Interpol seeking help to identify historical murder victims in Europe - all women

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International appeal seeks to identify 22 female murder victims

10 May 2023

INTERPOL makes details of Black Notices publicly available for first time

LYON, France – Belgian, Dutch and German police as well as INTERPOL have launched Operation Identify Me to seek the public’s help in identifying 22 deceased women who are believed to have been murdered.

Details on each case have been made available on www.interpol.int/IM, showing facial reconstructions of some of the murdered women, as well as videos and pictures of items such as jewellery and clothing which were discovered at the various land and water sites where the women’s remains were abandoned.

The information available on INTERPOL’s website also includes characteristics such as estimated age, hair colour, eye colour and other physical characteristics.

I have written for years about girls and women disappearing in Europe only to end up in brothels, hooked on heroin for as many years as their bodies can stand it, and then discarded. Most such girls end up in Eastern Europe, but western Europe has its own history. 

Updates on The Great Belgium Pedophile/Torture/Murder Scandal

The Great Belgium Pedophile/Torture/Murder Scandal and Its Cover-up Part II.

Several girls were found caged in the basements of houses owned by Marc Dutroux in Belgium, alive, but often very emaciated. Some of these women/girls could be victims of Dutroux or others of his ilk. Dutroux provided girls for the entertainment of high-society perverts in Belgium. (See link immediately above).

#MeToo Moments You May Have Missed While Eyes Were on Weinstein, Freeman

Newsletter: A closer look at Friday's notable stories

Jonathon Gatehouse · CBC News 

Film producer Harvey Weinstein, right, with his lawyer Benjamin Brafman inside Manhattan Criminal Court during his arraignment in New York City on Friday. (Steven Hirsch/Reuters)

Welcome to The National Today newsletter, which takes a closer look at what's happening around some of the day's most notable stories.

In the wake of Weinstein

The #MeToo movement exploded over Harvey Weinstein, but it won't end with him — even as the former Hollywood mogul faces criminal charges for alleged assaults of two women.

Yesterday, it was another boldface name, actor Morgan Freeman, who faced accusations of harassment and inappropriate behaviour from eight female colleagues. (The 80-year-old Oscar winner quickly issued a blanket apology to "anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected," although that wasn't enough to save his marketing deals with Visa and Vancouver Transit.)

Film producer Harvey Weinstein leaves the 1st Precinct in Manhattan, NY, on Friday after turning himself in to police to face charges. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

And the list of prominent men now facing consequences for their past behaviour towards women continues to grow.

Nate Boulton, an Iowa state senator and a would-be Democratic Party nominee for governor, suspended his campaign yesterday amid allegations from three female lawyers — two of them his ex-law school classmates — of groping and frottage.  

Frottage - the practice of touching or rubbing against the clothed body of another person in a crowd as a means of obtaining sexual gratification.

Celebrity chef Mario Batali has been dropped by his own restaurant group following the news that he is now under police investigation for allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate behaviour dating back over two decades.

Actor Morgan Freeman attends the 2018 PEN Literary Gala in New York on Tuesday. He is facing allegations of sexual misconduct. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Earlier in the week, Kunihiko Takahashi, mayor of the Tokyo suburb of Komae, announced his intention to resign following accusations of touching and sexual harassment brought forward by four municipal employees.  

Rev. Paige Patterson, a longtime U.S. evangelical leader, was removed from his position as president emeritus of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas, after a former divinity student told the Washington Post that he counselled her to "forgive" a classmate whom she alleges raped her and to not report the assault to the police.

In Israel, some worshippers are walking out of synagogues that play the music of the late Shlomo Carlebach, who gained international fame as the "singing rabbi" in the 1960s, and more recently has been identified as a serial sexual offender.

Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sen. Nate Boulton has been accused of touching women inappropriately. (Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Diaz this week found himself disinvited from a scheduled summer talk at a Wyoming library, in the wake of misconduct allegations that surfaced at an Australian writers' festival.

And 10 former McDonald's employees in nine U.S. cities have filed sexual harassment complaints against supervisors at the fast food chain. They say they were propositioned, touched, and subjected to lewd comments and even indecent exposure on a regular basis while the company did nothing.

Laws are changing too

The French government has passed legislation that will give rape victims under the age of 18 a full 30 years to make a complaint — a decade more than before. It also enacted on-the-spot fines for men who harass women in the streets with whistles and catcalls.

