KNOXVILLE, TN — It’s time for family gatherings and fun for the holidays, but it’s also a time when child abuse reports spike. The Department of Children’s Services heads up the investigations, but they say there are still plenty of abuse cases that go unreported. So they’re using the internet to encourage more people to report child abuse. It’s a free, online lesson plan.

POLICE officers involved in an international child sex abuse racket are appealing to victims to get in touch with them via a specially dedicated NSPCC number. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre is involved in an investigation with national and international partners which has lead to the arrest and detention of an individual in Kuwait for the suspected sexual abuse of children. The investigation has been co-ordinated by CEOP, working with the authorities in the UK, Kuwait and its representatives in the UK, as well as a number of other law enforcement agencies around the world.

Calls have been made for a national study to examine the link between childhood sex abuse and suicide. Suicide prevention helpline 1Life said more than a quarter of crisis calls this year were from adults who suffered attacks as a youngster. And a group for survivors of abuse also revealed two people on its waiting list died by suicide over the last 18 months. Ciaran Austin, director of services with Console which runs 1Life, raised concerns over the hike in calls following the publication of sickening clerical abuse reports, including the recent Cloyne Report.

Here are the top 50 female teacher sex scandals of 2011. This has been another banner year for naughty teacher stories, and we covered the best of them. Some teachers have been charged with sending naked photos to students. Other teachers had year long sexual relationships with students. Some teachers even became pregnant with their student’s child.

Panama City, FL – Sue Ellen Mims, a 33-year-old Panama City woman was jailed Wednesday after she allegedly tried to pimp her 8-year-old daughter for $100. According to Panama City Police, Mims offered her 8-year-old daughter to a stranger for sex in exchange for $100. Mims allegedly told the man that her daughter would do anything he wanted and wouldn’t tell anyone about the sexual act.

A woman who told deputies she had sex with a 7-year-old girl to prove her love for her married boyfriend is in the Orange County Jail, where she is being held on sexual-battery and other charges. Margaret Ann O’Neill, 26, of Kissimmee, admitted to sheriff’s investigators that she had sex with the child three times last year at a home in west Orange County, they said.

DENVER – A 3-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed a 5-year-old child in suburban Denver, and a man visiting from Kansas is under arrest on suspicion of child abuse in connection with the tragedy, police said on Saturday. Police in Lakewood, Colorado were summoned to an apartment building Friday by reports of a shooting and found the 5-year-old with a gunshot wound to the chest, police spokeswoman Bonnie Martin said in a written release.

ALBUQUERQUE – Neighbors say two children were saved from their abusive mother and her boyfriend. The neighbors say the two young girls were starving, had black eyes, broken bones, and one had a knife wound. A neighbor found the five and three year old girls naked in a bathtub, where she thinks they were living. She did not want to identify herself.

Hall of Fame sportswriter Bill Conlin has retired from his position with the Philadelphia Daily News following allegations of child molestation, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. An investigative story detailing the allegations against Conlin was published Tuesday afternoon by The Inquirer. In it, three women and a man say Conlin molested them when they were children.

CLARKSVILLE, TN– A mother has been charged with aggravated child abuse after she told police she dropped her one-month-old child three times over the last month, including once dropping the baby down a flight of stairs. Police said that Monday a one month old baby was admitted to Vanderbilt Children Hospital in Nashville with a fractured skull and ribs, and bleeding of the brain.

NEW YORK–A history teacher received a lesson in criminal justice Thursday after being arrested for having a year and a half long sexual relationship with one of his own 8th grade students. And it was his wife who dropped the dime on him.Sex Ed was on the curriculum at the Susan B. Anthony school in Queens, except it was private lessons between a 13-year-old girl and her 44-year-old history teacher Charles Oross, officials said. Oross, a married father of 2 from East Islip, Long Island was charged with statutory rape Thursday morning of his 8th grade student.

LAGUNA HILLS — A school bus driver has been arrested on suspicion of sexually molesting three children younger than 14 at his Laguna Hills apartment, officials said Thursday. Shane Norman Crawford, 37, worked as a bus driver for 12 years, most recently for First Student Transportation Services, driving buses for several schools in Orange County, according to Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino.

HARRODSBURG, KY — The mother of a 9-year-old autistic boy in central Kentucky says her son was stuffed inside a duffel bag at school for misbehaving. Sandra Baker says that last week, she was called to Mercer County Intermediate School, where her son Christoper is enrolled in a special needs program, because he was acting up.

Danville, VA – There is often a story of child sex abuse or child pornography in the news, most recently the Penn State scandal. So what is it that makes these people do what they do? “Stranger Danger,” that common saying police have taught American children for decades. Authorities say nine times out of 10 a molested child knows their abuser. “It’s a relatively small amount of children that are being offended this way by strangers where as it’s someone that knows the child and has access to the child,” said Sgt. Stephen Anders of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force of the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office.