Sexual abuse survivor enrolls as lawyer
One Survivor's Story - Overcoming
STAFF REPORTER THIRUVANANTHAPURAM,
Says abuse survivors should not hold back from aspiring high
Refusing to let the trauma of child sexual abuse pull her down, Sridevi (name changed) successfully chased her dream of crossing the portals of the High Court and donning the lawyer’s gown.
The young woman who enrolled as a High Court lawyer on Saturday was thrilled. She was in her teens when 12 people, including her father, sexually abused her. Within two years, 11 of the accused were sentenced. One went absconding.
Her family and she shifted to the capital city and were taken under the care of the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society. She first stayed at the Special Mahila Shikshan Kendra at Karyavattom, and in 2013, moved to the Nirbhaya home here. It was during her Plus Two that she decided that she wanted to pursue a career in law. A Commerce student, she felt it was a good option for her. After schooling, she moved to Ernakulam to pursue a five-year LBB course.
About what she would tell other abuse survivors, Sreedevi says their experience should never hold them back from aspiring high. There were moments when she felt she could not make it, but support of her family and a whole lot of people such as the staff at the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society and her teachers gave her strength. “Others may not have someone to lean on, but they should carry on and do what they have to do,” she says.
Her mother could not have been more proud, says Sreedevi. Her siblings too are a pillar of support, and her younger sister is thinking of following in her footsteps.
Sreedevi’s journey though is far from over. Working as a legal assistant with Nirbhaya State coordinator R. Nishanthini at present, Sreedevi is appearing for her Master’s entrance examination, and plans to start her own practice. Her dream, though, is to crack the Civil Services examination.
Minister for Social Justice K.K. Shylaja and Social Justice Director Biju Prabhakar also lent her support.
So proud of you, young lady. Overcoming the temptation to give up your dreams after being abused so badly requires great character and a lot of support. So glad you had that support.
If you, reader, have been abused, don't let it spoil the rest of your life. Tell people about it. Seek support; there are many people and organizations that would love to help you. You can't do it alone, but you can do it.
Macau | Kindergarten employee accused in child sexual assault released on 'coercive measures'
Macau (MNA) – The 26-year old employee of D. José da Costa Nunes kindergarten accused in a child sexual abuse case has been released today on coercive measures that requires him to check in with the police regularly, the Public Prosecutor’s Office released in a statement on Saturday.
The coercive measures only apply to defendants to limit their freedom and influence their daily activities in various aspects – most importantly – to reduce the potential risk of escape to a level as low as reasonably possible.
Speaking to Macau News Agency (MNA), lawyer Daniel Chio Song Meng pointed out that coercive measures such as periodic presentation is not always “a hundred percent” safe and effective in reducing the risk of escape on the part of the defendant.
Nor, I might add, the possibility of the defendant committing another atrocity against children.
“Coercive measures applied by the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the defendant such as requiring him to check in regularly with the police are suitable under situations in which the defendant is a permanent resident, because they would eventually return back to Macau,” sated Chio.
“But what about if the defendant [non-resident] ran away to his home country? Then, in this case the Office would have to order a custody. They can only apply such coercive measure [custody] under the premise that they caught the defendant who had already ran away,” he added.
Chio further highlighted that blue card holders – non-resident workers – would have to leave the city within a short period of time after the termination of their employment contract, signaling that there is a possibility the defendant returns to his country, as he has already been suspended by the school.
Lawyer Daniel Chio Song Meng
However, Miguel de Senna Fernandes, the president of the Association for the Promotion of Macanese Education (APIM), clarified that the employee has not been fired.
“We have only suspended his job, he cannot escape or go back to his country before this case has a result,” he argued.
Senna Fernandes once again pledged that the school will provide a satisfactory response to parents within one week.
According to the Macau Penal Code, anyone who commits an act of sexual intercourse with or under the age of 14, or causes him or her to practice it with himself or with a third party, shall be punished by imprisonment from one to eight years.
The Code also states that ‘when the victim is under 16, the Public Prosecutor’s Office initiates the process if special reasons of interest of the victim impose it,’ signalling that the Office has the right to start a criminal procedure ordinance without notice in advance.
UK man in court facing two child sex abuse charges
on a 9 y/o girl
BY BRINKWIRE
A man has appeared in court facing child sex abuse charges involving a young girl.
Joshua Walsh, 27, was before Kirklees Magistrates’ Court via a video link from HMP Doncaster.
