The first three stories on this post were gathered in March. April is child abuse month and I could not find a significant story for number four until April 22. With physical, emotional and sexual abuse likely to increase considerably under CV19 lockdowns, there has been extremely little done by any government to alleviate or mitigate the abuse.
Senate moves to protect Nigerian children
against rape, abuse
By Senate President Media Office
The Senate on Tuesday considered two critical bills aimed at strengthening Child Rights laws and the protection of older persons in Nigeria.
Both bills were sponsored by Senators Ibikunle Amosun (APC- Ogun Central); and Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi (PDP – Imo East).
The Senate on Tuesday considered two critical bills aimed at strengthening Child Rights laws and the protection of older persons in Nigeria.
Both bills were sponsored by Senators Ibikunle Amosun (APC- Ogun Central); and Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi (PDP – Imo East).
Leading debate on the Child Rights Act 2003 (Amendment) bill, 2020, Senator Amosun, said the piece of legislation seeks “to protect the Nigerian child by excluding certain categories of persons from being employed either as care givers, teachers or in any other circumstances that may expose or make such a child vulnerable or susceptible to sexual assault or sexual exploitation.”According to the lawmaker, the Bill, which is an amendment to the Child Right Act 2003, seeks to declare and prohibit persons convicted of attempted Rape among others, unsuitable to work with children.
The first amendment to the Child Right Act in 17 years??? Nigeria has some serious catching-up to do.
Amosun added that, “recent developments in our society underscores the need to take a second look at the Principal Act with a view to providing stringent provisions that would guarantee the safety of the Nigerian children from defilement or other forms of sexual exploitation, in view of the rising cases of sexual violence suffered by Nigerian Children in the hands of caregivers and others, whom for lack of appropriate legal restrictions, have found themselves in positions that give them undue advantage and access to the children.”
The lawmaker stressed that, “apart from the existing punitive measures in relation to sexual offences against children, the thrust of the Bill is preventive in nature.”
“Mr. President, Distinguished colleagues, sexual assault is fast becoming a cankerworm in Nigeria, as a day will hardly pass without reading or viewing in the media, cases of sexual assault suffered by Nigerian children in the hands of people, who ordinarily should not be allowed to have custody or access to them for whatever reason,” the lawmaker said.
“Accordingly, if this Bill is passed, the Senate would have given a nod to the declaration that the following categories of persons are unsuitable to work with children: Persons convicted of murder, attempted murder, rape, indecent assault or assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm with regards to a child.“
Others on the prohibition list are: Persons declared mentally unstable and thus unable to enter defence in court against violent offences such as murder, attempted rape, indecent assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm with regard to a child; and Any person who has been convicted of murder, attempted rape, indecent assault with intent to do bodily harm with regards to a child, in the last five years preceding the commencement of the Bill.”
Similarly, the Upper Chamber also on Tuesday considered a bill for older persons in Nigeria to have right to social protection, including income security without discrimination on the basis of age or age.
Sponsor of the bill, Senator Onyewuchi said the legislation under consideration will address rights issues, systemic and interpersonal prejudice, and all forms of stereotype and discrimination.
The lawmaker added that the bill if passed, will prescribe punitive measures where rights are deprived, and make provisions for the integration of older persons in development and ensure an age friendly environment in the Nigerian society.
Both bills after scaling second reading on the floor were referred by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, to the Committee on Women Affairs and Youth Development.
The Committee which is Chaired by Senator Betty Apiafi (PDP – Rivers West), is expected to turn in its report in four weeks.
Power of play - How can the healing process begin for children who have been abused?
Photos: brac
Luba KhaliliThe Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Play is an integral companion of childhood. Little brains grow with the help of their play time, learning colours and creativity, allowing children to better understand themselves and their world. Because playing comes naturally to children, even in the worst of circumstances, we will see them huddled together and break into play.
The resilience and agility of children's minds are remarkable. Given the right support and environment, children can bounce back from adversity. When thinking about helping children who have been abused, play's incredible ability in healing from trauma cannot be overlooked.
A child's brain will be approximately 80 percent the size of an adult brain by age three. By six years of age, the most significant part of one's cognitive development will have happened. While play can work wonders in helping children learn, it also plays a remarkable role in helping them heal.
The healing process for a child who has experienced abuse begins from reasserting the sense of security that was lost. How caregivers respond to a child's abuse has a tremendous impact on the potential for healing. A child's sense of safety and trust can be strengthened if their disclosure of abuse is accepted in a compassionate and supportive way. Play has shown to strengthen the parent-child bond, and when there is active participation from the child's caregivers during their play time, it can help bring back the feeling of being safe.
