So far in the 21st century nearly a third of a billion children have been sexually abused, most of them multiple times, some thousands of times. 6 out of 7 are girls. Anything you can do to get this message to as many people as possible will help save abused children all over the world, and maybe even some of the abusers. Please read "Save A Child from Sexual Abuse by 3:15 PM" under "First Time Visitor?" May God bless you and anoint this ministry.
Everyday thousands of children are being sexually abused. You can stop the abuse of at least one child by simply praying. You can possibly stop the abuse of thousands of children by forwarding the link in First Time Visitor? by email, Twitter or Facebook to every Christian you know. Save a child or lots of children!!!! Do Something, please!
3:15 PM prayer in brief:
Pray for God to stop 1 child from being molested today.
Pray for God to stop 1 child molestation happening now.
Pray for God to rescue 1 child from sexual slavery.
Pray for God to save 1 girl from genital circumcision.
Pray for God to stop 1 girl from becoming a child-bride.
If you have the faith pray for 100 children rather than one.
After more than nine months of waiting, a family has received the full first-instance verdict in a case involving sexual abuse of a child allegedly carried out by a priest in a church.
The first instance court has found Catholic clergyman Krišjānis Dambergsguilty of a sexual crime against a minor, sentencing him to eight years in prison and two years of probation. The verdict will be appealed by both parties – the victims and the accused.
Riga City Court Judge Edīte Turkopule, who made this decision, indicated that the defendant's guilt has been proven in the court's opinion. The case was heard in a closed session, so the judge emphasized that she was not allowed to comment on anything that happened during the hearing.
Both parties plan to appeal the Riga City Court's decision – the accused because he maintains he is innocent and the victim's family because they feel the sentence is too light given the gravity of the crime.
Catholic priest Rihards Rasnacis commented: "We really want to know the truth. We feel sorry for the victim's family, for the victim himself, and for him to be able to understand what happened, because we want to be very careful not to convict someone who is not guilty."
This was also the defence's position in court, namely that the child was indeed the victim of a sexual crime, but in their opinion, someone else was to blame because Dambergs' reputation was good among his congregation.
However, the court heard testimony from a woman who had an unpleasant encounter with priest Dambergs approximately 20 years ago.
"I was hanging the curtains, he came in. He immediately grabbed my ass - it was unpleasant, and I wasn't prepared for something like that. I just remember. I was on the ground very quickly and then I pushed him off. He hit the wall, and then he started laughing there," the woman said.
The Catholic Church also questions what this woman said in court. The defendant Krišjānis Dambergs also rejected her testimony, his lawyer confirmed. The woman, meanwhile, pointed out that she had already told others about what had happened at the time.
The case has been running a long time and illustrates the frequently painfully slow speed of legal process in Latvia. The victim was just seven years old at the time of the offence and is now an adult.
The trial itself began in September 2023. The summary judgment of the first instance court described how in the summer of 2014, Dambergs took the seven-year-old child into a room at the church and performed "sexual acts on the child, satisfying his sexual desire."
It was eight years before the victim talked about his experience, during which time his family noted a marked change in his personality and became alarmed that he might take his own life. What had happened in the church came to light during psychotherapy. An investigation followed. When asked why he didn't tell his parents about what had happened earlier, the boy admitted that he was ashamed.
Now, twelve years later, even when the process appears to be approaching its final stages, pauses and delays are the norm. The first instance court found the priest guilty nine months ago, but the victim's family is unable to turn over a new page in their lives, because the full court verdict has not been received until now – and now the appeals process is likely to be launched.
Archbishop of Riga of the Roman Catholic Church, Metropolitan Zbigniew Stankevičs, is on the record saying that the information available to the church, its evaluation of the priest's actions and personality, as well as a survey of those involved in the ministry, do not provide grounds to consider the priest guilty of any criminal acts.
221% Rise in Online Child Sexual Exploitation Cases:
Why a Ban Alone Is Not Enough to Protect Our Children
At a time when global reports reveal that one in three internet users is a child under 18, Jordan’s first Children’s Rights Country Report, recently issued by the National Council for Family Affairs NCFA, shows a 221% increase in reported cases of online child sexual exploitation over the past three years.
This figure invites two interpretations. On one hand, it may reflect a positive trend: rising awareness and stronger monitoring and reporting mechanisms, meaning more cases are finally being uncovered after years of remaining hidden. On the other hand, and more importantly, it is a stark warning. Crimes of this nature are among the most underreported globally.Estimates by UNICEF suggest that reported cases represent, at best, only 5 to 10% of the actual scale. In other words, what we are seeing is likely just the tip of the iceberg, while the vast majority of abuse remains hidden behind screens, silenced by fear, stigma, and the lack of safe reporting channels.
These findings come at a moment of growing policy attention. The government has established a national committee to protect children and adolescents from the risks of social media, while public calls for stricter regulation continue to intensify, sometimes extending to demands for banning social media and AI for those under 16. This raises a more fundamental question: do we need to restrict children’s access to the internet, or do we need to make the internet safer for children?
