REPORT ABUSE

The Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) seeks to build an effective, international partnership of law enforcement agencies, non government organisations and industry to help protect children from online child abuse. The Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) is actively involved in investigating suspicious behavior online with or towards a child. The Report Abuse button is an effective mechanism for reporting suspected sexual predator behavior.

Sexual predator behavior includes:

• making and downloading images of children being sexually abused
• approaching a child online for sex (e.g. sexual activity via text or webcam)
• grooming – this is the deliberate actions taken by an adult to form a trusting relationship with a child online, with the intent of later facilitating sexual contact. This can take place in chat rooms, instant messaging, social networking sites and email
• contact offending – once contact has been made with a child online, child sex offenders then move towards meeting up in person for sexual purposes.

If you or a child is in immediate danger, contact your local police.

If there is no immediate danger to you or a child, you can report directly to the VGT:

• Australia
• Canada
• Italy
• Republic of Korea
• New Zealand
• United Arab Emirates
• United Kingdom
• United States of America

Example reports are available on the case studies page.

READ MORE HERE

The mother of a nine-year-old boy shot him five times in the home she shared with him and the boy’s father in Steamboat Springs, Colorado then turned the gun on herself, according to a preliminary investigation by the Routt County Sheriff’s Office . Lisa Marie Lesyshen shot and killed her son Asher on Tuesday, leaving a note by the child’s bed telling the father Michael Kirlan that he was to blame for her actions. Her husband was woken by the shots and called 911 as she asked him to kill her. She survived.  ‘Remember you are responsible for what has happened here and you are the person that caused it,’ she wrote, signing the note, ‘Lisa and Asher’. READ MORE HERE

‘Barbaric’ couple ‘water-boarded their own children during ten years of captivity and fed them through a hole in the wall’

A barbaric couple who ‘water-boarded’ their four children during ten years of captivity and abuse have gone on trial in Belgium. Parents Sebastien Hardenne and Isabelle Simon also kept their three girls and a boy in a locked room at night and ‘fed’ them through a small hole in the wall, it was heard. They beat them with sticks, an iron bar and whips and tortured them with an electric fly swatter, police have revealed. The father urinated in the children’s mouths and even practiced ‘water-boarding’ torture similar to that allegedly used at America’s Guantanamo Bay prison, the court was told. Two girls were also locked in a suitcase smeared with dog excrement and swung around a room, it was heard. READ MORE HERE

A young boy was forced to do horrible things by other classmates. A nine-year-old boy who has remained unidentified is speaking out about being forced into a bathroom and forced to perform oral sex on three classmates at Public School 194 in Harlem, New York and his mother is suing the Education Department for 6 million dollars.  Both the boy and his mother have remained unidentified for their safety, but the mother is suing the Education Department for not properly taking care of an atrocious situation that occurred in one of the public schools. READ MORE HERE

147 of them are missing in El Paso County, TX alone

Texas currently has 4,400 active missing-children cases, and 147 of them are in El Paso County, Robert R. Almonte, U.S. marshal for the Western District of Texas, said Thursday. Almonte provided other statistics during a news conference on missing children at the federal courthouse in Downtown El Paso. “Each year, about 800,000 children are abducted nationally, and some 97 percent of them are recovered,” he said. “About 56,000 of the abductions are non-family abductions. And in Texas about 46,000 children are abducted each year.” READ MORE HERE

›› Photos: Children missing from El Paso
›› Read more articles on El Paso missing persons

The first record case of child abuse in history is believed to have been uncovered in Egypt. Archaeologists say the 2-3 year old child, known only as ‘burial 159’, shows signs of having repeatedly had her bones broken, and being shaken repeatedly. The find is believed to be the oldest record of child abuse – and experts say it may stem from an Egyptian belief that children had to be ‘toughened up’ as they grow. The gruesome discovery was made by researchers excavating a cemetery in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, which has seen continuous human occupation since the Neolithic period. The 2- to 3-year-old, who lived around 2,000 years ago is the first recorded case of child abuse in history, the team say. READ MORE HERE

Father shot dead his football champion son, 16, and stayed with his body for days before killing himself

The bodies of a 16-year-old boy and his 52-year-old father were found at a River Ridge, Louisiana, home on Friday.  The boy, Matthew Tarto, had been dead for several days before his father Mark Tarto died. Autopsy results revealed that both died from gunshot wounds to the head. Investigators at Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office suspect Mark Tarto murdered his son, then committed suicide several days later. READ MORE HERE