There is also play therapy, which utilises play time to gain insight into a child's mental state. Therapists can help the child explore their feelings and unresolved trauma. Healthy coping mechanisms are learned through the help of the therapist, as well as maneuvering around inappropriate behaviours.
In play, there is freedom. With so much of a child's day controlled by routine, how do they learn to exercise their own agency and creativity? The freedom in play time has immense positive effects in building - and rebuilding - young brains. This makes it a perfect ingredient to the healing process. Children not only experience an increased capacity to regulate their emotions and curb their undesirable behaviour, play time helps neutralise excess energy, enhance imagination and creativity, acquire trouble-shooting skills, and regain confidence. Best of all, play time lets children be children.
BRAC Institute of Educational Development (BRAC IED), in partnership with Lego Foundation, currently operates 304 Humanitarian Play Labs in the camps of Cox's Bazar, where children from the Rohingya refugee community learn and heal through play. These children had witnessed horror of unimaginable proportions. With careful planning and designing of the curricula, the Humanitarian Play Lab model was developed—giving the children plenty of time to play, sing, and learn in their native language. Evidence that the model was working was clear in the children's self-esteem, and how they engaged with others. And their drawings - some of which were once of the violence they had seen—were full of flowers, family, sunshine, and beautiful colours.
Abuse can leave scars to last an entire lifetime. When we're young, however, our ability to bounce back is much better than when we're older—but we need to receive an environment that nurtures that recovery. To be able to play and relax is not only crucial for our development, but is also the right of every child. When helping children heal from abuse, let them know that they are not at fault, that they are now safe, consider bringing them to see a specialist to help express themselves. And give them lots and lots of free, unstructured play time.
Barred: New laws in Idaho BAN transgender athletes from competing in female sports
And from changing their birth certificates
© Getty Images / Photofusion/Universal Images Group
Idaho has become the first state in the US to ban transgender athletes from taking part in female sports leagues, after a two new laws were passed to prevent it.
Idaho's newly-enacted "Fairness in Women's Sports Act" bans trans girls and women from competing in girls' or women's sports leagues affiliated with the state's educational establishments. In addition, law was passed stopping transgender citizens from changing their birth certificates.
Idaho governor Brad Little passed the two bills into law on Monday, sparking criticism from the LGBT+ community.
The topic of transgender athletes in sporting competition has been a hot-button topic across the sporting world, particularly in the United States, with the safety and integrity of sports competition perceived to be under threat from the inclusion of transgender athletes in female sports.
"It is a sad day in the United States when lawmakers are more determined to stop trans young people from playing games than to provide them with the care, support, and opportunities they need to survive and thrive," said Sam Brinto, the head of The Trevor Project, which advocates for LGBT+ youth.
State lawmaker Barbara Ehardt, who introduced the bill, explained the new legislation thus: "Under this bill, boys and men will not be able to take the place of girls and women in sports because it is not fair."
The law preventing transgender people from changing their gender on their birth certificate, could face a legal challenge from LGBT+ groups, who have strongly opposed the move.
"Transgender people need accurate identity documents to navigate everyday life, and this gratuitous attack puts them back in harm's way for harassment and even violence," said Kara Ingelhart, a lawyer at Lambda Legal, in a statement.
The company, which has worked with LGBT+ groups on a variety of cases, has highlighted the fact that a federal court had ruled in 2018 that Idaho was violating the US constitution by not allowing trans people to change the gender on their birth certificates.
Two other US states, Ohio and Tennessee, already have the law on their statute books.
UPS Trains 97,000 Delivery Drivers To Spot Signs Of Human Trafficking
UPS-trains-drivers-spot-sex-trafficking.jpg
What are we talking about here? Ask Danelle McCusker Rees, Human Resources President for UPS’s domestic operations. Her statement on recent action UPS has taken on one issue—sex trafficking—shows how some issues go beyond employees. “It’s truly about our community,” she said. And when an issue is about a community, it’s going to take the entire community to tackle it.
UPS makes a dent in the fight against sex trafficking
At the end of January, UPS announced that it would begin training its delivery drivers to detect signs of sex trafficking. This policy would extend to both neighborhood and freight drivers, reaching a total of 97,000 drivers and supervisors nationwide. Cool, right?
This started back in 2016, when UPS teamed up with Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT), an organization that assists law enforcement by training transportation professionals to recognize and report signs of sex trafficking.
To date, TAT has trained almost half a million professionals, and UPS is just one company that is benefitting from the training programs available.
How can drivers be part of the change?
These efforts show how community-wide action really can have an impact. It has transformed a transportation company’s daily business into a targeted tool for change.
According to anti-human trafficking organization Polaris, truck and rest stops, and highway motels can often be hubs for human trafficking; for traffickers, they mean convenient access to many transient buyers, and, as they are typically in secluded locations, imply little risk in losing track of their victims. Trucking companies and drivers are on the “frontlines of this global epidemic,” according to American Trucker, and can do a lot to help if they are trained.
