Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins had his day in court today, after being formally charged with 32 counts including sexual offenses against children. The singer denied any involvement in all counts and plead not guilty. According to reports from local media, the 35-year-old performer had an hour-long hearing at the Cardiff Crown Court this morning where he made a statement through his attorneys. READ MORE HERE
In the United States alone, 20 percent of parents never supervise their child’s online activities, according to the District Attorney Report in San Diego County. After the age of 14, a reported 71% of parents stop monitoring their child’s Internet use entirely. These numbers are alarming, considering the Internet commonly exposes children to sexual predators and cyber-bullying. It’s time to understand how the world has changed and why parents must adapt their parenting techniques in order to protect their families.
Many of us were taught from a young age not to talk to strangers. We learned that men in uniforms could be trusted intrinsically and our teachers were our friends. The rules of safety were clear and defined. With the advent of the Internet, however, the line between strangers and friends has blurred. Online friendship is as simple as clicking a ubiquitous thumbs up “Like” button. On websites such as Facebook and MySpace, this opens up a link so that strangers you have “Liked” can view personal information and photographs, see your other online friends and make comments.
Kids Today
By opting into these social circles with just a click of a mouse, teenagers and pre-teens will typically freely share personal information about themselves to online strangers. A Carnegie Mellon University publication reports that these “shares” include real names, addresses (6 percent), phone numbers (5 percent), and names of schools (6 percent) -especially among students in middle school. It’s unclear why they would share these private facts, but researchers stress that this lack of discrepancy makes it very simple for online sexual predators to gain your child’s trust and take full advantage of them.
Resources and Support
In response to this assault on the most vulnerable of our society – our children – companies like Lifelock and government organizations like the U.S. Department of Justice have developed tools for us to fight back. Among other services, Lifelock can provide your family with advanced Internet surveillance, making sure that strangers do not have access to your private information. The U.S. Department of Justice takes a strong stance against sexual predators and prosecutes offenders to the full extent of the law. The National Sex Offender Public Website will disclose to you a full list of registered sex offenders in your area. Take some time to educate yourself on the dangers associated with sharing personal information on the internet.
Lessons Learned
On October 7, 2003, Ryan Halligan committed suicide at the tender age of 13. After years of physical bullying and a final bout of malicious cyber-bullying involving purposeful ridicule, Ryan felt he could fight no longer. His parents have aligned themselves with isafe.org to speak out about the crime of cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is the practice of bullying online, usually among youngsters. Megan Meier was another young person who experienced cyber-bullying on MySpace. The mother of another teen had created a fake account for the sole purpose of humiliating Megan. After the postings, Megan took her own life shortly before her fourteenth birthday. New Jersey has created an anti-bullying law that is a good step in preventing online bullying. However, the first step has to happen in every parent’s home. Careful online monitoring and making use of the services of companies like Lifelock can help prevent cyber-bullying before it starts. Nearly 43 percent of kids have been bullied online. Don’t let it happen to your child.
Left unguided, our children could become victims of the Internet, rather masters. Install virtual boundaries in your home by considering protective measures. Most importantly, maintain the flow of communication between you and your children. For more advice on creating a safe communicative environment at home, try the websites of family professionals like Dr. Phil. Try to be nonjudgmental and accepting while steering them toward the better paths in life. When talking to your kids, try to listen more than speak. You might be surprised at what you hear.
Jackie Moore
Jackie is a financial manager at an independent bank in Alabama. She shares advice on budgeting and finance for small businesses and homeowners.
A former Coronation Street actor ‘used his status’ to ‘flatter and gain the trust’ of a 14-year-old boy whom he went on to indecently assault on a number of occasions, a court heard today. Andrew Lancel, 42, best known for his role as Frank Foster in the ITV soap, is accused of six counts of indecent assault of a child under the age of 16. The charges relate to one male victim and the offending allegedly took place between 1993 and 1994 when he was aged 14 and 15, Liverpool Crown Court heard. It allegedly occurred before the actor joined Coronation Street in 2010. READ MORE HERE
Specific Changes in Brain Structure After Different Forms of Child Abuse
Different forms of childhood abuse increase the risk for mental illness as well as sexual dysfunction in adulthood, but little has been known about how that happens. An international team of researchers, including the Miller School’s Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D., Ph.D., Leonard M. Miller Professor and Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has discovered a neural basis for this association. The study, published in the June 1 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, shows that sexually abused and emotionally mistreated children exhibit specific and differential changes in the architecture of their brain that reflect the nature of the mistreatment. READ MORE HERE
Boy, 8, was ‘tortured and murdered by his own mother and her boyfriend’ after six investigations by social workers went unnoticed
An eight-year-old boy who authorities say died after being beaten had remained in the house where the alleged abuse occurred despite six investigations by social workers during the past decade, a newspaper said. The boy’s mother, 29-year-old Pearl Fernandez, and her 32-year-old boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, have been charged with murder. They have not yet entered pleas. Social workers appeared to miss numerous warnings signs at the Palmdale, California, home, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, citing county documents. READ MORE HERE
We are asking people to please sign our petition and ask the judge NOT to place an innocent child back with a father who has sexually abused him. The Cook County State’s Attorney in Chicago says that the child’s testimony is not sufficient to prosecute. They say the abuser has constitutional rights. Alexander told his court appointed Public Guardian that his daddy David placed balls in his poo poo and that it hurt him. The public guardian now says that the abrasions on his rectum could have been caused by the child and now is working with father to take Alexander away from his mother, his mother who is protecting him. We ask you to please sign this petition to help save Alexander! READ ALEXANDER’S STORY & SIGN THE PETITION HERE!
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:
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
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
Three Filipino girls featured in a U.S. documentary on sex trafficking have helped to convict a Pennsylvania child pornographer who forced them to act out his disturbing sexual fantasies live through the internet. Jeffrey Herschell, 54, of Washington was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison on Tuesday after the brave girls described the horror they were made to endure from the age of eight to a CNN film crew, then to U.S. authorities. ‘Whatever the American client wants us to do, we must do it,’ ‘Gen’ told CNN in May 2011 for the documentary ‘The Fighters,’ which aired earlier this month. Traffickers in Manilas, who are behind the camera, charge men like Herschell around $27 an hour to ‘direct’ the online streams. READ MORE HERE
DREAMCATCHERS FOR ABUSED CHILDREN, INC. is an official non-profit 501(c)3 child abuse & neglect organization. Our mission is to educate the public on all aspects of child abuse such as symptoms, intervention, prevention, statistics, reporting, and helping victims locate the proper resources necessary to achieve a full recovery. We also cover areas such as bullying, teen suicide & prevention, children\'s rights, child trafficking, missing & exploited children, online safety, and pedophiles/sex offenders.
Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins had his day in court today, after being formally charged with 32 counts including sexual offenses against children. The singer denied any involvement in all counts and plead not guilty. According to reports from local media, the 35-year-old performer had an hour-long hearing at the Cardiff Crown Court this morning where he made a statement through his attorneys. READ MORE HERE
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