in a northeast Calgary home after luring him there under the pretense of buying cocaine.
The exhibit, produced by Crown prosecutor Ryan Persad and signed by Ibrahim and his lawyers, Shelley Moore and Krysia Pzerpiorka, detailed how Doucette was unexpectedly assaulted in a Rundle basement suite.
“Doucette was introduced to a couple of people and was suddenly attacked,” the document said.
“Someone swung a bat at Doucette’s face, hitting his mouth which broke his jaw and caused him to lose some teeth.”
Another assailant threw a bottle of booze at his face while two others punched him.
“Another man entered the room with what Doucette describes as a sub-machine gun. That male forced Doucette to sit down on the couch and fired some rounds into the couch just a few feet beside Doucette.
“Doucette passed out briefly as a result of this.”
He was then bound with duct tape and moved to a bathroom.
“He was thrown into the bathtub and they poured a liquid, that he believes was gasoline, on him that burned his face.”
Doucette was told if he said the wrong words he’d be shot.
“They wanted him to call some people including his parents, friends and girlfriend in order to get money from them,” the exhibit said.
“Doucette called his mother to ask for money and did not say anything about what was happening because he had a gun to his head.”
The victim was also burned with cigarettes, was struck in the head with a shoe and kicked several times.
Still bound he was taken to a second home where he was taped to a chair and had a knife held to his throat.
He was eventually dropped off at a nearby 7-Eleven store after being robbed of his belongings.
Ibrahim, 23, pleaded guilty last week in connection with a Dec. 3, 2016, home invasion-style robbery.
And earlier this month he was convicted of sexual assault in connection with the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl who was forced to have sex with three men for a ride home on a cold night in February 2015.
At Moore’s request, Justice Karen Horner ordered a psychiatric and psychological assessment of Ibrahim, which will include a risk assessment.
Moore said the report will also be needed for immigration proceedings against the Somalia native, who is not a Canadian citizen.
Sentencing hearings are scheduled for May.
A former UK prep school teacher has been jailed
for child sex offences dating back to the 1960s
Hallman indecently assaulted a pupil while teaching
at Stroud School near Romsey
Hubert Hallman, 82, admitted four counts of indecent assault against a pupil while he was a French teacher at the Stroud School in Romsey, Hampshire.
Southampton Crown Court heard his "traumatised victim" came forward in 2017 following high-profile child sex abuse cases.
Hallman was given a jail sentence of two years and six months.
The court heard Hallman, of Highfield Lane, St Albans, was regarded as a "ferocious school master" and pupils at Stroud School were "terrified" of him.
'Off the rails'
Prosecutor Mary Aspinall-Miles told the court he performed sex acts on the boy in a caravan he lived in on school grounds. He also touched the boy inappropriately on multiple occasions, including at a swimming pool and in a tent.
In a victim impact statement referred to in court, the complainant was described as a "happy, cheerful little boy" who "went off the rails" during his teenage years because of the abuse.
The court was told Hallman was convicted of similar offences in Switzerland when he was a trainee Catholic priest, before he taught at Romsey. He was also jailed in the early 1970s for 16 offences he committed while working a school in Greenwich.
Defence counsel David Young told the court his client, who has recently been treated for cancer, was "ashamed, regretful and remorseful".
Addressing Hallman as he passed sentence, Judge Robert Pawson said: "Have you actually thought deeply about the damage you've caused someone else?
"Nothing can undo what you did to that little boy - it led to significant consequences. It is never too late for a victim's pain to be recognised and your guilt to be punished."
After Kasur, child abuse scandal surfaces
in Taunsa Sharif, Pakistan
DERA GHAZI KHAN (Dunya News) – A scandal pertaining to child abuse surfaced in Taunsa Sharif district of Dera Ghazi Khan on Saturday.
The horrendous incident has occurred in the native area of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar.
It has been revealed that the suspect is blackmailing the families of the children through their pornography videos.
The affectees have claimed that the accused Adnan Zafar is threatening them for reconciliation while showing them his photograph with the Punjab CM.They have alleged that the suspect made videos of at least 19 children and also took extortion money from them.
Moreover, the father of Adnan is serving in Punjab police force.
On the complaint of the families, police took action and has registered a case against the incident.
Child sexual abuse incidents in Kasur
Kasur had last attained local and international notoriety last year when the incident of rape and murder of six-year-old Zainab Amin came to light. It was the 12th such incident to occur within a 10 kilometre radius in Kasur in one year and had sparked outrage and protests across the country.
In February 2017, an anti-terrorism court handed down death penalty to Imran Ali on four counts after he was found guilty of rape and murder of Zainab and six other minor girls. A fine of one million rupees was also slapped on the convict alongside a sum of one million as blood money.