American chef Mario Batali holds a tray of pasta ahead of a state dinner at the White House in October 2016. He has been dropped by his restaurant group following news that he is under police investigation for allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate behaviour. (Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate adopted a bill that will hold lawmakers personally liable for monetary settlements with staffers and congressional employees who have been sexually harassed. The bill also does away with requirements that said anyone bringing forward a complaint had to undergo counselling and participate in an arbitration process.

Yet there are those who think that some of the men who have been accused of inappropriate behaviour by women deserve a chance to redeem themselves.

The cast of Arrested Development gave a controversial interview to the New York Times this week. Three of the male members defended co-star Jeffrey Tambor — who has been accused of onset tirades and inappropriate remarks — even as Jessica Walter, who plays the matriarch of the Bluth clan, teared up at the memory of a tongue-lashing delivered by her TV husband.

And comedian Sarah Silverman told GQ magazine she thinks the idea that men who have admitted past transgressions — like her friend Louis C.K. and former senator Al Franken — should be "excommunicated forever" is wrong-headed.

No-one has 'excommunicated' anyone 'forever'! But #MeToo is still only months old and those exposed for rather sickening, pathetic character flaws need time to reflect and repent. They need 'years' of time, not months. You are about 5 years too soon with this argument, Sarah.

Sarah Silverman says she thinks the idea that men who have admitted past transgressions should be 'excommunicated forever' is wrong-headed. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Hulu)

"The important thing is that they are forever changed," she said. "And if that's the case, I don't see any reason why they can't continue being artists. ... There are people that come and say, 'I'm guilty of these things, and I'm wrong, and I want to be changed from this.'"

An opinion that appears to put the outspoken Silverman in the minority.

One story not included in Jonathon Gatehouse's otherwise excellent article is the fact that a class-action law suit has been filed against Gilbert Rozon.

A Quebec judge has authorized a class-action lawsuit against former Just For Laughs head Gilbert Rozon for the alleged harassment and sexual assault of several women.

The women sought permission last fall to file the suit against the co-founder of the popular Montreal comedy festival, seeking $10-million in punitive damages as well as additional compensation.

They created a group called “Les Courageuses” (“The Courageous Ones”) and alleged Mr. Rozon abused at least 20 women between 1982 and 2016.

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500 Rescued, 40 Arrested in Interpol-Led Human Trafficking Bust in Africa

By Brooks Hays 

UPI -- Some 500 victims, including 236 minors, have been rescued in a human-trafficking bust led by Interpol in Africa.

The mission was carried out over five days simultaneously in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. Police arrested 40 suspected traffickers.

"In addition to arrests, this operation has opened a number of ongoing investigations to further disrupt the crime networks involved in trafficking in human beings, emphasizing the effectiveness of such operations via [Interpol's] international network," Yoro Traore, police inspector with the Interpol National Central Bureau in Bamako, Mali, said in a news release.

The mission was dubbed Operation Epervier and was organized under the Sahel Project, an initiative investigating organized crime in the Sahel region of northwest Africa. The German Foreign Office funded the initiative.

Traffickers arrested during this month's operation are accused of forcing humans into labor. Some victims were forced to beg on the streets, while others were forced into prostitution.

One 15-year-old female was intercepted by police before traffickers could sell her into forced labor. The teenager was found with just a trash bag full of her possessions.

Another 16-year-old female was promised paid work to support her family, but was forced into prostitution.

"The results of this operation underline the challenge faced by law enforcement and all stakeholders in addressing human trafficking in the Sahel region," said Innocentia Apovo, criminal intelligence officer with Interpol's Trafficking in Human Beings Unit.

European and African authorities have been working to ramp up coordinate investigations of human trafficking and other forms of organized crime.

Early this month, France called on the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting to address allegations of slave markets operating in Libya.

The advocacy group Human Rights First estimates that there are 24.9 million victims trapped in the modern slave trade. The majority of these victims are forced into labor or the sex trade.

Almost 20,000 Indian Women & Children Victims of Trafficking in 2016 – Report

Of course, these are only the ones we know about, and they probably represent a small fraction of what actually happens in India

© Reuters

Around 20,000 Indian women and children fell victim to trafficking last year, a rise of nearly 25 percent from 2015, a government report said. The numbers may be even higher, however, as sources claim some cases are not covered by the data.

The data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) was presented by the minister of women and child development, Krishna Raj, to the Indian parliament on Thursday. 

A total of 19,223 women and children were trafficked in 2016, compared with 15,448 in 2015, the data showed.

