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.
Give Thanks. There is more to this prayer here

Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour

Tuesday 27 August 2013

Yikes

computer is down. dont know when I will be able to post again. Please keep praying for the chjildren, they need us so badly.  Gary

It's been nearly a week since I have been online and the withdrawal symptoms were excruciating. But thanks to Jordan at Gridtronics in Aldergrove, BC, I am back online. Jordan did an amazing upgrade on my old computer and charged me a very reasonable price. I highly recommend him. to people in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

Monday 26 August 2013

Why Doesn't God Stop Child Sex Abuse?

He can, of course, with a single word, but He doesn't. Why? Does He want the children to suffer? Of course not! Jesus made it abundantly clear that He loves children and promised great punishment for those who abuse them. Yet, He allows it to happen.

He allows it to happen because to stop it on His own would defeat the whole purpose of our being here in this lifetime. For Him to unilaterally stop sex abuse of children would require Him to overrule the free will of men. Evil men choose to do great evil, often against children; that is their will, for some, the very focus of their entire lives. If we are forbidden to choose a particular evil, then we have no free-will.

If God overcomes the free will of man, then man is no longer free to choose good or evil. That’s why we’re here isn't it, to choose good or evil? To choose Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, or to choose to ignore him. We are here on this planet for the sole purpose of preparing for Eternity. Jesus is the Gateway to Eternity with God, rejecting Him means Eternity without God – you will hate every second of it.

So we can only choose Christ if we have free will. God could have created us in Eternity and avoided all the pain and suffering, but we would then be mere automatons at best or rebellious at worst. Doesn't sound like a great way to spend Eternity.

God has designed Eternity to be a place of love, righteousness, and unity. We can only ever achieve those standards by trusting the Lord to make us like Himself by filling us with Himself. We can choose to allow God to work in us, or we can reject Him outright; we have that God-given right.

When we rebel against God and do evil, God sometimes turns us over to Satan to destroy our flesh. What happens is we become even more evil, subject to obsessions and evil passions. Most child sex abusers are, I believe, in this category.

Obsessive people are very strong-willed. I believe that God can only intervene against the will of such evil men if there is an equally strong will countering that evil, or, if His people are praying against that evil. But it requires a lot of Christians praying to overcome such great evil.

Every Christian can afford 3 minutes a day to pray for our children. Child sex abuse exists because we don’t pray about it.

Please, join my Save A Child by 3:15 PM prayer group and start praying today.

Friday 23 August 2013

Did your Daughter get Surfing Lessons in Santa Cruz?

I wouldn't want to be accused of letting the US off lightly after picking on Canada and the UK yesterday, so this from CBS San Francisco:

SANTA CRUZ (CBS SF) — Prosecutors in Santa Cruz County have filed 28 criminal charges against a former surfing instructor in a child sex abuse and pornography case that police believe involved “hundreds” of victims.

Dylan Greiner, 38, who taught children how to surf at three Santa Cruz schools, was being held on $1 million bail after his arraignment on the charges Wednesday, according to Santa Cruz County Assistant District Attorney Michael Gilman.        

The case against Greiner includes four felony charges of lewd and lascivious behavior on a minor 14 or 15 years old for his alleged touching of children, Gilman said.

The surfing teacher is also charged with five felony counts of possessing child pornography, 11 felony counts of using a minor to create child pornography, one felony count of distributing lewd material to a minor and two felony counts of duplicating child pornography, Gilman said.

The other five counts, all misdemeanors, involve invasion of privacy with a camcorder or other device, stemming from Greiner’s alleged use of a video camera to film children under 18 who were nude in a changing, fitting or other room, Gilman said.

Greiner, who was at the hearing Wednesday in Santa Cruz County Superior Court with his attorney Dustin Gordon, did not enter a plea and his arraignment was continued to Sept. 10, Gilman said.

Meanwhile, Santa Cruz police Deputy Chief Steve Clark said investigators believe that the Greiner case involves “hundreds” of juvenile victims, including girls whose crotch areas were photographed and might amount to felony child pornography.

The department is receiving 15 to 20 calls a day from people concerned that their child may have been one of those photographed by Greiner, Clark said.

Clark announced Thursday that police learned Greiner allegedly took inappropriate photos of kids at the Boys and Girls Club and that detectives uncovered an enormous trove of more than 500,000 photos and videos from Greiner’s computers.

Greiner used a video camera and a still camera with a zoom lens to take digital images, Clark said.
Police are still trying to identify many young girls who were alleged victims of Greiner in his photos and videos, the deputy chief said.

The department has received more than 100 phone calls and emails from parents in California and across the country inquiring about their children, according to Clark.

Some people made annual trips to Santa Cruz in order for their family members to take surfing lessons from Greiner, Clark said.

Photos and videos found at Greiner’s home focused on girls’ breasts, buttocks and genitalia and some images were of girls as young as 8 years old at the beach, police said.

Concerned parents and potential victims may contact Santa Cruz police detectives at (831) 420-5820.