He was later hanged in the Kot Lakhpat Jail Lahore on October 17 last year.
Later in February 2018, ATC acquitted at least 12 men of child sex abuse and blackmail charges in Kasur in a massive paedophilia scandal that rocked the country in August 2015.
The abuse and extortion scandal, which authorities have called the largest in Pakistan’s history, allegedly involved hundreds of victims in Punjab province.
Two of the accused were jailed for life in April 2017.
In the village of Hussain Khanwala in Kasur, southwest of Lahore, videos were made of at least 280 children being sexually abused by a gang who blackmailed their parents by threatening to leak the videos.
The police, who had conspicuously failed to act despite pleas from some parents, eventually made dozens of arrests after clashes between relatives and authorities brought the issue into the media spotlight.
In March 2016, Senate also passed a bill that criminalised sexual assault against minors, child pornography and trafficking for the first time -- previously only the acts of rape and sodomy were punishable by law.
Great! Pakistan laws have entered the 19th century. The police, however, are still in the 7th.
Life after being molested as a child:
Confusion, anger and forgiveness
One Survivor's Story
The legal process keeps track of what happens to a person who sexually abuses children, from the point of arrest to conviction and sentencing. But what happens to the victim? After the perpetrator is jailed, can the child escape his or her own prison?
By Lydia Lam, Channel News AsiaSINGAPORE: When she was just seven years old, a family friend in his 30s started making sexual advances on her.
Ms Devika Satheesh Panicker, now 24, did not think much of it, as she was too young to understand the gravity of what was going on.
It started out with kissing and touching over her clothes, and progressed to molestation and digital penetration. The family friend also made her touch him.
The man spent a lot of time with her in the Woodlands flat she shared with her parents and two sisters, Devika recalled, as he was in Singapore looking for a job and her parents let him stay as a tenant in the family home.
This continued for more than a year, until he turned his attention to her older sister, asking her inappropriate sexual questions. The older girl told her parents about it, and they sat Devika down. After about 20 minutes of coaxing, she revealed what had happened to her.
“I was worried that he might punish me if my parents found out,” she told Channel NewsAsia.
Looking back, she could identify the first time she realised something was wrong - when she felt pain as he was molesting her.
“I told him ‘I don’t want’,” she recalled. “That is one of the more vivid memories I still have of him making me feel unsafe. That was one of those moments when I was like, why would someone who cared for me want to hurt me?”
He bought her candy after that and asked her if she was alright, and told her not to tell anyone about it as “it’s our secret”.
SHE TESTIFIED AGAINST HIM IN A TRIAL
Devika's parents filed a police report after she revealed what the man had done to her. He was charged with molestation and sexual abuse. The man claimed trial and she remembers testifying as a witness.
She was kept in another room as she was too young to be in the courtroom, she said, but could see the proceedings via video link. She remembered seeing him on the screen, the first time she saw him after his arrest, but felt nothing.
Less than a year after investigations began, her perpetrator was sentenced to six years’ jail and 14 strokes of the cane.
After this, her parents sat her down and told her to forget what had happened and to never talk about it again.
It was only when Devika was 10 or 11 and taking a health education class that she began to grasp what had happened. The teacher was going through “good touch, bad touch” lessons, explaining a scenario where a man touched a woman without her consent on a bus, when Devika realised it was similar to what she had experienced.
She felt confusion at first, followed by anger. This gave way to feelings of helplessness, and depression. Her grades began falling and although her parents took her for therapy sessions, she did not open up, repeatedly saying: “I’m fine, I’m fine.”
She felt ashamed and blamed herself, refusing to seek help as “I didn’t want to see myself as a victim”.
“Subconsciously I believed that I deserved it,” she said. It created a distance between her and men, and she found herself struggling with problems in relationships, holding on to toxic ones because she did not think she would find someone else who would love her.
On top of this, she kept track of the time her attacker spent in jail.
“I was counting down every year,” she said. “The last year when I knew he was going to be released, I had so much trouble sleeping, I was having nightmares that he would come and find me for putting him in jail. It was a very difficult year for me, but I've never seen him after that. I think he was deported.”
IT TOOK A TOLL ON THE ENTIRE FAMILY
The ordeal took a toll not just on Devika but her entire family - with her parents and older sister blaming themselves for what happened.
This is a common reaction in such cases, said Mr Kenny Liew, senior clinical psychologist at the Institute of Mental Health's department of developmental psychiatry.
“Parents may have the misconception like - oh, I failed to protect my child, I didn’t know,” he said, pointing out that the perpetrator in sexual grooming cases may have used strategies to allow the victim to be exploited more easily.
In his talks with such young survivors of sexual abuse, he tackles the problems of guilt and blame, interspersing them at times with chats with the parents, whose reactions are equally pivotal to the child’s recovery process.