He faces two charges of sexual assault involving a girl.
Prosecutor Alex Bozman said that the victim, who cannot be named, is nine years old.
Walsh, previously of Alder Street in Fartown , was told that the matters are so serious that they must be heard at Leeds Crown Court.
He will appear there for a plea and case management hearing on May 24.
He was remanded into custody as a serving prisoner and his hearing at the crown court will also take place over a video link.
Fartown, UK
Forced adoptions of Canada's Indigenous children left them with enduring damage
The battle of colonialism placed the children on the front lines and the results have been shameful and disastrous
Doug Cuthand, Saskatoon StarPhoenix
A large crowd gathered on the second floor of the Radisson Hotel on May 10, 2018, waiting to enter the hearing regarding the federal government's Sixties Scoop settlement offer of $800 million. MATT OLSON / SASKATOON STARPHOENIX / SASKATOON
What’s the difference between God and a social worker? God doesn’t think he’s a social worker.
Social workers played God during the 1960s and up to the present day as they removed First Nations and Metis children from their homes and placed them in white foster homes.
This travesty is now one more case of the chickens coming home to roost in Indian country.
Decades of damage have been done to our people and now it’s become unravelled for all to see.
First came the boarding schools that were used to indoctrinate First Nations children and remove them from their homes for most of the year. The result was that when children reached 16 years of age they refused to go back and were left with a very rudimentary education that was of little or no use.
Children who were products of the boarding school had to raise their own children with little knowledge of proper parenting because of the artificial and emotionally spartan environment of the boarding school.
These parents had to struggle with their demons of physical and sexual abuse as well as the lateral violence that was rampant among their peers. How were they expected to be able to raise a family under those conditions?
The resulting family dysfunction coupled with alcoholism and substance abuse took its toll and rather than go to the root of the problem the federal and provincial governments only made it worse by seizing children and further breaking up the fabric of the community.
The battle of colonialism placed the children on the front lines and the results have been shameful and disastrous.
It's almost always the children who pay for adult's stupidity and sinfulness.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established as a part of the residential school settlement. The commissioners travelled across the country hearing stories and developing a final report that included a list of calls to action.
The very first call to action is directed to the welfare of children. This is a telling statement of where our priorities must lie.
Now the federal government has made an offer to the survivors of the ’60s scoop, which was approved by a federal court judge in Saskatoon on Friday. The offer is for $750 million in compensation, $50 million for a healing foundation and an additional $75 million to pay legal fees.
This is a more difficult situation for adjudication than the compensation paid to the residential school survivors. The stories of the survivors range from extreme pain and suffering to a home that provided both love and safety.
In some cases where there was physical and sexual abuse; no amount of money can compensate for the memories that have led to a life of sorrow and pain. I have been told stories of horrific sexual abuse and virtual slavery of children taken in on farms. These individuals’ lives have been scarred forever.
On the other hand many of the children were adopted into loving homes and have had a degree of success in life.
But for all remains the gap that exists between them and their biological families and their culture.
The trip home is difficult for many. When they finally find their home, they may encounter the grave of one or both parents. In his award-winning documentary “Foster Child,” Alberta filmmaker Gil Cardinal finds his mother’s grave in the Northwest Territories and we are left with the poignant shot of him leaving flowers on her grave.
It’s a scene that has played out over and over again as the survivors search for their parents.
The other outcome for many has been the gap that exists between the survivors and their families. They grew up in a completely different culture. Some were sent to the United States, Europe and even Australia. Canada trafficked in Aboriginal babies, to our country’s shame.
Our Metis brothers and sisters fared no better and they were scooped and treated in the same manner. You can’t tell a Metis baby from a First Nations baby, so they deserve a part of the compensation package as well.
I recall speaking to a young woman who had been scooped and lost contact with her family. When she found her family she found it very hard to fit in and return to a normal life.
“I was too white to be brown and too brown to be white,” she told me. That sums up the damage done by forced adoptions.
Records for Metis children are almost non-existent, but the government has said Metis survivors would be compensated in time. In time for what, is my question?
'You engaged in a profound betrayal,' judge tells former Sask. foster father convicted of historical sex abuse
Bre McAdam, Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Richard Ludwig, 51, will serve a five-year prison sentence after he was convicted of historical sexual abuse against his foster daughter.
A Saskatoon woman says she still feels the profound effects of being sexually abused by her foster father, 13 years after it stopped.