The highest number of victims was recorded in West Bengal state, eastern India – 3,559 women and 3,113 children, according to the data. 

Other states which saw the most victims of women and child trafficking included Rajasthan (north), Maharashtra (west), Tamil Nadu (south) and Karnataka (south-west).

In the meantime, sources for Indian English-language daily newspaper the Telegraph claim that the numbers could be even higher. 

“Sale of children from an orphanage in Jalpaiguri [a city in West Bengal] has recently come to light. If such cases are put together, the figures will go up,” a retired administrative official told the paper.

“Bengal lies along both national and international borders. Maybe, more cases of missing persons are lodged in our state as the government insists on filing an FIR [First Information Report], not a general diary, for every missing person,” a senior state government official added.

However, a senior Delhi police official, who declined to be named, told Reuters that it is still “difficult to claim these crimes are rising dramatically.” 

“I think more victims are coming forward and reporting because of more information about trafficking," the official said.

"Government and civil society groups are doing campaigns and people are also seeing more cases being reported in the media.”

In India trafficking is prohibited by the constitution. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that women and girls in India might be trafficked due to cultural practices.  

“India is a source, destination and transit country for human trafficking primarily for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor, and with the falling sex ratio, trafficking for marriage is becoming another pull factor for trafficking of women and girls,” the UNODC said in a 2011 report. 

A report by the UN special rapporteur on violence against women in 2014 said that the trafficking of women and girls “from, and to, India was reported as widespread.” 

29 Sex Traffickers, 723 Johns Arrested in Nationwide Sting

CHICAGO (WLS) -- More than 100 people were arrested in Cook County, Lake County and northwest suburban Arlington Heights in recent weeks as part of a national sex trafficking sting operation.

Saharat Blaine

The National Johns Suppression Initiative ran from Jan. 18 through Feb. 5 and led to the arrests of 29 sex traffickers and of 723 people who tried to purchase sex, the Cook County sheriff's office said. It included nearly 30 law enforcement agencies across 15 states.

Illinois

In Cook County, 101 alleged sex buyers were arrested by deputies and officers with the Lansing and Matteson police departments. In Lake County, two people were arrested. In Arlington Heights, five people were arrested.

Arlington Heights police said five "Johns" were arrested as part of a sting they ran at a motel near Arlington Heights Road and Algonquin Road. Saharat R. Blaine, 38, of Streamwood; Wilmer Rodriguez, 43, of Mount Prospect; Alan Karamovic, 43, of Skokie; Juan Barbosa-Gomez, 24, of Lake Bluff; and Yassir Guezzar, 39, of Hinsdale; were each charged with solicitation of a sexual act.

Beko Williams

The sheriff's office said the initiative was launched by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart in 2011. More people were arrested and more law enforcement officers participated in this year's operation than ever before. Since the operation began, more than 6,500 alleged sex buyers and traffickers have been arrested across the country.

Texas

In Houston, where Super Bowl 51 was held, 178 people were arrested by the Harris County Sheriff's police and Houston police as part of the multi-state sex sting. Harris County netted the most arrests of any participating agency.

Among those arrested in Harris County were a high school principal, a college professor and a fireman, the sheriff's office said. An alleged sex seller who traveled to Houston to make money during the Super Bowl and was shot in the head by an alleged sex buyer. Three alleged sex buyers were arrested in Houston for trying to solicit a minor for commercial sex over the internet. Another alleged sex buyer had his 4-year-old son with him when he was arrested, the sheriff's office said.

Miguel Ramirez

Randal "Randy" Hendricks, 71, the Houston sports agent who got Roger Clemens the highest single-season Major League Baseball contract, was charged with misdemeanor prostitution and is out of jail on bond. According to court records, the entertainment lawyer and agent answered a Craigslist ad and then went to the Greenspoint Hilton, prepared to pay $80 for sex. Instead, he found an undercover female deputy.

"I'm exceedingly proud to lead the nation in targeting sex buyers and traffickers during this annual initiative," said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez in a statement. "Houston was home to Super Bowl LI. As we welcomed the world to our City, we made it clear that there is no place for victimization and sexual exploitation."

On Wednesday, the Harris County Sheriff's Office released mug shots for all 178 people arrested. Most were expressionless, but some smiled.

Jose Diaz

Hendricks, who co-founded Hendricks Sports Management, was also a member of the Houston/Harris County Sports Facility Public Advisory Committee. He did not respond to requests for comment and neither did his attorney.

"Many times these folks are successful public figures in the community, and so it can be embarrassing for them," Gonzalez said.