While there is little indication of any touching between Greiner and his victims, thank goodness, there will certainly be trauma for young girls finding themselves naked on the internet or even just worrying about it.

Thursday 22 August 2013

The Courts Just don't Get It


Just in case you think I'm making this stuff up or over-selling it - here are stories in the news today from some supposedly civilized countries.
Northern Ireland (OK, civilized may be a stretch here)
The trial of three men, who face a combined total of 85 child sex abuse charges, is expected to last a minimum of six weeks, Londonderry Crown Court has been told.
The charges cover dates between 1972 and 1998.
The charges include rape, cruelty to children, gross indecency and making indecent photographs of children.



Some good news here for a change. 

England

A police campaign is helping the public identify signs of child sexual exploitation.

West Midlands Police has produced posters and billboards to educate people on the signs of abuse.

The force will also work more closely with schools, parents, carers, social services, charities and local authorities.

Former child abuse victim Elizabeth Wood waived her right to anonymity to stress the importance of identifying the signs of child abuse in children.



Addiction or demonic influence?

Wales

A 70-year-old Anglesey pensioner who had 235,000 images of child sex abuse was "in the grip of a compulsion to collect them", a court has heard.

Robert O'Brien from Benllech, admitted making and possessing indecent photographs of children and having 870 indecent videos of them.

James Conod, defending, said: "Mr O'Brien found himself in the grip of a compulsion to collect these images, that was his primary motivation.

"He is extremely ashamed and deeply sorry."

Canada

Northern Ontario's Thunder Bay is in the news again today - see yesterday's post.

A Thunder Bay man in an ongoing sexual assault investigation will be in court to face more charges Wednesday.

Thunder Bay's Jeff Paxton now faces 23 sexual assault charges stemming from incidents that allegedly happened between 1983 and 2004. Thunder Bay police report they have identified 11 victims who were children at the time of the incidents.

The charges include sexual assault, gross indecency and invitation to sexual touching.

Canada's Atlantic Provinces

A former pastor was in a Corner Brook courtroom this morning to face child sex-related charges, but he didn't enter a plea.

Donnie Snook is accused of assaulting a boy while he was a pastor with the Salvation Army in Mount Moriah in the mid 1990s.

Snook now faces two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference involving a boy who was under the age of 14 at the time of the alleged offences in 1995-96.

Snook has been in custody since January after pleading guilty to 46 child exploitation charges in Saint John, New Brunswick, where he was a city councillor.

Those offences date back to 2001 and involve 17 boys as young as five years old, making it one of the biggest sex-abuse cases in New Brunswick's history.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2013/08/20/nl-snook-court-820.html


Halifax




A high-risk sex offender has moved to the Halifax area, police warned Wednesday.

Roger Ernest Joseph Roberge, 62, was released from a federal penitentiary earlier this year after serving all of his 12-year sentence for forcible confinement and sexual assault.

He stayed in New Brunswick for a while, but now is in the Halifax Regional Municipality.

"He has been professionally assessed as a high risk to re-offend in terms of both sexual and non-sexual violence," said Cst. Tracy J. MacDonald.

I don't understand. He is expected to commit violent sexual crimes, yet he walks free in society. In Canada, there is a policy of minimal sentencing. This guy got 12 years when he already had a 30 year history of violent crimes including violent sex crimes. This guy's freedom is not worth the brutal abuse of one woman or girl. The courts fall all over themselves protecting the rights of criminals while enabling them to access more victims to destroy. What a screwed-up world!

Wednesday 21 August 2013

Women, Teenage Girls and Boys, Babies sold on Ships for Sex in Duluth, Minnesota.

An American researcher says First Nations women from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, have been sold on ships in the harbour at Duluth, Minnesota, USA.

Christine Stark said the port at Duluth is notorious among First Nations people as a site for trafficking women.

The masters student at the University of Minnesota Duluth said she has anecdotal reports of women, teenage girls and boys, as well as babies being sold on ships for sex.

The Ontario Native Women's Association says it also has anecdotal reports of women being trafficked across borders, or provincial boundaries, into the sex trade.

The Ontario Native Women's Association says it also has anecdotal reports of women being trafficked across borders, or provincial boundaries, into the sex trade.

"The women and children — and I've even had women talk about a couple of babies brought onto the ships and sold to the men on ships — are being sold or are exchanging sex for alcohol, a place to stay, drugs, money and so forth.," Stark said. "It's quite shocking."

Stark said the sex trade on ships has been going on for generations, and includes Indigenous women from Canada.

See the full CBC report at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/story/2013/08/21/tby-first-nations-women-human-trafficking-ships-united-states.html

Children Suffering Extreme Forms of Violence

In the good news / bad news category, BBC reports this morning that:

South Africa's police have arrested six men suspected of being part of an international child pornography ring, a spokesman has said. That's the good news. Thank You Lord for shutting down this child porno ring.

The suspects, who include teachers and a legal officer, are believed to have links with the US, Canada, the UK and other European countries, reports say.

