It’s been five years since Jasmine Perez was discovered pushing a shopping cart full of food and clothes down Carson City streets. A passerby called police to report a 6-year-old child wandering unsupervised. What police discovered was much more horrifying.

Jasmine — just 4 feet tall, weighing 41 pounds — told them she was 16. She and her 11-year-old brother, David, had been held captive in the bathroom of the family’s Como Street apartment for years, starved and tortured at the hands of their grandmother, Esther Rios.

READ MORE HERE:

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20110130/NEWS/110129415/1070&ParentProfile=1058

Cheryl Burke: Burke Makes Early Child Abuse Revelation In New Book: Cheryl Burke, a two-time champion of the reality television hit show Dancing with the Stars, made a shocking revelation today in an interview with PEOPLE magazine. Burke tells the publication that she was molested as a child and endured two physically abusive relationship in her younger years. Burke will be releasing her new book Dancing Lessons, coauthored by PEOPLE senior writer Monica Rizzo, and will be detailing her life story. “I’m telling my story,” said Burke. “They’re not secrets. There’s no shame.”

READ MORE HERE:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/585965-wayne-gretzky-troy-aikman-brittany-favre-and-wednesdays-late-sports-news/entry/44474-cheryl-burke-burke-makes-early-child-abuse-revelation-in-new-book

Carlina White was 19 days old when she was kidnapped.

NEW YORK — A woman who was kidnapped as an infant 23 years ago says finding her real mother “felt like a dream.” “I’m so happy. At the same time, it’s a funny feeling because everything’s brand new. It’s like being born again,” said the woman, who was named Carlina White by her parents but was raised in Connecticut under the name Nejdra Nance.

READ MORE HERE:

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-carlina-white-kidnapped-baby-reunion,0,6579423.story

Flashbacks come and go for Shaya, and she thinks they’ll eventually taper off. She takes a medication that helps reduce dreaming even though sleep, at times, can be hard to come by. Shaya, whose real name is being withheld to protect her identity, was raped and sexually abused by her father for seven years, and when the crime first came to light, no one in her family believed her. Today she’s in her 20s and in college with plans for a better future and a set of tools she uses to cope with her pain.

READ MORE HERE:

http://news.hjnews.com/news/article_5f646ce6-2118-11e0-b8e0-001cc4c03286.html

It’s been a rough ride for Janice Dickinson on Celebrity Rehab as she attempts to kick her addictions to alcohol and prescription drugs. And there was more trauma for the former supermodel on the latest episode of the show as she broke down while recalling the abuse she suffered as a child. In scenes shown on Wednesday night in the US, the 55-year-old sobbed as she revealed fears that she would never be able to ‘get a grip’ on the past after kicking the anti-anxiety drug Ativan.

These men took my innocence

The grooming of teenage girls is to be investigated by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. The move comes after two men were jailed last week in the north of England after they sexually abused vulnerable young girls. But the problem is not confined to England as a brave Glasgow victim today speaks for the first time of her grooming nightmare…

READ MORE HERE:

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/editor-s-picks/these-men-took-my-innocence-as-they-lured-me-into-a-sickening-world-of-abuse-1.1079252

Beatings, incest, rape, pimping, trafficking

Physical abuse started when Layhla* was two, and the fondling by her dad began at seven.  Within a year, the man began raping her, nearly nightly, always violently.  Sometimes in the bedroom or bathroom, but generally the assaults happened in the darkness of the basement among the spider webs and crickets.  Layhla learned early to be waiting at the foot of the stairs so she wouldn’t get thrown or pushed down them.

This is another in a series on people and events that shaped our communities in 2010. I don’t pretend to understand a parent’s pain upon losing a child. But I do know what their desperate hugs feel like. Over the years, I’ve met too many of these hurting mothers and fathers. And in 2010, two of the most memorable women came to me during the month of October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Both had lost beautiful children to men who resorted to murder because they couldn’t stand to lose what they thought were their possessions.

And both mothers came seeking justice.

Justin Boulay, the killer of Patricia Rosenberg’s 19-year-old daughter, Andrea, was getting out of prison in November after serving only 12 years for first-degree murder — and moving to Hawaii with the woman he married while incarcerated.