On Tuesday, the Harris County Pct. 4 Constable's Office and the Houston Police Department announced separate arrests during a 10-day prostitution sting.

Harris County Pct. 4 Constable's Office arrested 32 people in their undercover operation.

Pervert Who Helped Exploit Hundreds of Kids Gets Minimum Sentence

Brooklyn perv who sexually exploited underage boys, including one with brain cancer, sentenced to 15 years

Roy Naim, featured in a 2013 Daily News story after creating a text-based mobile game about undocumented immigration, will now spend 15 years in prison. (PEARL GABEL/PEARL GABEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

BY JOHN MARZULLI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A Brooklyn man featured in a Time magazine cover story on immigration reform was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for sexually exploiting a boy with brain cancer and possessing kiddie porn videos.

Roy Naim, 32, faced life in prison without the possibility of parole under federal guidelines.

But Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis gave him the mandatory minimum, calling the guidelines “incredibly excessive and irrational,” particularly in this case.

“Congress wants to make a show of their outrage, but they’re not doing justice,” Garaufis said. “And if the Sentencing Commission doesn’t want to do justice, they should all just resign.”

Naim, an Israeli national who came to the U.S. as a child and overstayed his visa, was convicted by a jury in Brooklyn Federal Court last year.

He was charged with scheming with a sicko sidekick in Louisiana — who operated a website called BoysonWeb.com — to make sexually explicit videos of boys.

The victims were duped into believing they were communicating with teenage girls.

One victim was a teen suffering from a brain tumor who attended a camp for children with cancer where Naim was a counselor.

Naim’s creepy cohort, Jonathan Johnson, was sentenced to 21 years in prison, but he cooperated with law enforcement in his case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy agreed that a life sentence was unwarranted, but urged the judge to slam Naim with at least 20 years for his horrific conduct.

Naim’s lawyers pointed out that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a serial molester of boys, was recently sentenced to only 15 months in prison.

“No one on the planet Earth has ever said Roy ever laid a hand on them” defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said.

Naim revealed in court papers that he was molested at age 11 by an older cousin, and struggled with his deviant urges as a member of the Orthodox Jewish community.

While other members of his family became U.S. citizens, Naim was never naturalized and his uncertain status in this country was described in the 2012 Time story headlined: “We are Americans.”

Man featured in Time arrested child porn charges
He tearfully told Garaufis that his dream of becoming an “outstanding citizen” had been shattered.

“I failed as a human being,” Naim said. “The pain of this young victim and his family … I cannot imagine what they’re going through and I’m the cause of all this.”

In a courtroom packed with family and supporters, Garaufis called the defendant “a soul adrift” who apparently did not get the help he needed.

“He lives in a community where his urges, his needs, sexually, are more than frowned upon,” the judge said. “Maybe some of the people in this room could have helped him and should look in the mirror. You know who you are.”

The 15 year sentence was the mandatory minimum the judge could have imposed.

Naim was arrested as part of this federal sting operation:

Massive child porn sting nets 14 deviants who preyed on 251 victims, feds say

Two sickos from Brooklyn and New Jersey were caught in what federal officials called the largest online child pornography sting in history, authorities said Wednesday.

Stanley Zdon III, 27, of Tuckerton, N.J., and Roy Naim, 30, of Brooklyn, were two of 14 creeps charged as part of Operation Roundtable, which involved 251 victims in 39 states and five countries., the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced.

Eight of the victims were female and 243 were male, officials said. The majority of victims — 159 — were 13 to 15 years old.

The twisted freaks allegedly used a darknet, or private network, website to swap child pornography and plan ways to dupe kids into sending more graphic photos.

“Never before in the history of this agency have we identified and located this many minor victims in the course of a single child exploitation investigation,” said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Daniel Ragsdale. “Our agency is seeing a growing trend where children are being enticed, tricked and coerced online by adults to produce sexually explicit material of themselves.”

Roy Naim, an Israeli-born undocumented immigrant in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, was charged with conspiracy to produce child pornography, attempted sexual exploitation of a child, receipt of child porn and possession of child porn.

Feds said the ringleader was Jonathan Johnson, 27, of Abita Springs, La.

Authorities said he confessed to creating multiple fake female personas on social networks where he duped kids into sending photos. He also allegedly copped to coaching other child predators in his inner circle to do the same.

Sounds like a nice enough guy, no wonder the judge didn't want to give him more than 15 years - Sheesh!