Images showed children "suffering extreme forms of violence", South Africa's The Times newspaper reports. That's the bad news. Lord, make it stop, please. Raise up prayer warriors so that You can move mightily against these evil people, for You can do little to stop it without our prayers.

The arrests were carried out following raids on 15 properties, police said.

Investigators had confiscated 672 DVDs, 22 memory sticks, eight laptops, 39 external hard drives and 25 books, police spokesman Solomon Makgale added.

"The initial charge was possession, but we suspect that they're involved in manufacturing, import and export as well as mass-distribution," Mr Makgale told AFP news agency.

"The indications are there. They had cameras. They had these external hard drives," he added.

Mr Makgale said the arrested men included a school headmaster, two teachers and a legal officer.

They were arrested during raids in five of South Africa's nine provinces following a tip-off by Interpol, he added.

The headmaster has been dismissed by the prestigious private school that employed him in the north-eastern city of Nelspruit, The Times reports.


Tuesday 20 August 2013

“Child Sexual Abuse is the Biggest Epidemic on our Planet,” Theo Fleury Hockey Star

I never liked Theo Fleury as a player for one reason - he always played for the other team! A gifted and indefatigable player despite being relatively small and having diabetes, he broke my heart many times. But the kid could play, always one of the best players in the league during his career. 

When his career was over he began to speak out about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hand of his junior coach. He has a new vocation now, more important than the old, and we pray for as great success in his new purpose as he achieved in hockey. 


The following from an online magazine The Record.com

When Theo Fleury was a young boy growing up in Russell, Manitoba, Canada., he thought his purpose in life was to play in the NHL. Today, despite having played over 1,000 games in the big league, collecting a Stanley Cup and an Olympic gold medal along the way, he realizes he was wrong.

Fleury, who is now a best-selling author, motivational speaker, and full-time advocate against the sexual abuse of children, wants to help others.

“I want to get as many victims of child sexual abuse into recovery as possible,” said Fleury, who spoke at Conestoga College Thursday. “I want to empower them, I want them to take control of their lives.”

“Child sexual abuse is the biggest epidemic we have on our planet,” Fleury said. Good, it's not just me that thinks that.

Theoren Fleury
Fleury alleged in his 2010 memoir Playing With Fire that former coach Graham James had sexually assaulted him more than 150 times over a three-year span when he was a teenager. The reason it took him 27 years to come forward, said Fleury, is that there is a stigma attached to sexual abuse.

“We have to get rid of the stigma around not telling,” Fleury said. “The more we keep the secret inside, the sicker we get.”

In a recent post on Fleury’s website, he addressed the current Penn State - Sandusky scandal.
“I have one stand: If an adult has even the slightest suspicion that a child is being abused it is your duty as an adult to stand up for that child and do something now! It’s simple.”

“It’s important when these types of stories come out, that we try to protect the victims as much as we can,” said Fleury. “We protect the abusers and re-victimize the victims. It’s backwards.”

Parents also have to be more proactive in their children’s lives, Fleury said. “If your kid suddenly becomes quiet, uninvolved or he’s acting out, it’s a good sign he’s suffered some kind of trauma.”

While Fleury has not seen a reduction in sexual abuse over the years, he said more people than ever seem to be coming forward. “I’ve seen a shift in a short amount of time, but we still have a long way to go.”

The key, said Fleury, is to never give up hope.
“We all have miracles,” he said, “we just gotta go find them.”

Miracles almost never happen without prayer. Let's be praying for these kids. Join my 3:15PM prayer group.

Sunday 18 August 2013

Child Sex Abuse Around the World

An article in the Jakarta Post claims that India has done nothing to protect children from sexual abuse. In the wake of the young woman being gang-raped and murdered on a Delhi bus, the Indian government took some measures to protect women, but did nothing for children.

Delhi Bus used in gang-rape and murder of young woman
Children, the Post claims, are in great danger of being sexually abused in various institutions, often by the people in charge. It reminds us of the Jerry Sandusky case in the US, and the Mount Cashel case in Newfoundland, and the residential schools abuse across Canada.

A new report from Human Rights Watch said such abuse is disturbingly common, government responses are falling short in protecting children and in treating victims. The report urges the government to ensure rigorous implementation of child protection laws and strict monitoring of child care facilities. It calls for an end to traumatic medical examinations and insensitive treatment by police and other authorities, which subject victims to further distress.

We need to be praying that the government implements these recommendations, soon.

There are no clear statistics on the number of child abuse cases in India, primarily because of the low reporting of such crimes. India's ministry of women and child said in 2007 that around 70 percent of abused children never reported the matter to anyone.

Despite the low reporting levels, the ministry then said 53.2 percent, or one out of two, children in India, reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse. This statistic is even worse for state-run or -funded homes, activists said.

While these statistics clearly contradict each other, one thing is clear – most children in India have suffered some form of abuse. In the 16th century one of the first Europeans, Jan Huygen van Linschoten, to reach India remarked in his journal that it was exceedingly difficult to find a girl of 7 years who was still a virgin. I appears the situation has not improved much, if at all, in 4.5 centuries.