“All these years, I felt like this was my fault,” said the woman, whose name is protected by a mandatory publication ban. The assaults, and the way her foster mother reacted when she told her about the touching, left her with trust issues and feeling worthless and gross, court heard.
She recalled taking the bus and wondering if other kids were being touched like she was.
The decision was delivered Friday in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench, two days after a jury found him guilty of sexual assault and sexual interference.
The victim, now 21, testified that Ludwig sexually abused her from 2000 to 2005, when she was between four and nine years old. She said Ludwig would touch her genitals and force her to touch his, often on a couch in his home on an acreage near Humboldt.
The woman is now a federally serving prisoner and gave her victim impact statement while wearing shackles. She said she started using drugs and alcohol to forget about the abuse, which led to criminal behaviour.
The fact that she was a child who was preyed upon in a home where she deserved to feel safe — by a father figure in a position of trust and authority — justifies a six-year sentence, Crown prosecutor Tamara Rock argued.
Defence lawyer Brad Mitchell agreed that several aggravating factors were present in this case, but argued for a three-year sentence based on case law and because of Ludwig’s lack of a prior criminal record.
When given a chance to speak, Ludwig told Justice Shawn Smith he had nothing to say.
“Your actions were perverse,” Smith told Ludwig before imposing the sentence. He said the man betrayed both his foster daughter and the government in an “affront” to decent foster parents in Saskatchewan.
In addition to his penitentiary term, Ludwig will also be on the sex offender registry for 20 years.
Noted Humanitarian Charged With Child Rape in Nepal, Stunning a Village
A 14-year-old Nepali boy in the doorway of his village home. Police say he was sexually assaulted by a Canadian humanitarian aid worker. Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times
By Kai Schultz and Rajneesh Bhandari
KARTIKE, Nepal —
When Peter Dalglish, a lauded humanitarian worker, built a sleek cabin near a Nepalese village of rutted roads and hills ribbed with rice paddies, locals knew virtually nothing about him.
But over several years, Mr.
Dalglish, a Canadian, endeared himself to many in the community, greeting villagers in Nepali, offering chocolates from Thailand to children playing in the forest and helping people rebuild their homes destroyed by devastating earthquakes in 2015.
The good will was shattered last month when the police swarmed around Mr. Dalglish’s home, placed a gun to his head and arrested him on charges of raping at least two boys, 12 and 14.
Suddenly, villagers were on edge, worried about how far the betrayal — and abuse — may have stretched. “We trusted him,” said Sher Bahadur Tamang, who said he received hundreds of dollars from Mr. Dalglish to pay for his child’s education. “He treated us so well. We never knew what was inside his mind.”
Mr. Dalglish’s downfall has been a shock partly because his work aiding street children around the world was so widely admired.
In 2016, he was awarded the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors.
Nepal is one of Asia’s poorest countries, and thousands of nongovernmental organizations operate with limited government oversight. The absence of strict regulations means aid groups can be used as a cover for human traffickers and predatory behavior by humanitarian workers, said Pushkar Karki, the head of Nepal’s Chief Investigation Bureau, the agency overseeing the case against Mr. Dalglish.
Earlier this year, the police arrested Hans Jürgen Gustav Dahm, 63, a German who was running a charity organization in Kathmandu that provided free lunches to children, many of whom accused him of sexual abuse.
In the last two years, five other foreign men, including Mr. Dalglish, 60, have been arrested on suspicion of pedophilia, Mr. Karki said. “
There have been some instances where they were found working with charities,” he said, noting that several of the men informally offered money, food and clothing to children. “Our laws aren’t as strict as in foreign countries, and there is no social scrutiny like in developed countries.”
The arrest of such a notable humanitarian has
added urgency to a new effort by aid workers around the world, who are saying it is now time to investigate themselves. Late last year, they started a #MeToo-like movement called
#AidToo.
In February, Oxfam, one of Britain’s largest charities, fired four workers and accepted the resignations of three others after an investigation found that senior officials for the organization had hired prostitutes in Haiti, including for sex parties.
That same month,
the BBC reported that men delivering aid on behalf of the United Nations and international charities had abused displaced women in Syria, trading food for sexual favors.
“Peter Dalglish’s arrest should be a ‘teachable moment’ for the humanitarian community to understand and recognize how
predators exploit the cover of ‘heroism’ to commit crimes,” Lori Handrahan, a veteran humanitarian worker, wrote in an essay published on Medium.
“Let’s be clear. Peter Dalglish is not a hero. He never was.”
