German Man Poses as Young Girl to Sexually Exploit 122 Children in 3 Countries

    © Bobby Yip / Reuters

A 32-year-old German man is accused of persuading around 122 children to send him their nude photos and videos. The suspect likely pretended to be a young girl in an online chat which is popular among children.

Prosecutors in German’s Lower Saxony filed the case against the man from the small town of Bad Iburg who reportedly chatted online with children and coaxed them into sending him nude photos or videos of themselves performing sex acts, local media reported on Friday.

The children aged between seven and 13 years old were from Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. The suspect allegedly used a fake name and showed them a video of a young girl he pretended to be so that victims trusted him.

He would sometimes offer to send children a kind of game currency for the material. Most of the female victims later said they thought they were taking part in a sexual game with a peer.

Police discovered more than 600 child porn files during a search at his house in February.

“We believe there are at least 122 victims,” chief prosecutor Alexander Retemeyer told Der Spiegel, adding that the police still needs time to match up each video file or photo with a particular person.

“Many of those whom we have identified are traumatized and are undergoing psychiatric treatment. We won’t be able to find all of the victims,” Retemeyer said.

It was also established that the man had sex with a 15-year-old girl after consuming a lot of alcohol. It is not clear whether the man will be prosecuted for this as well. The age of consent in Germany is 14, which means if the girl does not make a complaint, the man won’t face any charges for the episode.

Age of consent is 14? Good grief! No wonder there is no outcry about child brides among the migrants - it's legal to rape a 14 year old!

The case, which qualifies as “cyber-grooming”, will soon to be taken to court with prosecutors expecting the suspect to be sentenced to several years in prison.

Shall we label 'cyber-groomers' as "cyberpeds", or "cyberpreds"?

The alarm was raised by a mother of one of the victims from Bavaria in November last year.

In 2005, only 956 similar cases were registered in Germany while in 2015 the number went up to as high as 1958 such cases, according to German’s Federal Criminal Police Office.

In September, the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children warned that the internet is fast becoming a “playground” for pedophiles that allow them to groom, view pictures and take advantage of children.

In October, UK police also warned that children as young as 10 are being tricked into sharing explicit images “virtually every day.” Online predators initially target victims with compliments and then, if they don’t react, resort to threats, Scotland Yard’s officer said.

People, please make sure your children or grandchildren are aware of these predators and not to expose any part of themselves that they wouldn't expose in the middle of a shopping mall.

Study Shows Link Between Severity of Child Sexual Abuse and Mental Health

Just in case you had any doubts, there is a direct link between child sex abuse and mental health. Mental health is a part of modern society that is deteriorating at an extraordinary pace. Much of it is because of drugs, including marijuana, but, as this study shows, much of it is due to child sex abuse.

It's time all governments addressed the nightmarish problem of child sex abuse in a much more aggressive way.

In an investigation published in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics the harm of sexual abuse in Swiss adolescents is analyzed. 

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) comprises activities with actual physical contact (e.g. rape, unwanted touching) and without physical contact (e.g. exhibitionism, exposure to pornography, verbal sexual harassment, distribution of intimate pictures against one's will).

Research has shown that CSA is a persistent public health problem across all countries and cultures. However, there is almost no research on the differential effects of the type of CSA on outcome. To bridge these research gaps, the aim of the study was to assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and mental health across contact and non-contact types of CSA in a population sample of adolescents.

Authors assessed a nationally representative sample of 6,751 Swiss 9th grade students (mean age 15.5 years) attending public schools. Results found that roughly 40% of females and 17% of males reported experience of some type of CSA in their lifetimes, with 'non-contact CSA only' considerably more prevalent in both genders (24.7 and 12.1%, respectively) than 'contact CSA only' (5.1 and 2.3%) and both types of CSA (10.5 and 2.8%).

The risk of females experiencing all categories of CSA was considerably higher than for males (OR = 2.37, 2.28, and 4.12, respectively). In addition, participants who had experienced both types of CSA had the lowest HRQoL and poorest mental health, whereas participants with no history of CSA had the highest scores for HRQoL as well as the best mental health.

Notably, in almost all measures, participants with non-contact CSA only were significantly more impaired than participants with no history of CSA. Males had better mental HRQoL as well as less mental health problems than females across all four groups.

Taken together, these results indicate that there is a gradient association between the severity of CSA and HRQoL and mental health. Furthermore, females reported lower scores than males in most dimensions of HRQoL and mental health. However, this was not specific for victims of CSA, confirming epidemiological findings on mental health in adolescence that show a higher prevalence of many mental disorders in girls.

Source:
Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

UN Raises Concerns About Children’s Rights in Sweden, Switzerland

Reuters / Reuters

A UN report notes that child abuse is on the rise in Sweden and criticizes the Nordic nation as well as Switzerland, the only two European countries featured in the report, for failing to comply fully with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The report, released by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Wednesday, included an assessment of children’s rights in 12 countries, such as Turkmenistan and Iraq, where far more egregious violations were found, including horrifying revelations of the Islamic State using kidnapped children as suicide bombers.

Sweden
The two wealthy Western countries, however, didn’t emerge unscathed. Although the committee commended some of the countries’ efforts in improving conditions for minors in recent years, it also expressed grave concern for the “significant rise in child abuse especially of children up to six years of age” in Sweden, and noted that few police reports of abuse result in prosecution. Access to recovery and rehabilitation for victims of abuse is also insufficient, according to the report.

I wonder if there is any correlation between the increase in infant child abuse and the increase in Muslim immigrants in Sweden?

The treatment of immigrant children living in Sweden, juvenile prisoners, underage minorities and asylum seekers was cause for concern. The report says the state isn’t doing enough to help children from disadvantaged families, who are at an increased risk of discrimination and bullying.

“Certain groups of children continue to face discrimination, in particular children from disadvantaged and marginalized families as well as children of migrant families, including African and Afro-Swede children,” the report reads.

Criticizing a revision to Sweden’s Anti-Discrimination Act, the report laments the deletion of the word “race” from the language of the law, saying that this leaves no legal provision criminalizing the promotion of racial hatred.

The report also mentions that minority children, including Roma and LGBT youths, are frequent targets of bullying. The Committee suggests the state undertake “awareness raising programs” to eliminate all forms of discrimination.

While the committee praised the creation of an Ombudsman for children’s issues in Sweden, it noted the Ombudsman’s office doesn’t receive individual complaints from children or on their behalf.

Treatment of juvenile delinquents also troubled the committee. In particular, the committee discouraged the use of solitary confinement for underage prisoners, noting that its effects could be psychologically damaging.

Switzerland
In Switzerland, the Committee suggested the state allocate more money towards educational campaigns protecting children from exploitation in sex tourism. The report found certain protections apply only to children under 16, and suggested extending these protections to all under 18.

The report also added that Switzerland should allocate more money for prevention of child prostitution and child pornography instead of relegating these efforts to private organizations.

The committee urged both countries to undertake better data gathering strategies on underage victims of abuse and sexual exploitation, as neither country has adequate mechanisms for identifying and monitoring at risk children.

In both countries, the report recommended that those working with underage victims including judges, medical personnel and social workers undergo additional training on“child-friendly”interactions.