Jan_Huygen_van_Linschoten
In England, The Office of Children's Commission interim study has found high levels of child abuse in England, with more than 2,400 victims during a 14-month period that was scrutinized. They also found about 16,500 additional children are at "high risk" of sexual exploitation based on behavioural changes that were noted.

The report follows a series of reports of "grooming" cases in which rings of men preyed on troubled underage girls.

Jimmy Saville
It also comes after the police and the BBC have been sharply criticized for failing to take action against the late Jimmy Savile, an entertainer who has been alleged to have repeatedly abused young girls.

The commission found that abuse is greater than had been thought and that many sexual exploitation victims are not seen by professionals and do not have their cases recorded.

Pray for England to get serious about protecting children from predators.



In Chile, President Pinera announced measures Wednesday to combat child abuse, responding to a popular outcry over an increase in reports of such crimes in one of Latin America's most socially conservative countries.

Chilean President Pinera 2013
The government already banned convicted pedophiles from working near children last month under a new law that also requires those convicted of sexually abusing minors or of child pornography to be registered in a database.

President Sebastian Pinera said Wednesday the database will be fully working starting in August. He also said Chile will toughen penalties on convicted pedophiles, increase the forensic institute budget by $1.6 million and create a children's ombudsman to protect their rights.

New Chilean President
Michelle Bachelet
"With sadness and indignation we've heard serious reports in the past weeks of sex abuse by adults who had the responsibility to educate them, to protect them but who instead threatened against that which is most sacred in our children" Pinera said at a news conference.


Several teachers have recently been accused of sexually molesting children at day care centers and schools in affluent Santiago neighborhoods. Reports of sexual abuse of children under the age of 14 rose by 22 percent in the first half of the year, according to official estimates.

We need to be praying for these measures to be implemented. President Pinera is under some considerable stress from growing protests for a variety of reasons. Pray that the measures go through before an election is called or some kind of coup takes place.


Saturday 17 August 2013

Germany's Green Party and Legalizing Sex with Children

Germany’s Green Party has launched an investigation into allegations by Der Spiegel magazine that in their early years they were involved with an organization that lobbied for legalizing sex with children.

Der Spiegel reported on Sunday that the Green party's federal office financed an association for "gays, pederasts, and transsexuals" (BAG SchwuP) in its early days as an upstart political force in the 1980s.


BAG SchwuP was openly in favour of legalizing sex with children, the magazine claimed, citing sources from the Green party's own archives.

In 1984, BAG SchwuP was made part of the Green party's parliamentary faction's working group on "Law and Society," and so had an influence on the party's policymaking. A year earlier, an advert for the Green party appeared in the gay magazine Torso which called for legalizing consensual sex with minors.

Newsletters sent by BAG SchwuP - which the party headquarters also received - included pictures of lightly-clad underage boys, the magazine reported. "Politically, the Greens were the only hope for paedophiles," Kurt Hartmann, a former member of BAG SchwuP, told the magazine.

But Jürgen Trittin, the Greens' parliamentary leader and one of two top
candidates in September elections, acknowledged at a press conference, the party had made "bad decisions" on the issue of paedophilia.

He referred in particular to a 1985 decision at a regional party conference in western North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state when delegates argued in favour of consensual sexuality between adults and children to be exempt from punishment.

The party's co-chairman Cem Özdemir said, "The protection of children from sexual abuse was and remains a central concern for us."

Child Sex Abuse in an Hasidic Synagogue

It is obvious that intensely religious people are just as liable to commit child sexual abuse as any other. And to make matters worse, they cover it up. In the Catholic Church lurked many a pedophile predator. When he was outed, the Bishop or Archbishop would simply move him to another parish under orders to get himself right with God, no doubt.

But how often did that happen? More often than not it just gave the pervert a whole new field of potential victims. I don’t understand why the Bishops and Archbishops have never been charged with complicity; they were clearly enabling the pedophiles and not reporting their crimes.


The Hasidic community is even more tight-knit. The pressure to not air dirty laundry in public is very intense. It wasn’t until the Australian government called a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that people started coming forward with their soiled underwear.

Manny Waks attended the Yeshiva Centre in Melbourne where he was molested by a teacher for a time, and when he stopped, another teacher took over. They had groomed Manny carefully so that he would be quiet about the abuse. However, Manny did tell his father in 1996 and they went to the police. The police didn’t even investigate because they said it would come down to his word against theirs.

Manny began to pull away from the religion of his father, finding the synagogue to be a place of great discomfort. He now keeps some Jewish traditions to maintain the cultural heritage, but avoids all religious activities.

This is a typical example of how child abuse can affect one’s spirituality and a reminder of how desperately these people need prayer. Mind you there is a big difference between a religion based mainly on rules and traditions and having a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Creator of all things.

A real Christian is one who has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord – Lord of everything in their life. Once you have accomplished that level of sanctification, then such evil as child sexual abuse becomes nearly impossible. Sadly, not many attain to that level, so there is child abuse even in the Christian church, but, I think, considerably less than in other religions.