Lax US Standards for Migrant Children Resulted in Sexual Assault, Forced Labor, Neglect

© Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

Reduced federal protection standards for placement of child refugees fleeing Central America resulted in cases of severe abuse, starvation, involuntary servitude, and sexual assault, according to a new report.

In the last few years, as tens of thousands of unaccompanied child migrants have flooded the US-Mexico border in search of safety, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) dropped its safety standards for moving children from federal government shelters to sponsor homes, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, AP accessed HHS memos, operations manuals, and emails, discovering that more than two dozen children -- at least -- ended up in dangerous situations following crucial rule changes made by HHS' Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the process of hastened placement protocol.

The shift in the placement process began when the government halted fingerprint requirements for most adults claiming children detained at the border, AP reported. Then, in April 2014, HHS ceased requiring original copies of birth certificates in the process of verifying sponsor identities. A month later, HHS dropped use of forms that demanded sponsors' "personal and identifying information" prior to releasing a child. Finally, it stopped FBI criminal checks of sponsors attempting to claim migrant children.

The standards fell far below those of foster care system in the US, child advocates said, adding that it is difficult to know how many vulnerable children have been placed in dangerous circumstances thanks to the weakened standards. In fact, many migrant children could not be found for follow-up checks on their well-being, social workers told AP.

"This is clearly the tip of the iceberg," Jacqueline Bhabha, research director at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, told AP. "We would never release domestic children to private settings with as little scrutiny."

In early 2012, as waves of child migrants ended up at the US-Mexico border from the likes of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, child advocates urged HHS to proceed with caution, AP reported. "Fraudulent sponsors" had been identified in Colorado, Iowa, and Minnesota seeking to claim multiple minors of no familial relation.

HHS said it is reviewing its safety protocol as child refugees continue to arrive at the border. For example, HHS spokesman Mark Weber said new shelters are on the way.

"We are not taking shortcuts," Weber said. "The program does an amazing job overall."

Weber said ORR has increased home visits since July after a sponsor and others were charged with forcing six children to work on an egg farm under threat of violence for as much as 12 hours a day.

"I know we learn from lessons and keep trying to improve the system to ensure the child is placed in a safe place, and I'm confident the vast majority of the kids are," Weber said.

OK, you stopped fingerprinting, birth certificates, ID forms, and criminal checks for sponsors - how is that improving the system? Sounds like doublespeak to me.

In July, the Obama administration called on lawmakers to approve an additional $3.7 billion in funds for border control and child health services to adequately address the flood of child migrants arriving in the US from Central America. According to US Customs and Border Patrol, the 52,193 children detained in 2014 is nearly double the 26,000 caught in 2013.

Unaccompanied minors, however, have not had time to wait for Washington to address what many have labeled a humanitarian crisis. Amid its investigation, AP found children with stories like that of Marvin Velasco, a 14-year-old Guatemalan who came to the US in September 2014. Placed in the Los Angeles home of his brother-in-law's father, Velasco said he and nine others living in the apartment were starved and were required to pay rent. He was threatened after Velasco said he wanted to study, the boy said.

"He told authorities that he was going to take me to school and help me with food and clothing, but it wasn't like that at all," he said. "The whole time, I was just praying and thinking about my family."

The sponsor's son helped Velasco escape to a church. There, Velasco met a parishioner, a Guatemalan immigrant with a family, who has become his legal guardian. He has since been granted special legal status reserved for some immigrant minors, AP reported.

AP included other instances of a variety of abuse some minors faced following HHS' decision to relax safety standards.
- A 14-year-old Honduran girl was forced to work in a Florida cantina "where women drink, dance and sometimes have sex with patrons." 
- Others were forced to work at restaurants, clean houses, or watch children for little or no pay. - In other cases, children were found to have been raped by relatives or others associated with their sponsors, AP reported.

Sen. Rob Portman, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said he will hold a hearing on the child placement program this week.

"We think reforms are necessary and urgently required because there are kids right now who are coming in over the border," Portman said. "This is a problem that has to be addressed."

Unaccompanied minors crossing the border has contributed to the surge in non-Mexican persons caught trying to cross the border in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.

"The recent increase in non-Mexican apprehensions is due in part to a surge in unaccompanied Central American child migrants crossing the border without their parents,” Pew reported last month.

The 52,000 or so unaccompanied children from Central America dwarfed the number of unaccompanied Mexican children, which was about 16,000, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is in the process of nationwide raids of immigrant communities, particularly immigrants who entered the US after January 1, 2014, and since then have received orders of deportation. The raids -- which "should come as no surprise," according to Department of Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson -- have been widely condemned as punitive and inhumane in its targeting of immigrant families.