The training drivers like those from UPS receive help them detect red flags when identifying victims of this $150 billion business. Markings like tattoos (which can indicate trafficker branding), or hints of abuse or drug addiction can be signs of human trafficking. Trained drivers know to take notes on specifics: vehicle color, time, exact location—and notify the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Over the last decade, almost 2000 calls to the Hotline have been from callers specifically identifying as drivers. However, that’s only about 1% of calls the Hotline has received in a similar time period, which means there’s a lot of work yet to be done.
Implementation across borders and industries
Legislators are working to have programs like those TAT offers be required as part of all entry-level or commercial driving certifications. TAT programs are currently implemented in twelve states’ certification processes, and being considered in others’, as the value of the trucking industry in combating human trafficking is increasingly recognized.
But thankfully, the trucking industry isn’t the only one making changes in a community effort.
Hotel and motel chains, also hubs for human trafficking crimes, are making changes to make their contribution. Last year, Marriott International hit a milestone: it successfully trained 500,000 hotel workers across almost 7,000 hotels to recognize the signs of sex trafficking in just two years. They have been taught to detect warning signs of trafficking which can look different from what appears in the trucking industry—guests with, ***Removed***.
Polaris states that it is a, “popular misconception,” to believe trafficking can only occur in sketchy motels. It’s as likely to occur in mainstream hotel chains. Other hotels like Wyndham group and Hilton have also made efforts to combat human trafficking,
What’s all this got to do with porn?
National Human Trafficking Awareness Month may only be in January every year, but the challenge to fight against trafficking is daily. It’s great large companies like UPS are making key efforts, but what can we, as individuals, do? After all, these large-scale problems require the help of everyone.
The first step is awareness. It’s challenging to defeat an enemy you don’t know. And one of the less commonly known aspects of the human trafficking problem is its relationship to porn.
People tend to picture these industries as separate spheres, when in fact the reality looks more like a Venn Diagram. There’s more overlap than is commonly known, and some of the most basic ways they are connected are these: Reports have shown that in many countries, those who were sold for sex have had pornography made of them while they were sexually exploited in almost 50% of cases.
What’s more? Victims of sex trafficking are often groomed for abuse using pornography. They are “taught” what they are expected to perform, usually at the request of the buyer who comes with expectations, also from porn.
Porn warps potential sex buyers’ expectations and creates unhealthy ideas about women and sex. A Call to Men, a violence prevention organization and leader on teaching about healthy manhood, says, “The driving force behind the human trafficking industry is men…and there’s a real necessity to change the way men view women…porn plays a big role in shaping the minds of young men.”
This brings us to the next way porn fuels trafficking: porn can fuel the demand for sex trafficking. Often, those seeking sex want to act out what they’ve seen on screen. Even consumers who don’t seek out sex drive the demand in real life of what’s on screen.
When it comes to issues like sex trafficking, the challenge is often more complex than meets the eye. Unexpected industries, like porn, can actually factor in as an important player. Likewise, when it comes to the solution, we have to consider all the actors involved. Companies that are seemingly completely unrelated to the problem now become part of the solution.
As individuals, we can do the same. Let’s be part of the solution, and refuse to click.
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‘May justice prevail’: Litzman departs Health Ministry
'For a Change'
'For a Change'
MK Yaakov Litzman, head of ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, tells PM Netanyahu of his decision to leave the Health Ministry
It shouldn't be his decision. He should have been fired years ago.
By AJN STAFFControversial Israeli MK Yaakov Litzman, who is accused of aiding alleged child sexual abuser Malka Leifer, has informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will step down as health minister.
Litzman is set to head an expanded Housing portfolio instead, according to multiple media reports on Saturday night (Israel time).
Including expanding into Judea and Samaria? What could possibly go wrong there?
The announcement has been welcomed by child sexual abuse victims’ advocate Manny Waks, who said this was a “positive development” in the Leifer case.
Malka Leifer and Yaakov Litzman.
Litzman has faced criticism for allegedly using his position as Health Minister to interfere in attempts to extradite Leifer to Australia, by pressuring psychiatrists to state she was unfit to stand trial. Litzman denies the allegations.
Israeli police have recommended he face charges over the alleged interference.
“Based on the police recommendation to indict Litzman on a range of serious charges … it seems a significant barrier for Leifer’s extradition has now been removed,” Waks said.
“May justice finally prevail!”
According to a report on Channel 12, Litzman asserted that his decision was not tied to recent public criticism of his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Litzman came under heavy criticism when a television report said he took part in group prayers in violation of his own ministry’s guidelines shortly before he was infected with the coronavirus.