To read more and hear Manny’s story from Manny himself go here

Are you praying? 3:15PM.

Thursday 15 August 2013

The Worst Atrocity that Mankind has ever Afflicted upon Itself

What is the worst thing going on in the world right now? And what is the church doing about it? No, it’s not the crisis in Egypt, although nothing good can come out of that. It is not the war in Syria, nor is it even war in general. It is not slavery which continues to this day. It is what is happening to 20% of all girls in the world and 8% of all boys. It is sexual abuse by adults.

At one third of a billion children being abused every 18 years, the number far exceeds the number of dead and wounded in war. In the 20th century, the number of deaths from war was approximately 100 million. This includes the deaths of civilians from diseases (except for the Spanish Flu), famine, etc., as well as deaths of soldiers in battle, it also includes massacres and genocide.

The number of wounded during most 20th century wars was similar to the number of deaths, so we will assume another 100 million seriously wounded. That is 200 million casualties from war, famine, disease epidemics and genocide. If we add 75 million from the Spanish Flu then the total becomes 275 million casualties during the 20th century. That’s fewer than the number of children being sexually abused every 18 years.

How many children were sexually molested involving physical contact in the 20th century? At 330 million every 18 years, that means more than 1.8 billion children were sexually abused during the last century - almost 7 times as many victims as there were in all the wars, genocides and epidemics of the 20th century.

Do you understand why I call it the worst atrocity that mankind has ever afflicted upon itself? Remember most of them are repeatedly abused, many of them thousands of times. Most of them will never fully recover from the effects of the abuse (See: Save A Child from Sexual Abuse for a list of the effects).

Many of the children will become disillusioned, bitter, angry, untrusting people. Many of the boys will grow up to be child molesters themselves. Few will ever be able to learn to trust in a loving Father.

And what is the church doing about it? Are we praying? Are we raising the issue? If we are doing nothing, we are part of the problem. At the very least we can pray something like my 3:15PM prayer, and we can do what we have to to raise this issue to a much, much higher profile. It will not go away by ignoring it. YOU must do something!

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Hindu Priest in Canada Sexually Abused Teens

A former Abbotsford, British Columbia, Hindu priest was convicted of sexual offences involving teenage members of his congregation according to Vancouver Desi - a south Asian web site operated by The Province News.

Karam Vir, 33, was convicted in May of two counts of touching a young person for a sexual purpose and one count of sexual assault in connection with incidents that took place in 2009 and 2010 while he was employed at Abbotsford’s Hindu temple on Walmsley Avenue.

A sentencing hearing was held Wednesday in B.C. Supreme Court in Chilliwack .

Vir made sexual advances toward the two victims, who were 17 years old, after befriending them at the temple. One young woman said Vir kissed her and there was brief sexual intercourse and/or touching three times. The other victim testified that Vir talked about wanting to get sexually involved with her but she resisted his sexual advances.

Vir continues to deny responsibility for his crimes. Justice Neill Brown said it is not unusual for an offender to maintain his or her innocence, but one hopes that after sentencing an offender will eventually change his or her mind and commit to rehabilitation.

“There isn’t a shred of doubt that Mr. Vir is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Brown said.

Vir is not likely to get a long sentence but he is also subject to an exclusion order and he will be removed from Canada as soon as he is released from custody.

Brown also said a longer sentence will not be more of a deterrent to Vir than a shorter sentence, in part because of the losses he has suffered as a result of the allegations. It might, however, keep him from molesting girls for a little longer. Is it Canada's preference to dump perverts into other countries rather than keep them in jail. Works for Canada, but does nothing to stop child abuse globally.

Monday 12 August 2013

Familial Sex Abuse in Australia

By Australia Broadcasting Corp's Sarah Dingle

Updated Mon Aug 12, 2013 2:44pm AEST
Institutional child sex abuse is only the tip of the iceberg, and unless we realise that the vast majority of abuse occurs within the family home, we have little hope of removing it from our society, writes Sarah Dingle.
When it comes to conversations about child sexual abuse, it's sometimes a race to see who can get the most outraged first. Around the water cooler, paedophiles and child sex offenders are one bunch of sinister offenders we can all agree to hate.

Unfortunately, there's two problems with this. First of all, our notion of a child sex offender or a paedophile is out of whack with reality. We think of older, isolated, possibly quite creepy-looking men.

The overwhelming majority of perpetrators are male, but that's about the only thing we have right. The most common age of offending for men who sexually abuse children is actually the 30s and 40s, according to criminologist and psychologist Professor Stephen Smallbone of Queensland's Griffith University. And there is a terrible reason why.

"That's a time where there's a particular set of opportunities which hadn't been previously available," says Professor Smallbone. "So for a man in his 30s or 40s, that's an age when he's likely to first have his own children, who are coming into the peak risk age of sexual victimisation of around 12, 13, or 14."

At this age, simply put, men are more likely to be around children at home, either their own or someone else's.