Lori is an acquaintance and fellow crusader whom I have featured on this blog a few times. She does excellent work and is well worth reading.
Earlier this month, Mr.
Dalglish was charged with pedophilia in a district court. He faces up to 13 years in prison.
The village of Kartike, where the aid worker Peter Dalglish earned the trust of residents.
Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times
“He sexually abused children after giving them the false hope that they would be taken to a foreign country,” said Jeevan Shrestha, a spokesman for Nepal’s Chief Investigation Bureau.
Over several decades, Mr.
Dalglish, a lawyer from Ontario, built a reputation as a deeply committed advocate for children in war-torn corners of the globe.
In the 1980s, he was a
co-founder of Street Kids International, an organization that has helped homeless youths around the world find jobs, and which was recently absorbed by Save the Children.
He also
partnered with the American professional skateboarder Tony Hawk to empower children through sports, and worked with the United Nations in Liberian shantytowns after the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.
But in Nepal, where he has lived off-and-on since 2002, some of those who knew him recalled unsettling requests.
In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, at a school which provides free education to children from mountain communities, Mr. Dalglish was a popular volunteer in the early 2000s until he asked administrators to change a rule barring students from staying overnight with teachers.
Soon after, the relationship between the school’s staff members and Mr. Dalglish soured, a senior administrator said, and
he was banned from the campus.
The arrest of Mr. Dalglish was a shock because his work aiding street children around the world was so widely admired
In an interview last month with The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, Mr. Dalglish spoke from behind the bars of a jail cell in Kathmandu, denying the charges against him and pointing out he had never before been the subject of a criminal investigation.
“But obviously, if you do the work that I do, with kids, you leave yourself open to criticism and suspicion,” he said. Mr. Dalglish declined further interview requests.
Rahul Chapagain, Mr. Dalglish’s lawyer, said that evidence collected by the police could belong to visitors who rented the home through Airbnb. “Whatever they found, it does not necessarily belong to Peter,” he said.
Mr. Dalglish markets his cabin online as a “Himalayan Hideaway," equipped with a Bose sound system, German bathroom fixtures and a lush garden. In his profile’s display picture,
a beaming Mr. Dalglish embraces Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada.
On a recent day, the home was empty and locked, a ruffled comforter on the couch and board games tucked into an armoire visible through the windows. Around Kartike (pronounced kar-ti-kay), a sleepy village where farmers wield sickles in watery fields, many expressed horror that a possible predator had been living just up the hill.
At a restaurant in town, the father of one of the boys in the case said he had worked as a laborer on Mr. Dalglish’s property for half a decade and had formed a warm bond with his boss. The father, Mr. Tamang, identifying himself only by his common last name to protect his family’s privacy, said
he let his son, 14, occasionally spend the night at Mr. Dalglish’s home.
On the morning of April 7, Mr. Tamang was jolted awake by nearly a dozen police officers, who escorted him up a snaking path of slate-colored tiles to Mr. Dalglish’s home, where his son was sleeping.
The home belonging to Mr. Dalglish where police say the sexual assaults took place.
Credit Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times
Inside the house, Mr. Dalglish spoke calmly to the police in English, a language Mr. Tamang did not understand.
Later, Mr. Tamang learned that plainclothes police officers had befriended
his son, who told the authorities that he, his 12-year-old cousin and at least two other boys had been abused by Mr. Dalglish.
In an interview, Mr. Tamang’s son said Mr.
Dalglish had sexually assaulted him over a period of seven years, promising him a better life abroad if he kept quiet.
“I think the police were following Peter for a long time,” Mr. Tamang said. “The boys said they were asked to sleep naked and were raped.”
Until the boys stepped forward, villagers said there had been no signs of improper behavior by Mr. Dalglish. He treated those who worked for him well and bought clothing, shoes and pencils for children in the village. It is unclear who initially tipped off the police about Mr. Dalglish.
A few days after the arrest, Mr. Tamang said he was summoned by the authorities to Mr. Dalglish’s home. The police showed him a small, white box. Inside were
dozens of photographs and film negatives of naked children, some of them playing in pools, Mr. Tamang said.
Mr. Chapagain, the lawyer, said Mr. Dalglish told him they were “pictures of poverty-stricken children and nothing sexually exploitative.” But Mr. Tamang was unconvinced, characterizing the experience as a nightmarish episode in his family’s ordeal.
“I never imagined Peter would do such a thing,” he said.