The answer, of course, is Yes! We need to restrict children's access and we need to make it safer when they do.
The uncomfortable truth is that today’s digital environment is built around the adult user and driven primarily by commercial growth. Algorithms prioritise what captures attention, not what protects well-being. Safety features are often difficult to find or disabled by default. Reporting systems are slow or ineffective. Meanwhile, data is collected at scale, even from young users.
These are not technical oversights; they are deliberate design choices. The harm children experience online is not accidental. It is predictable and, crucially, preventable. This is why the debate must shift from access to design.
Globally, this shift is beginning to take shape, not only in public discourse but also in legislation. One notable example is Brazil’s approach through what is known as the "ECA Digital framework". Rather than imposing a blanket ban, it focuses on holding technology companies accountable for the environments they create. The premise is simple but transformative: safety and privacy must be built into digital products from the outset, not added later in response to harm or public pressure.
In practice, this means requiring companies to assess the impact of their platforms on children’s rights, invest in human oversight and rapid response systems, and eliminate exploitative and addictive design features. It also means minimising data collection, prohibiting the commercial profiling of children, ensuring accessible reporting mechanisms, and providing effective remedies when harm occurs. Transparency around risks and failures is no longer optional.
What such approaches do is move the conversation from good intentions to legal accountability. Child safety can no longer be treated as a matter of corporate goodwill or a feature to be improved over time. Technology companies generate billions of dollars from user attention and data, including that of children. In this context, claims of limited resources for child safety are difficult to justify.
In the local context, quick fixes such as bans or broad restrictions may seem appealing, but they address symptoms rather than causes. Children will always find ways to go online. The more pressing question is: what kind of internet are they entering? One designed to exploit their attention, data, and vulnerability, or one intentionally built to protect them?
The issue is no longer whether children are online. It is the kind of online world we are exposing them to!
Nadine Nimri, a Jordanian Journalist, is an advocacy and communications strategist.
Hasidic sect in northern Israel churns out child brides and conceals sex abuse — report
Community-wide cover-up by Bratslavers in Yavne’el preventing authorities from gauging full scale of ‘dysfunctional’ marriages, Haaretz reports
Hundreds of families from an insular Hasidic sect in northern Israel are systematically marrying off girls as young as 12 to husbands who are not much older, as welfare services fail them and community members fear speaking out, Haaretz reported Thursday.
The report cited current and former members of the Bratslav community in Yavne’el, officials with knowledge of the matter, and the previously unpublished findings of a government panel established in 2023 to look into the closed community.
The panel that looked into the community reportedly found “cases that give rise to suspected crime,” “multiple cases of dysfunctional parenting,” and “sexual abuse, part of which goes unreported.”
“It’s straight-up rape,” said a current community member quoted by Haaretz. “Nobody asks a 14-year-old girl if she wants to get married. A year later she’s taking a baby to the playground.”
According to the government panel, the weddings are mainly between children aged 15-17, who are taught from an early age to get married young.
“The community perpetuates and is permeated by a religious and cultural outlook that says early marriages of minors are desirable and, among other things, help keep youth away from various dangers,” said the government report, without elaborating, according to Haaretz.
Illustrative: Men pray at the gravesite of Rabbi Eliezer Shlomo Schick, in Yavne’el, northern Israel, May 13, 2025. (David Cohen/Flash90)
The newspaper cited current and former community members as saying the “dangers” that the community fears are non-procreative seminal emissions, which are prohibited in halacha, or Jewish ritual law.
Current community members agreed to speak only on the side of the road, far away from the town, and were wary of approaching cars, Haaretz said. It quoted one female community member as saying, “Whoever talks risks ruining their and their family’s lives.”
The government panel that looked into the Yavne’el community was established by the Welfare Ministry with representatives of the police and of the justice, education, and health ministries following an interview by the Kan public broadcaster with a woman who escaped abuse in the sect.
A view of the gravesite of Rabbi Eliezer Shlomo Schick, in Yavne’el, northern Israel, May 13, 2025. (David Cohen/Flash90)
The woman, Mika Maimoni, was wed at 14 to a 19-year-old husband and got pregnant in three months. Maimoni was sent to give birth in Bnei Brak and was instructed on the way there to memorize a cover story to explain her pregnancy, she told Kan. She escaped the sect in 2015 when it was grieving the death of its spiritual leader Eliezer Shlomo Schick.
Marriages like Maimoni’s are common in the Yavne’el Bratslav community, according to Haaretz. Community members cited by the newspaper said the weddings take place at a rate of one or two a month.
In 2003, Tiberias police uncovered about 20 cases of marriages arranged by Schick of young girls, some of them aged 12, to grooms as young as 15.