Litzman had reportedly been instructed by Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter, the head of the Gur Hasidic sect, to change ministries.
According to Ynet, ultra-Orthodox leaders believe Litzman could be helpful to the community’s needs from the Housing Ministry, while avoiding being scapegoated for any fallout from the pandemic.
Blue and White officials told the Ynet news site they would demand the Health Ministry be given to a health expert rather than a politician in light of the coronavirus crisis.
They added that they were willing to give up another ministry in exchange for control of the portfolio, noting that Likud had been willing to give them the health portfolio during coalition negotiations if Litzman agreed, but Litzman had refused.
Litzman said willing to leave Health Ministry for Housing portfolio
Minister reportedly offers switch to Netanyahu, though his motives are unclear after it was previously reported he was refusing to consider any change
Yisrael Beytenu party head Avigdor Liberman joined the call for the ministry to be led by a professional rather than a politician.
Litzman, who leads the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, has been the de facto head of the Health Ministry since 2009, except for a period between 2013 and 2015 when he was out of the government.
He has been largely absent from the public eye over the two months of the coronavirus crisis (some three weeks of which he spent being treated for a COVID-19 infection alongside his wife).
Though he appeared in some earlier briefings, the face of the Health Ministry’s response has been its director-general, Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, leading some to speculate on the level of Litzman’s involvement in the ministry’s decision-making.
Can we please move on with the very long-awaited extradition of that lesbian, child predator, Leifer, to Australia. Israel's Justice system has been laughed at and scorned long enough.
New drug 'cuts risk of men abusing children within weeks'
Study says volunteers reported a rapid reduction in desire
without impaired self-control
Nicola DavisThe Guardian
The risk of some men sexually abusing children could be quickly reduced by a drug that lowers testosterone levels, researchers have found.
The team behind the project, which was put up for crowdfunding four years ago, said the drug – degarelix acetate – produced the results in men with paedophilic disorder in just two weeks. The drug was developed as a treatment for prostate cancer treatment and blocks the production of testosterone.
Rahm said the project is aimed at preventing risk to children, as well as improving the lives of men experiencing attraction to minors – an approach he says complements the work of police and others.
While such interventions, sometimes known as chemical castration, can be controversial, Rahm said the most controversial thing was not to do research in the field. “I think we should put more energy into investigating this field from a scientific perspective and from a medical, psychiatric perspective,” he said.
The new study, published in the journal Jama Psychiatry, reports how the team recruited 52 men from callers to a national telephone helpline called PrevenTell, which helps people who self-identify as having unwanted sexuality, who were subsequently diagnosed with paedophilic disorder.
The team assessed the men’s risk of committing child abuse, using a mix of self-reporting and psychological testing, taking into account a range of issues from sexual preoccupation to impaired self-regulation.
The researchers then put the men into two groups, one of which received two injections of a placebo while the other group received two injections of degarelix acetate, with the men unaware of which they received. Two weeks later, the men’s risk of committing child abuse was re-assessed.
The team found that, relative to the placebo group, the men treated with degarelix acetate showed a fall in risk level, in particular showing a reduction in high sexual desire and attraction to children, although not impaired self-regulation. The effects were still present, if not stronger, at 10 weeks, with many men saying they wanted to continue with the medication.
The drop was only deemed clinically significant in the small number of participants who were originally classified as at high risk of child sex abuse.
Dr Michelle Degli Esposti of the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the work, said developing effective treatments for individuals with paedophilic disorder was important. But she cautioned that the study involved only a small, self-selected group of men.
Also the study did not look directly at whether the drug reduces the occurrence of child sexual abuse itself, said Degli Esposti, adding: “This limits the generalisability of the findings and its potential wider benefits in tackling child sexual abuse.”
She said the study also raised ethical questions, asking: “Should we be focusing on medicating individuals who have sexual desire for children and, if so, do we expect these individuals to take drugs that have known side-effects? Or should we instead be focusing on tackling the upstream societal and structural factors that place children at risk of being sexually abused?
“It may not be a question of either/or, and such questions go beyond the findings of this specific study, but it is important to consider the implications of medicalising profound societal problems such as child sexual abuse.”
Donald Grubin, emeritus professor of forensic psychiatry at Newcastle University, said other drugs are already used to reduce testosterone levels, while the findings of the new study need to be replicated.
But, he said, the trial is well designed and degarelix acetate appears to act faster than current drugs – although safety and efficacy must be explored further. Like Degli Esposti, he noted that the study looked at changes in sexual thinking, not sexual offending, saying: “While it is reasonable to expect the former to impact the latter, this is very difficult to demonstrate given the long follow-up time required to do so and a reluctance to prescribe high risk sex offenders with a placebo in a community setting.”
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