Late last week, the US Commission on Civil Rights, an independent body within the federal government charged with assessing civil rights issues, called for an immediate halt of the deportation raids.

"As the nation's civil rights watchdog, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission cannot stand by silent while our federal government deports refugee women and children whose due process rights may have been deprived in the first instance, to potentially life-threatening situations in their home countries," said Martin Castro, the commission's chairman, in a letter sent to Obama and Johnson. "To continue these deportations to proceed is counter to our values as Americans."

The Commission found that families in detention have not been afforded proper access to legal counsel, which "brings into question the enforceability of the orders of  deportation upon which the present [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids are based," the letter stated.

In December, federal officials said emergency shelters would be opening for 1,400 children migrants in California and Texas, in addition to 5,000 new shelter beds facilitated by the Pentagon at the recent request of HHS.

London Gangs ‘Pressuring 9 yo Girls into Group Sex’

Gang members are pressuring girls as young as nine into group sex, causing them to believe it is normal behavior, an official Home Office report has revealed.

© Dylan Martinez / Reuters

The report on urban gangs in 19 London boroughs and 14 local authorities, reveals young girls are having sex with up to five gang members, without realizing they are being sexually exploited.

Gang members are forcing vulnerable girls to store their drugs, firearms and set up “honeytrap” attacks on rival gang members, according to the report, published Wednesday.

The report, compiled from evidence by police and other officials working to tackle gangs, also found the children are often persuaded to engage in such activities with the lure of “earning money or being given new trainers and tracksuits.”

It further warns of the “use of young, often vulnerable, people to transport drugs to other parts of the country.”

Ministers have warned that children aged 9 to 14 are “more involved” in gangs now than they were two years ago.

The report’s findings come as the Home Office revealed new plans for tackling gangs. Measures include protecting children in care homes and pupil referral units from being “targeted” by gang members.

In September, the Metropolitan Police said knife crime in London is up by at least 18 percent after years of falling.

“There is a general change in society, whether violence in the home or on the streets, violence is increasing in society. There is a cultural change,” Commander Dean Haydon, head of Scotland Yard’s homicide and major crime command, told The Guardian.

Drug dealing by gangs is “widespread,” with robbery and sex attacks being the most common criminal activities, the report added.

One campaigner involved in tackling London gangs said: “You get the guys talking of having group sex with vulnerable girls.

“Then you’ll have the girls talking about it as well but both will refer to it as though it was a normal thing. If you were to suggest it was rape or exploitation, they’d be horrified.”

Some information on the ethnicity of the gangs would be helpful. All I could find was from the Evening Standard which stated that gangs were becoming more ethnically diverse. 

It's time for England to start educating their children in elementary schools as to what constitutes rape and exploitation.

Child Therapist in NJ Arrested on Charges of Sex Abuse

Kala Rama reporting
WABC By Darla Miles

BERGENFIELD, NEW JERSEY (WABC) -- A New Jersey child therapist has been arrested, accused of illegal sexual activity with a former patient.

Elliot Halberstam of Bergenfield has been charged in a criminal complaint with coercing and enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, sexual exploitation of a child, and one count of receipt of child pornography.

"Elliot Halberstam is charged with violating the trust of his former patient, a 16-year old boy, in the worst way imaginable - he allegedly coerced and tricked the victim into engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and captured it on video and in photographs," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a news release.

The 38-year old Halberstam, who holds a master's degree in child and adolescent psychotherapy, was arrested at his home in Bergenfield Tuesday morning.

Great! The very person you send your child to for help causes him, probably, more harm than what caused him to be sent for therapy in the first place.

People coming in and out of the house Wednesday morning kept quiet about the charges, a three-count federal indictment.

Beginning in March, prosecutors say Halberstam persuaded the victim to take lewd pictures of himself, even when the teen told him, "I'm uncomfortable."

There may be more victims, according to the FBI.

Halberstam worked at the Jewish Family Service & Children's Center of Clifton-Passaic, but is no longer there. In a written statement, the center says "We are cooperating with law enforcement and trying to learn more about the situation. Our chief concern, of course, is the privacy and the welfare of our clients."

Halberstam appeared in federal court in Lower Manhattan Tuesday. His home in Bergenfield, N.J., was searched by FBI agents.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call 212-384-1000.