In 70 to 80 per cent of all child sex abuse cases, there is a familial relationship between the child victim and the offender, according to Professor Smallbone's research. Around 15 per cent of those abusers are the victim's biological father. The rest are boyfriends, or stepfathers, or other adult males in an authority role.

The allegations of child abuse currently being heard by the Royal Commission by priests and teachers are horrible. But the Royal Commission will not examine the majority of child sexual abuse. Its terms of reference specifically exclude any abuse that involves the family. A spokesperson for the Attorney General says this is to ensure there can be "concrete recommendations within a reasonable timeframe".

The second problem with our rush to condemn the abusers is that sometimes, as a society, we're not very kind to the victims - particularly the victims of intra-familial child sexual abuse.

Taylor* is 15, and lives in regional New South Wales. She was raped by her biological father for more than a year, starting at the age of 10. He only saw Taylor during sporadic access visits. From the age of 10, almost every time Taylor saw her father, he sexually abused her. He was eventually charged with 74 charges ranging from indecent assault to aggravated sexual assault.

Taylor was suffering. But some of those around her didn't help. In fact, they made it much worse. While Taylor was still at primary school, she first spoke about the abuse, and her father was charged.

Taylor naturally wanted to confide in someone her own age. She told one of her friends. But later down the track, they had a tiff, says her mother, Larissa*. The friend then used that information as a weapon and told other people.

"She wasn't even a teen at the time," Larissa says. "It's hard for her to confide in people her own age. She just hasn't been able to tell anyone."
While horrible, it's likely that Taylor's young friend didn't understand just how damaging her actions were. But adults also behaved poorly towards Taylor.

"The principal of the (primary) school told her to get over it and not bring it to school with her," Larissa* said. "She changed schools because of it. I pulled all of my kids out of that school."

Taylor is now at high school, and much happier. But school is still a struggle.

"I still miss a lot of time off school, because obviously at school you have sex ed. You have the kids that randomly joke about rape," she said.

"Every time that happens I get flashbacks. I end up having lots of time off school."

Liz* is a calm, tall 46-year-old. But she, too, has been haunted by flashbacks of abuse all her life.

She doesn't know what age her grandfather began abusing her - all she knows is that it stopped when she was four and a half, and threw a tantrum about having to go to his house.

After that, her young mind blocked it out.

"I had no memories of the abuse until I was 15 and a half probably," Liz said. "When I was first starting to, you know, get interested in boys, and it came back in a sudden whoosh ... And I can remember just feeling physically sick like I was going to be ill ... When it's something which happens with all these things coming back, you really doubt your sanity."

Liz's parents didn't speak about the abuse with her until about four decades after it stopped. Liz didn't even realise they knew.

"After my 40s, there was an incident in my family about someone being abused in a separate way and I didn't like how people were reacting to that information, I thought they needed to be more sensitive about it," she said.

"So I ended up saying I knew how they felt because I had experienced it. And it came out that my parents had actually known during that time. And that again was another horrible moment, it was a bit like the flashbacks in a way. I felt like my world fell apart."

Liz hasn't even told most of her extended family about what her grandfather did to her.

"You want to tell people to get it out," she said.

"What's kept me from doing that is I came from a small country town, where everyone knows everyone. I have cousins and his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren that are living there in that town.

"If I say what he did, and I do it in a public way, I'm really worried about the effect that would have on him and those children and family members that are completely innocent. Of then having to deal with his legacy ... I think a family gets tainted by that background, and when that happens that filters down to their children, their friends as well, you know, parents being concerned about children playing with them, things like that."

"It's very easy to demonise a stranger," says the head of the Social Justice Research Centre at Edith Cowan University, Professor Caroline Taylor.

"But when you actually point out to people that the most dangerous place for a child is in the family unit, people don't like it because it's too close to home.
"It also means they'd need to be looking inwards to their own family and friendship networks than external, so that's a difficult thing for people to accept."

Community reluctance to face intra-familial child sexual abuse means that some victims, like Francis*, are even blamed for what happens by those around them.

Francis was married and living with John* when she had Clementine*.
John began to abuse Clementine when she was a toddler. Clementine didn't disclose this until she was 12 years old.

John was ultimately convicted of eight charges, including three of sexual intercourse with a person under 10.

Francis' world crumbled when the disclosure took place, and the guilt began. But people who should have supported her chose to make it worse.
"I've had people tell me that 'Obviously, you're a bad mum'. And 'Obviously, you didn't do it for him sexually, did you', those kinds of things," she said.

"So it's very stereotypical response where the blame is on the woman."
Francis says those people included family and friends.

"It was as if I had some kind of disease. But I know now that it's not my fault," she said.

Taken individually, these stories could be blamed on poor behaviour by a handful of people, but unfortunately they are not uncommon experiences.
"What we like to do is, we like to anonymise and keep at a distance a reality that we find unpalatable," said Professor Caroline Taylor. 