In 2017, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) investigated 181 cases of alleged sexual abuse of children, an increase from the 107 in 2016 and 82 in 2015. The 2016 figure was the first time the number of cases crossed the 100 mark in more than a decade.
The ministry attributes the steady increase of cases since 2015 to its efforts in uncovering more cases with serious child protection concerns that were flagged for intervention.
Over the years, it has introduced more rigorous screening tools, provided more training for social workers, educators and counsellors for identifying and detecting child abuse, and also increased public education on family violence so those affected by it will know how to seek help.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A CHILD SEX CASE IS REPORTED?
There are various levels of intervention for suspected child abuse cases, with the state stepping in for serious injuries and sexual abuse with MSF's Child Protective Service and possibly law enforcement agencies.
Cases that are lower on the spectrum are dealt with either by community-based child protection specialist centres, family violence specialist centres, or community agencies. When suspected child abuse is reported to Child Protective Service, a social investigation is initiated. This is distinct from a criminal investigation.
In a social investigation, a child protection officer checks on the safety of the child and works with the child and family members to address the allegations. With the family, the officer draws up a care and protection plan for the child. In cases where the police are involved due to a suspected criminal offence having taken place, the child protection officer will also work closely with the police.
At all times the safety of the child is prioritised, and children can be taken out of the family and placed with other caregivers or in foster care, depending on the severity of the situation. As a last resort, they may be placed in children's homes.
Should the case go to court, the children are given additional help such as counselling or therapy at various critical points that may affect them emotionally - such as when they have to testify in a trial.
When the perpetrator is released from jail, the child's safety is kept in sight, and the case can be referred again for the various levels of intervention if needed.
SIGNS TO LOOK OUT FOR
Sexually abused children may exhibit symptoms such as sudden behaviour and mood changes, said IMH's senior clinical psychologist Kenny Liew.
These include shying away from physical contact, excessive crying, a change in habits or routines, a regression to behaviour from when they were younger such as thumb-sucking or bed-wetting, and self-harm.
They may also develop inappropriate sexual behaviour such as excessive genital touching, use of sexually graphic language, or initiation of inappropriate sexual contact with other children.
Signs may also show up in school, with a change in academic performance, he said.
Indeed, people who have day-to-day contact with the child involved are usually the first to find out about the abuse, said Ms Goh Mei Fang, 30, a senior clinical psychologist at MSF's Clinical and Forensic Psychology Service.
But everyone responds differently, and not every child who experiences sexual abuse may develop a traumatic response, said Mr Liew.
Even so, the goals of therapy for Ms Amanda Goh, 32, who leads the sexual abuse intervention team at MSF's Clinical and Forensic Psychology Service, are to reduce distressing symptoms in victims and increase their abilities to function.
Another goal is to teach caregivers helpful parenting and communication skills and ways to cope with their own reactions as caregivers to what happened to their child.
Sexual abuse in children is particularly challenging, Mr Liew said, because they are at a stage where they are developing their social and sexual identities and learning how to be more independent.
"So when there is sexual abuse, it really disrupts these good developments that they're going through and that can make it more particularly challenging than ... say, a road traffic incident which they can see as an external event," he said.
His number one goal in therapy is for the children to see that it was not their fault, and to see that "there's a lot of hope".
I STILL FIND LIFE TO BE A VERY BEAUTIFUL THING
For Devika, it was hope that she managed to find, after years of not being able to come to terms with what happened to her.
When she was 21, she returned to the stairwell where the man used to molest her. As part of a college application, she got a friend to photograph her, and the result was a candid picture with her smiling.
When she was 21, Ms Devika Satheesh Panicker returned to the stairwell where she had been molested as child. She had this photo taken of herself smiling, as she began coming to terms with what happened to her. (Photo: Courtesy of Devika Satheesh Panicker)
"If I was 16, and I met him, I would have been raging," she said. "But now, where I am now in life, I think I'm able to see ... that yes, it was a choice he made to violate me that way."
"And I know he's suffered in jail and I know he's already served his time, he's been punished for the choice he's made. He's faced the consequences of it, as much as I've faced the consequences of what he had done to me."
Devika is now an events manager and a spokesperson for the Sexual Assault Care Centre run by women's rights group Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE).
Even though she felt like she was not good enough, always feeling "imprisoned" by what happened to her, Devika thinks she has become a kinder person as a result of what she experienced, and has forgiven the man.
"I can share my story. I have a voice. It's the one way that I can allow myself to move forward and not let it pull me down anymore - like this did not happen in vain," she said. "I still find life to be a very beautiful thing. Though I did have moments of suicidal thoughts here and there, I think I'm very happy with my life."
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