36-year-old Woman Accused of Raping 12-year-old Boy — A 36-year-old village woman has been charged with first-degree rape, a Class B felony, after being accused of raping a 12-year-old boy. Police arrested Tara Porter of 3 Bartlett St. on the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 8. An intensive investigation followed a report early that afternoon from the Child Abuse Hotline, which was notified anonymously that a sexual relationship was going on between the two, Ellenville Police Chief Phillip Mattracion said.
Archdiocese of Chicago to pay sex abuse victim $3.2M — The Archdiocese of Chicago will pay $3.2 million to a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of convicted former priest Daniel McCormack. The name of the plaintiff, a boy who was abused between the ages of 10 and 12 by McCormack, has not been released. Attorneys spoke on his behalf through a statement released Tuesday, “We are pleased to have reached this settlement because it marks one more step toward bringing justice to him and his family,” said William Martin, a partner at Hilfman & Martin, a Chicago-based law firm that has represented other victims in child sex abuse cases involving the Archdiocese of Chicago and other entities.
Editorial: Make reporting child sexual abuse mandatory — The grand jury report alleging serial abuse of young boys by a Penn State assistant football coach is grim reading, especially the parts where two men separately encountered Jerry Sandusky in the middle of horrific sex acts and did little or nothing to stop him. Their failure of courage is a sad marker of the tendency people have not to get involved, even when the result is abuse of a defenseless child. The nagging question left unanswered by the report is whether anything can be done to make such lapses less likely.
Indon boy allegedly sexually abused — An Indonesian 15-year-old who spent time locked up in an Australian adult jail on people smuggling charges was allegedly sexually abused while in custody, a Brisbane barrister says. Between 40 and 50 Indonesian minors are reportedly in Australian prisons on people smuggling charges. Brisbane lawyer Mark Plunkett told AAP he believes one of the Indonesian minors he represented was sexually abused while in custody at Arthur Gorrie prison alongside rapists, murderers and pedophiles.
Jerry Sandusky Penn State sex abuse case eerily similar to Timothy Bagshaw boy scout case three decades prior — When the Penn State sex abuse scandal unfolded – with allegations of horrific crimes against minors committed by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky – James Polo says he was transported back nearly three decades. In graphic details that mirror the abuse Sandusky’s alleged victims have testified about, Polo says he was on the cusp of his teenage years when he was the victim of sexual abuse by a Boy Scout leader in Potter Township, a few miles from State College.
Opposing view: More ‘abuse’ reporting will hurt children — Requiring anyone and everyone to report anything and everything they think might be “child abuse” is the worst possible response to the Penn State horrors. It will harm the very children it’s supposed to help. More than three-quarters of reports alleging abuse and neglect are not substantiated after investigation — even though substantiation typically requires no more than a caseworker’s guess that abuse is more likely than not.
Ottawa group for male sex abuse victims loses funding — Ontario’s only group for male survivors of sexual abuse is closing after losing provincial funding. Ottawa-based The Men’s Project said it will close in March after finding out its $200,000 in funding will be cut. Sean Conlin said he was molested as a child and found the courage to talk about it after group therapy at the project. “Where are they going to go?” he said. “Where can they get help, because there’s nothing in the country like this.” The project is currently treating about 80 men, with several more on a waiting list. It has been open for 14 years, treating about 100 men annually.
Penn State Football Kept Ties to Charity After Abuse Allegations — Penn State University football coaches and past players attended events sponsored by the foundation for needy children started by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky for years after head coach Joe Paterno was told of child-abuse allegations against Sandusky, according to the charity’s newsletters and a grand-jury report.
Rape dialogue shouldn’t be a matter of gender — Yes, it happens, but sometimes it does not seem as such. Between the jokes and fear of it, the seriousness of rape withers away. It usually takes a major scandal, like that of Jerry Sandusky of Penn State University or Herman Cain’s sexual harassment allegations, to be at the forefront of the nation’s attention. If it enters discourse, it almost always follows the same formula, though — women and children are the victims, and men are the aggressors. This formula is archaic. Men, too, are raped, but rarely if ever is that acknowledged or, even more rarely, expounded. When it does appear, it is a small anecdote in a much-lengthier argument about female rape, added only as if trying to be inclusive without any real effort actually to be so.
Sex abuse of juveniles in state centers at issue — So many children have been sexually assaulted while in Indiana state custody that four of its juvenile corrections facilities have been investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and one judge found conditions at the state’s facility for girls were so bad he refused to send girls there for almost a year. That facility and one other have since been closed, but another – the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility – was named by a federal study as having one of the highest rates of sexual abuse in the nation: 36.2 percent of youths held there reported being sexually victimized during their stay, according to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, triple the national rate.
Sexual predators use trust and authority as weapons — Many people are asking questions since the disclosure of the findings of the grand jury against Gerald Sandusky, trying to figure out what this means. I urge those asking these questions to look less at the perpetrator and the failures of the institutions in which these assaults occurred, and more at the victims to see what we need to learn. The victims apparently were not physically overpowered and abused by threat of physical violence. What can we learn from the discussions about sexual abuse being generated by the disclosure of the grand jury in the case against Gerald Sandusky?
Syracuse’s Bernie Fine placed on leave — Two former Syracuse University ball boys say they were molested by associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine, starting in the late 1970s and continuing into the 1990s. Police in Syracuse said they have opened an investigation into the allegations. And in a statement Thursday night, Syracuse said it has placed Fine on administrative leave. One alleged victim, Bobby Davis, now 39, told Outside the Lines that Fine molested him beginning in 1984, shortly before Davis entered the seventh grade.
SNYDER: What if it was their child who was abused? — If you have a young son or daughter, or a young niece or nephew, or another young person you care about regardless of relation, the past week led to some reflection. Is there anybody who might be abusing them? Would they tell someone if it’s happening? What can be done to prevent the former and ensure the latter?
Unreported horrors of male rape in DRC — At the medical centre in Uganda where they are being treated, they talked candidly about crimes carried out against them. “In the past, I thought that it was only females who were raped, but not men. I cannot understand myself today. I feel pain all the time in my anus and bladder. I feel like my bladder is full of water. I do not feel like a man. I do not know whether I will ever have children,” said John (not his real name), a 27-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who is just one of possibly thousands of victims of male rape as civil wars and tribal conflicts continue unabated across Africa.
Toy Soldiers 