If we're determined to stop child abuse, maybe we should be a little kinder and more open to the victims - even if that means opening our eyes to something very close to home.

*The names referred to in this article have been changed.

Mom-in-Law sends 13 Year Old to be Gang-raped

The following are excerpts from Ann Voskamp's excellent blog http://www.aholyexperience.com/. If you have been here before, you may know that I will only ever ask you for prayer and not money. There is however, an organization which works to set girls like the one talked about below free from sexual slavery. Links below, or from Ann's blog, will connect you to this wonderful organization which I have just found out about today. You can help support them by purchasing their products which are produced by the very girls they save.


“I’d like to plant one apple tree somewhere.”

Because there was this tree in India and there was Kundulla and when you get wrinkles, you get thinking about roots and limbs and how we are all connected.

Kundulla and I are both the oldest, daughters of farmers.

While I was watching the trees growing in the orchard here, Kundulla was getting beaten and gang-raped under a tree in India. She was 13.

Her father had married his little girl off to an older man and now her mother-in-law had supposedly sent her to the field to work.

Only she’d actually sold Kundulla’s hardly-woman body to a bunch of young men for the afternoon. There are things you want to forget. A leaf given to the wind.

What do you do when you are 13 years old and the mother of the older man your father married you off to – sells your skin to be used and taken and discarded? Who in your family do you trust when you are robbed of dignity and left for dead?

Shamed and betrayed, Kundulla didn't run back to her father or mother, or her husband’s family, but to an uncle. He took her in and cared for her.

And then said, since she had brought shame on the family, it’d be be best for him to find her a job and a new life in Calcutta. So her own uncle, whom she trusted, sold 13-year-old Kundulla into a brothel to begin her new life….

There are days that the only thing a family tree seems good for is firewood.

For years, Kundulla stood alone and “in the line” of Sonagacchi, Calcutta’s largest red light district, men buying the use of her thin body for their own momentary lusts.

For years, the trees out in the orchard reached a bit to the sky.


In India, Kundulla makes herself the G.I.F.T.. When her parents die, she inherits a small plot of land — and she asks Freeset if she can give the land as a G.I.F.T. to them, to start another place for discarded and trafficked women to join Freeset, to have an opportunity to be grafted into an eternal family tree, rooted in the One who hung on a Tree to hold them close forever.

If you really are part of the family tree of God – you have to go out on a limb. You have to be the Giving Tree.


Kundalla, unfortunately, is not an isolated case. There are many thousands of girls like her sold by their own parents to become toys for men to play with and then toss aside. Please join my 3:15 PM prayer initiative so that the Lord can bring child sexual abuse to an end.

Saturday 10 August 2013

Six Kids Collapse in Sex Ed Class

There was some distress in the classroom as a number of children collapsed after they were asked to color in pictures of sexual organs while learning about human reproduction.

A biology lesson in Remigianum school in Borken, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, went awry after the collapse of one child suffering from previously existing circulation problems set off a chain reaction among fellow pupils. 

Shortly afterwards a second child hyperventilated, then another collapsed with stress. Then on the arrival of an emergency doctor another child suffered a further attack, as a police spokesman confirmed on Thursday.

None of the children, aged 11-12-years old, are suffering from any complications following the incident, which both police and teachers were keen to play down. “Actually nothing happened,” said the police spokesman. 

Yet nobody has been able to explain exactly what happened. “The pictures were completely normal, not alarming, how such pictures are,” said the police.

A blood sample has been taken from one child for analysis.

It would appear the pictures weren't ‘completely normal’ to the 11 and 12 year olds. Coloring pictures of sex organs has to be pretty intimidating to some kids just entering puberty, don’t you think? Sometimes, I think, sex education is just another form of child abuse.

Woman Sexually Abuses her own Daughters

A 37-year-old teacher and his 36-year-old partner from Adelaide, Australia, were arrested in February and he stood down from his position as a teacher. He has been charged with several offences including producing and disseminating child pornography, unlawful sexual intercourse and indecent assault. It is alleged he sexually assaulted his partner's 10-year-old daughter.

His partner is also accused of sexually assaulting the girl, as well as her three-year-old daughter. It is fairly obvious she was complicit in her partner’s sexual assault of her 10 year old.

Police allegedly found images of the woman's children engaged in various sex acts when they seized the male teacher's computer as part of an investigation into his internet activity.

Prosecutor John Wells asked the Adelaide Magistrates Court to adjourn the date to answer the charges, saying the case was likely to be resolved outside of a trial.
It is understood that negotiations may result in guilty pleas being entered to either downgraded or amended charges.

Police say the woman's children were placed in the care of another family member after the arrests and appropriate support was being offered to them.

How many more children are suffering from this kind of madness? Please, join my 3:15PM prayer group.

Friday 9 August 2013

Forced Marriages for UK Girls

The UK government issued warnings today about the probability of many teenagers being taken abroad and forced into unwanted marriages during the school holidays. Why they are issuing the warning now that summer is more than half over instead of before it began is not explained and is, in fact, inexplicable.