Riley, Gabriella Ghobrial’s 2-year-old son, had been killed by his own father in a murder-suicide five years ago in Gilberts after a Kane County judge awarded the dad visitation rights, despite Anthony Mangiamele’s repeated threats to harm their child.

READ MORE HERE:

http://couriernews.suntimes.com/news/3056166-418/rosenberg-andrea-daughter-patricia-batavia.html

One brave child abuse victim speaks out, and her father goes to prison

Sexually assaulted at age 8 by her father in her Gretna home, Rachel Fletcher did something rare and courageous: She told a concerned relative what happened. And when the case came to trial in a Jefferson Parish court two years later, she bravely testified against her father.  Fifteen years later, her father, David Boudreaux, is serving a life sentence in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for aggravated rape.

READ MORE HERE:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2009/11/post_75.html

“It’s Almost Tuesday” is a fictional story based on true events, using a young child’s exact words when possible. It depicts true incidents reported within the Texas Foster Care System. While this story is fictional in situations, it is based upon abuse that occurs every day, and all over our country. The foster homes are meant to be a placement of safety for children removed from their family homes due to abuse or neglect, and when other abuse occurs, statistically worse than before their removal, something is wrong. Foster children are more likely to be abused than children in their natural homes. We should give those children a voice through this story, if they are not heard, then tragedies will continue to be needlessly endured.

READ MORE HERE:

http://www.helium.com/items/367267-horror-stories-of-child-abuse-parents-as-criminals

WARNING: (Graphic Content: True Story of Abuse)

AS my mother called out my name my body trembled with fear. I looked up to see a greasy-haired man, old enough to be my grandad, holding a grubby package and smiling at me. “Here,” he said throwing it at me. “Put this on.” I opened it up to find lacy red lingerie. I was just 10 years old. It wasn’t a suitable gift for a child, but to me this was all just a normal evening at our Midlands home in the summer of 1987. My parents Chris and Margaret were throwing one of their parties again, where they’d invite their mates along. But it wasn’t any ordinary bash. They were there to rape me and my four siblings. We knew that if we didn’t carry out their demands my father would kill us – he’d shown us a gun and threatened to use it.

READ MORE HERE:

http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlands-news/2010/12/12/the-midland-s-josef-fritzl-i-saw-my-dad-kill-my-three-babies-66331-27809418/

These are all true stories of child abuse and neglect. Some of the stories you read will be from published newspaper articles and websites; while others are submitted by you: our readers & viewers. We are sharing these stories as an educational tool to help our readers understand abuse, how and why it happens, and how to recover from the after-effects.

* Are you a child abuse survivor?
* Have you been the victim of:
• emotional child abuse
• physical child abuse
• child neglect
• sexual child abuse
* Have you been forced to “keep the secret”?
* Have you been told that the abuse you suffered through “didn’t happen’ or “wasn’t that bad”?

If you’ve answered “YES” to any of these questions, we would love to hear your story. Please submit your story to us via email at: dreamcatchersforabusedchildren@gmail.com

You can submit your story anonymously if you’d prefer.

READERS: We encourage & welcome all comments & feedback, but please note the following:

Rules of Etiquette for posting comments:

1. Be respectful
   Many of the story writers have never before felt safe enough to disclose abuse. Keep this site a soft place for them to land.
2. Be supportive
   Consider the story writer’s feelings. Disclosing abuse, even in a forum such as this, where there is anonymity, can be an extremely harrowing experience. An abuse survivor who writes a child abuse story often does so with great angst and trepidation. Offer support and encouragement.
3. Do not include personal information
   I cannot control who visits this site—some visitors may have perverse motives. Therefore, in order to keep my visitors safe, I do not permit the disclosure of any information that is of a personal nature, such as last names, email or street addresses or phone numbers.
4. Do not include website or blog URLs
   Not all websites and blogs are appropriate to this site. Therefore, I do not accept website or blog URLs to be included in comments; they will be stripped from the posting.

PLEASE NOTE: I only accept original material written by you, that has not been previously submitted to this, or any other, site.

AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS: I congratulate you for having the strength & courage to submit your story & share it with others!!  THANK YOU!!!