Santa Maria, CA- Lorena Arenas, 23, and Jose Luis Gonzalez, 41, are accused of torturing their 2-year old child last Wednesday. Authorities believe Lorena punished the toddler by holding her arms under scalding tap water for about five minutes which gave her third-degree burns on her hands and forearms. Police say it is Jose who refused to take the child to the hospital.

Roseville, CA (The Weekly Vice) – John Carl Alderson, a 62-year-old Roseville man, was arrested this week after he allegedly violated his sex offender requirements by driving an ice cream truck.

According to the Roseville Police Department, they responded to an anonymous tip about Alderson’s activities.

Swansea, NC – A 25-year-old Swansea man was arrested after beating and sexually his girlfriend’s 1-year-old daughter. Lance Austin Williams had been left alone to babysit the child. During the time alone with her, she was beaten and sexually assaulted.

Family members discovered bruising to the child’s head, neck, around her ear and injuries to her genital area, and took her to a hospital. Deputies arrested Williams.

A ten-year-old girl is at the heart of a controversy that has reopened the abortion debate in Mexico. Currently, the only place in Mexico that allows for abortions is Mexico City. The girl became pregnant after her stepfather raped her. She resides in Quintana Roo, which will only allow an abortion in the case of rape within the first 90 days of the pregnancy.

HARRISONVILLE, Mo. (CBS/AP) A grim tale of child-murder and molestation is unfolding in a Cass County, Mo. courtroom, where Danial Rinehart faces charges of second-degree murder, incest, statutory rape, and child endangerment.

Rinehart’s 20-year-old daughter sobbed uncontrollably on the stand Monday as she told the jury how her father began molesting her at age five and impregnated her four times, the first when she was 14.

Raeford, N.C. — Hoke County sheriff’s officials arrested a 32-year-old Raeford man on Monday and charged him with multiple sex offenses against a child.

Joseph Leroy Johnson, of 137 Oregon Trail, is charged with first-degree sex offense on a child, statutory rape/sex offense on a 13-, 14- or 15-year old, three counts of indecent liberties with a minor, three counts of felony child abuse-sex act and two counts of crime against nature.

Since the enaction of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974, several programs and initiatives have been coordinated by the Department of Health and Human Services.

One of those implementations was to recognize the month of April as Child Abuse Prevention Month.

SAO PAULO — The detention of an 83-year-old priest in Brazil for allegedly abusing boys as young as 12 has added to the scandals hitting the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, even as Chile’s bishops asked pardon on Tuesday for past sexual abuse cases.

The allegations against Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa — and two other Brazilian priests — have made headlines throughout the world’s most populous Catholic nation and come amid accusations of sexual abuse by priests across the world.

GRESHAM, Ore. – Child abuse investigators said Monday a Gresham 5-year-old girl who died last week had been abused for years in what they said was the “worst case of child abuse that anyone can ever recall” in the area.

Detectives arrested the girl’s father, 23-year old Christopher Rosillo, and Guadalupe Quintero, a woman police said was a long-time live-in fiance of Rosillo’s.

DELAVAN — A Delavan man accused of causing bruises to his 4-month-old baby’s face could go to prison for six years on a felony charge of physical abuse of a child.

Jeremiah J. Stillwell, 22, of 511 Autumn Drive, No. 202, is scheduled to next appear in Walworth County Court on May 10. The court has entered a not guilty plea for Stillwell.

Pope Benedict XVI was said to have been reduced to tears as he expressed his “shame and sorrow” over the Catholic church’s sex abuse scandal during a meeting with a group of victims in Malta.

The 83-year-old pontiff, who has struggled to contain the crisis in the church, made his strongest pledge to bring priests who have molested children to justice and better safeguard future generations from clerical abuse.

More controversy over Susan Clancy’s book which details her warped perception of child sexual abuse & the effects it has on children.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Susan Clancy, now a psychology associate at Harvard, interviewed over 200 adults about memory and childhood sexual abuse experiences. Two-thirds of her interviewees were women. She solicited her subjects through a newspaper ad in the Boston Globe and other Boston-area newspapers. Unfortunately she does not completely describe her methodology, and her sample appears to have been biased.

Watertown, CT- On April 1, a nurse who routinely visited the home of Marci and Merle Stimpson became alarmed when she noticed large bruises on their 4-month old infant and swelling on the baby’s head. The nurse called 911 and the baby was taken to a hospital where doctors found that the infant had suffered 12 rib fractures, a skull fracture, a black eye and extensive bruising. Three of the rib fractures were caused by squeezing, a doctor told police.

Eugene, OR – Wearing a black trench coat, that looked out of place on such a nice day, a man attempted to kidnap a two-year-old boy who had become separated from his mother. This happened at a Boy Scout carnival being held at Bethesda Lutheran Church.