And in its report, the panel established in 2023 found child marriages to be “very widespread” in the community of roughly 500 families, which accounts for over half the residents in the 5,000-odd town, according to Haaretz.
Illustrative: Hasidic Jews prepare for Shabbat in Yavne’el, northern Israel, March 24, 2017. (Yaakov Lederman/FLASH90)
But the panel reportedly said it could not give exact figures because of conspirators’ “synchronized and systematic cover-up technique and subterfuge.”
Those were said to include holding weddings in secret, changing child spouses’ addresses, giving authorities false information, appointing loyalists as teachers and counselors, and getting doctors to register adult mothers as the patients of fertility treatments performed on young girls.
The Edmonton Police Service announced the arrest of a 21-year-old daycare employee at West Edmonton Daycare over child sex abuse charges, notifying the public that he was released on bail with conditions after the arrest.
According to the police news release, on Tuesday, the teaching assistant, Kulraj Singh, was suspended by his employer, his childcare certification has been suspended, and he now faces multiple charges for sexual assault and sexual interference of a minor.
Men have no business working with small children in a daycare. They should not ever be able to be certified. Parents, don't put your children in a daycare where men or teenage boys are present.
Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department officer arrested on human trafficking, child rape charges
HANSON, Mass. — A Hanson man was arrested and charged with human trafficking and child rape charges across several towns.
Authorities say that the Hanson Police Department became involved with an active investigation for numerous sexual assaults and the creation of child sex abuse material of a 15-year-old male victim which occurred in Hanson, Halifax, and Middleborough.
Police said the alleged perpetrator was identified as 41-year-old Richard Kielczweski of Hanson.
Kielczweski was identified as a member of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, where he was hired as a Correction Officer back in July 2015.
“The charges against Officer Kielczweski are extremely serious and deeply disturbing,” the sheriff’s department wrote. “The Department has taken the swift and decisive action to indefinitely suspend Officer Kielczweski.”
An arrest warrant was obtained, and he was taken into custody yesterday.
Kielczweski is being charged with one count of Witness Intimidation and Enticing a Child Under 16.
In Hanson, Kielczweski is charged with three counts of pay for sexual conduct with a child under 18, two counts of rape of a child aggravated by a 10-year age difference, one count each of rape of a child with force, pose/exhibit a child in a sexual act, and trafficking persons under 18 for sexual servitude.
In Halifax, Kielczweski is charged with two counts each of rape of a child aggravated age Difference and pay for sexual conduct with a child under 18, and one count of trafficking persons under 18 for sexual servitude.
Kielczweski is currently held on $250,000 bail and will be arraigned on the charges on Monday in Plymouth District Court.
Florida Private School Teacher Allegedly Used Discord and Roblox to Entice Kids to Send Him Sexually Explicit Material
Evan Michael Sands allegedly “engaged in numerous conversations with children under the age of 18, some under the age of 12,” authorities wrote in a complaint
A private school employee in South Florida has been arrested after being accused of being in possession of child sexual abuse material.
Evan Michael Sands, a teacher at The Randazzo School in Coconut Creek, was arrested on multiple charges on Thursday, April 23, after he allegedly used Discord and Roblox to entice minors into sending him sexually explicit photos and videos, according to local outlets WPLG and WSVN.
The investigation into Sands began when a tip was sent to the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and forwarded to the South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in December, per a federal complaint cited by WPLG.
The tip allegedly pertained to two sexual abuse videos shared through Discord, a popular messaging app, that depicted girls around the age of 6.
After finding the videos in an account allegedly belonging to Sands, federal agents said they applied for search warrants and claimed that they discovered the teacher had been engaging in “numerous conversations” with minors.
“The Discord data revealed that Sands, using the username, astraldrag0n#0, engaged in numerous conversations with children under the age of 18, some under the age of 12, where he solicited the children to send him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves,” the complaint stated, per WPLG.
Roblox on a computer screen (stock image).
Hannah Peters/Getty
Authorities also said that Sands sent the children explicit videos of himself while identifying himself “by name and address and his place of employment.”
Beyond uncovering the messages, the complaint stated that agents carried out a search warrant at Sands' home and pulled him over after seeing him leave prior to the raid, per WPLG. After searching his phone, agents allegedly found more videos depicting the sexual abuse of children as young as 12 years old.
During an interview with authorities, Sands allegedly admitted to having sent explicit content on Discord since 2021 and enticing children by giving them “Robux,” the virtual currency for the online game platform Roblox.
He is now being held in the Broward Sheriff's Office Main Jail facility and faces two federal charges related to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material and one count of enticement of a minor to engage in illicit sexual behavior.
Following Sands' arrest, administrators at The Randazzo School told WPLG that he would not be returning to work at the school, emphasizing that they were “shocked and saddened by this development.”
“We are fully cooperating with law enforcement as their investigation continues,” they continued in a statement. “The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority. Based on the information the U.S. Marshals provided, there is no evidence that any of our students were involved or affected.”
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
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