Ministers said there were concerns about teenagers being taken abroad thinking they were going on holiday but being forced into marriage instead.

Figures suggest cases are particularly common during the summer break.

The Home Office's and Foreign Office's Forced Marriage Unit had 400 reports between June and August last year.

Recent estimates suggest more than 5,000 people from the UK are forced into marriage every year.

More than a third of those affected are aged under 16. That’s close to 2000 children who will be sexually abused by their ‘husbands’.

"'Our Marriage: It's Your Choice' cards highlight that people who are at risk of forced marriage know they can turn to our Forced Marriage Unit for support, whether they are at home or are already abroad."

The government is also publishing plans to follow the example of Scotland by making forced marriage a criminal offence in England and Wales. This could mean parents who are found guilty of forcing their children into marriage face a prison sentence.

At least that is good news, a beginning. Please pray for these children to be spared if it isn’t too late. Please join my 3:15PM prayer group.

See Forced Marriages in the Ripped from the Headlines column for the full story.

Thursday 8 August 2013

Bad day for Pornographers, Perverts, and Pugnacious Barristers

Two big Child Pornographers off the Streets

1 - A former Edmonton, Canada, soldier faces 119 charges of child luring, possession of child pornography and breaching conditions after a continent-wide investigation.

Matthew Richervezeau, 23, a former soldier at CFB Edmonton, was charged Tuesday by military police with the co-operation of other law enforcement agencies across North America.

"This is an exceptionally disturbing case of alleged child sexual exploitation using computers and social media," said Acting Canadian Forces Provost Marshal Col. Rob Delaney in a news release.

"This is a grim reminder that there are predators out there who can and will use technology and social media to exploit our children's innocence — and it is our responsibility to protect these most vulnerable members of our society," he said.



2 - The US is to request the extradition of an Irishman described by the FBI as the largest facilitator of online child sex abuse on the planet, Dublin High Court has been told.

Eric Eoin Marques, 28, with an address at Mountjoy Square in Dublin, was arrested in the city last week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23619062


Two 18-year-old men face charges in the case of (name removed), the Nova Scotia, Canada, girl who took her own life after she was bullied online.

One was charged with two counts of distributing child pornography, and the other was charged with making and distributing child pornography.

Police said the evidence did not support sexual assault charges against the two.

According to (the girl's) mother, four boys sexually assaulted her daughter when she was 15. The Cole Harbour, N.S., teen was then said to have been mocked by classmates, enduring relentless harassment and humiliation after a photo of the attack was circulated at school and on social media.

On April 7, (she) was taken off life-support after attempting to take her own life a few days earlier.



More alleged victims of a man accused of the historical sex abuse of 15 youngsters at children's homes in north Wales have come forward to police, a court has heard.

John Allen, 72, is charged with 32 offences involving 14 boys and one girl, aged between seven and 15.
Eight more people have come forward to police to make complaints, Caernarfon Crown Court was told.

How many years has this guy been getting away with this abuse? And why was it not stopped before now?


Also in the UK:

A barrister who described a 13-year-old victim of sex abuse as "predatory" in court has been suspended from sexual offence cases pending a review.

Robert Colover has been criticised for his remarks, in which he also described the girl as "sexually experienced".

The Crown Prosecution Service said he would not be instructed in sex cases while it considered his situation.

Neil Wilson, 41, admitted abusing the girl at his home in Romford, London, and was given a suspended jail term.

Predatory, experienced – what does it matter, she was 13!!! And all he got was a suspended sentence; well, that’ll teach him!





Wednesday 7 August 2013

Another Horrific Day

Today, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 sexual abuses of children have occurred.

That's not counting the 8,880 female genital circumcisions (read mutilations) that have happened.

Or, the 7,600 marriages of children under the age of 15 that took place.

Almost every one of those girls will cry themselves to sleep tonight, many in considerable pain.

Have you prayed for these children? Will you commit to praying for them or even for just one for 3 minutes a day. 

Please join my 3:15 prayer team. Pray 3 minutes a day for 1 or for 5 children. See Save A Child from Sexual Abuse for more information.

Please pray and please spread the word. Our prayers make a difference!


Monday 5 August 2013

A Little Light Shines into the Darknet

Tor (The Onion Router) is a secret network which delivers web sites on the internet service provider (ISP) Freedom Hosting. Tor was invented by the US Navy so people could use the internet anonymously. Many good things have and still do work through Tor, but then drugs are bought and sold with anonymity and, even worse, it is used for the distribution of child pornography from pictures, to videos to live-streaming.

It appears that an American government agency has been successful in planting Malware into a browser that runs child pornography. The Malware enables its creator to identify the hostname and MAC address of the very computer on which the pornography is being watched.

This, of course, is a small beginning, not a knockout blow to child pornography. It involves only one browser so it will be effective for a very limited time. Nevertheless, we can hope and pray that many perverts will be apprehended in the next little while and that others will be much more reluctant to connect to child porn sites.

Is this more answered prayer? Maybe, but just keep praying for the children.