LUBBOCK — The adoptive parents of 10 children have been indicted on felony charges accusing them of withholding food and water from their 12-year-old daughter and telling her siblings to hit her. An affidavit shows that the girl was malnourished and weighed 57 pounds when taken to a Lubbock hospital in August. Sixty-two-year-old Dave Howard Dixon and 58-year-old Wonda Faye Dixon are each indicted on a charge of injury to a child. They remained jailed Friday.

Madagascar — Hundreds of residents on Nosy Be island off the northeastern coast of Madagascar went on the rampage after an eight-year-old who disappeared last Friday was reportedly found washed up on a beach with his genitals and tongue cut off. Witnesses said rioters tortured and beat two Europeans before throwing the pair alive onto a bonfire on one of the paradise white sand beaches that have turned the islet into a magnet for foreign tourists.

One of Raven Kaliana’s earliest memories is being taken to a familyportrait studio by her parents, at around the age of four. The studio was in the basement of a department store in a town 50 miles from their home. Once they had arrived, they waited for another couple to arrive with their own child. “Would you like to have your picture taken with this cute little boy?” her mother asked, before the parents left the kids with the photographer and retired to the cafe upstairs. But while they sat eating ice cream, the images being made in the studio down below were far from happy family portraits. Raven and her companion had just been sold into the child abuse industry.

A former priest who raped and molested two boys for almost two decades has been jailed for 13 years. Phillip Challis, 52, admitted 17 sexual offences carried out between 1991 and 2009 while he was a priest in Merton, southwest London. He pleaded guilty to crimes including raping a child, indecent assault, attempted rape and taking indecent photographs. Challis was caught by child abuse investigators in January after a 17-year-old boy came forward to say he had been abused by Challis since he was eight. Police later found out that Challis had also abused a second male victim, who is now 29, since he was seven years old.

A Missouri man who vanished over the summer after leaving suicide notes has been found alive and accused of trying to cover up child sex abuse. Raymond Avett, 45, was charged Wednesday with concealing a felony along with his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Callaway, 34, the mother of the 6-year-old victim. Avett disappeared in June after leaving several letters suggesting that he was planning to end his life. He had recently learned that Callaway’s daughter disclosed the alleged sexual abuse.

According to the Huffington Post on Sept. 9, an 8-year-old Yemeni girl dies from internal injuries on her wedding night. It is believed that the girl died from a tear to her genitals and severe bleeding from a uterine rupture. Identified only by the name Rawan, the girl died in the tribal area of Hardh in the governorate of Hajjah in northwestern Yemen which borders Saudi Arabia.

William Lee Copp is wanted for child pornography offenses which occurred from the late 1990s through 2004, in Englewood, Florida. Copp is alleged to have used his credit card to subscribe to a web site which allowed him to access child pornography. Copp allegedly downloaded child pornography and saved it to his computer and disks. Copp was charged in a 126-count criminal complaint and capias by the 12th Judicial Circuit Court, State of Florida, for obscene material possession-possessing a photograph of the sexual performance by a child (child pornography) in violation of Florida State statute. Copp was scheduled to appear for a court proceeding on February 2, 2006, in Sarasota County, Florida, however, he failed to appear. He also was scheduled to appear for his trial on February 6, 2006, at the Circuit Court, Sarasota, Florida, however, he failed to appear again. On February 7, 2006, a state warrant was issued for his arrest.

TEXAS — Police in Cleveland, Texas are investigating the horrifying possibility that another gang rape has occurred in the small town of 8,000, just three years after an assault by 20 men on an 11-year-old girl shocked the nation. The latest crime involves a 15-year-old girl who has told Cleveland police that she was drugged, attacked and raped by four men in an abandoned home over the weekend before last. The girl’s parents made the complaint to law enforcement on Tuesday and the girl was taken to a Houston medical facility to be examined by rape experts before she was interviewed in a secure environment at a child advocacy center.

A Scout leader who raped a 10-year-old and had thousands of child porn images stored on his computer has been jailed for 16 years. Ian Pain, 48, had initially thanked police for arresting him in June last year after they found more than 3,800 photographs of children aged between seven and 16 being sexually abused on his computer. He claimed that he ‘hadn’t hurt anybody’ and that police action would prevent his urge to look at images of underage porn. But six months later, a 10-year-old boy told one of his friends that he had been abused by Pain, who also refereed youth football matches, over a two year period.

Ten men have been jailed for a total of 34 years and four months after police stopped the large scale online and sexual exploitation of a 13-year-old girl. A total of 30 suspects from different parts of the country, none of whom knew each other, committed offences against the girl, including having sex with her and getting her to send them indecent photographs of herself. Their ages ranged from 14 to 45 and the first one started using her sexually just days after her 13th birthday. Together, their activities left her so emotionally and mentally scarred she is now receiving intensive professional help.

A Wisconsin couple are headed to trial after being accused of starving the man’s 5-year-old daughter and restraining her 7-year-old sister with zipties until she passed out from a heat stroke. Shawn Paholke, 33, and Jennifer Fendryk, 31, together face 23 felony counts of mistreating the two girls. They waived their right to a preliminary hearing in Oconto County Circuit Court Wednesday. A criminal complaint filed in Oconto County Circuit Court says a social worker told authorities the 5-year-old appeared to be severely underweight and that ‘bones were protruding from her face and body.’

When thinking about perpetrators of child sexual abuse, many people picture an image of a creepy stranger. Parents and schools generally do a pretty good job of teaching their kids about “stranger danger.” But this is not where most of the danger lies. The vast majority of sexual abusers are known to the children they target, so it is incumbent upon us to teach kids not only how to respond when an uncomfortable or dangerous situation arises, but also how to recognize when danger is approaching.

A younger brother of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has been found guilty of a string of child sex abuse charges. Liam Dominic Adams, 58, from Bernagh Drive in west Belfast, was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting his daughter, Aine, over a six-year period between 1977 and 1983 when she was aged between four and nine. Bespectacled Adams, who was wearing a grey suit, cream shirt and blue tie, showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were returned.

Taxpayers will not fund a new identity to protect the mother of Baby P when she is released from jail, it emerged last night. Despite fears over her safety, Tracey Connelly – who allowed her son Peter to be tortured to death by her boyfriend – could walk to her freedom this week without protection. The 32-year-old will be transferred from Low Newton jail near Durham to a parole hostel where she will start her re-integration back into society.