Woman claims Islamic upbringing led her to abuse boys

A New Jersey woman blamed her religion for her repeated sexual abuse of several boys:

A high-school teacher who was jailed for performing sex acts on her underage pupils has blamed her strict religious upbringing for her crimes.

Linda Hardan, from Prospect Park in New Jersey, was jailed to three years in prison yesterday after sending scores of sexually explicit text messages to pupils, aged 14 to 16 years-old in 2014, and then engaging in sex acts with them.

Her defense lawyer, Alissa Hascup, said the Muslim woman was driven in part to commit the offences due to her strict religious upbringing, and suggested that she be treated by a therapist as oppose to serving time in prison.

I do not claim to be an expert on Islam, however, based on what I know of the religion it does not condone, encourage, or teach that adult women should have sex with boys. It actually teaches the opposite: that women should have not sexual contact with any male until marriage. As such, I am curious how Hardan explained this contradiction.

The judge appeared to make the argument for her:

A Village in Turmoil

News of a child sexual abuse ring rocked a rural Pakistani village this past week. According to reports, over hundreds of children were kidnapped, drugged, and raped by a pedophile ring led by members of a local gang in Kasur:

Villagers accuse police officials of covering up a pedophile ring, after videos emerged of their children being molested by members of a prominent and influential local family.

They say the abuse had been going on since at least 2009, and that the children were blackmailed to steal from their homes to prevent the videos from going public.

Reports on the number of victims vary:

According to a survey by the group last week, one in three of the 500 households questioned in the district of Kasur had a child who had been sexually abused, Sara said.

CNN affiliate Geo TV reported higher numbers, saying around 400 videos were made of 280 minors.

Royal Commission hears testimony of systematic abuse

Originally posted on May 22, 2015

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began its public hearings this week. The hearings are taking place in Ballartis holding long-awaited public hearings in Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. The purpose is to examine the abuse children experiences at the hands of Catholic clergy over the last few decades, particularly during the 1970s. It is not good:

Ballarat was one of the most horrific sites of abuse and it was revealed that in 1971, all male teachers and the chaplain at the St Alipius primary school were molesting children.

[Senior Counsel Assisting the Commission Gail] Furness said the royal commission would also hear from a survivor who had a photograph of his grade four class at St Alipius in the 1970s.

She said he would tell the hearing, of the 33 boys pictured, 12 had committed suicide.

That is astounding. It is shocking in part because of the severity of the impact. A third of the boys from a single class committed suicide. More troubling is that apparently all the men in positions of power in the school abused children. It also appears that many of the women at the schools knew of the abuse and did nothing to stop it. Sometimes they engaged in abuse themselves.

I find it difficult to believe that something like that could happen and no one would know about it. There are too many people, both abusers and victims, involved for this to go unheard and unseen. This is not just a cover-up by the Catholic Church. This also implicates the Australian local government. Many people had to know about this and choose to ignore it for it to get to this stage.

The stories the men share are particularly horrific, not only in their physical brutality but also in the callousness displayed by the abusers and their enablers. For example:

Attorney General to review child rape case

There is some good news concerning the recent child rape case in the UK. After numerous complaints, 48 in total, the Attorney General will review the suspended sentence Jade Hatt received:

Jade Hatt, 21, walked free from court despite having full intercourse with an 11-year-old boy she was looking after.

Her victim’s mum slammed the six-month suspended sentence , and now the Attorney General will look into the case.

His office must decide whether to send the matter to the Court of Appeal by October 30.

The boy’s mother complained about the embarrassing sentence:

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Boys and Men Suffer Sex Abuse, Too… — My thesis here is that many more American males are victims of sexual abuse than most people know or care about. How many people would guess that, according to a recent study, twenty percent of reported incidents of sexual abuse in the active duty military involve male victims? The report admits that counting the number of male victims is a problem because many male victims of sexual abuse either remain quiet about it or call it something else (e.g., “hazing”).

Children’s panel boss abused young victim before official meetings — The victim wept as he told a jury how Daniel Ross attacked him at the panel’s Glasgow headquarters in the early 1990s. The now father-of-four recalled how Ross “groomed” him and went on to abuse him again before vital hearings. Ross, who was also a special police constable, had by this time already preyed on another vulnerable boy he met through the children’s panel and attacked a third young man.

Damages sought for boy victims of sex abuse –The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued notice and sought the response of the Delhi government on a plea challenging the provisions of the Delhi Victims Compensation Scheme of 2011, on grounds that it discriminates against male victims of child sexual abuse. The plea has also sought enhancement in the amount of compensation given to child victims of sexual assault.

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12 per cent students exposed to abuse in schools: Study — A study conducted on more than 4,000 students has revealed that a tenth of children in UAE schools are exposed to abuse or violence, while such exposure is less in homes. It also revealed that male children are more vulnerable when it comes to abuse.

Attorney: L.A. schools pay ‘largest’ public settlement for child abuse at $139 million — The Los Angeles public school district will pay more than $139.2 million to the families of 81 children allegedly abused by an elementary teacher now serving a prison sentence for lewd conduct, officials said Friday. John Manly, one of the plaintiffs’ attorney, called the amount “the largest settlement in the history of the United States against a public entity involving child abuse.”

Boy whose mother burnt him with an iron, threw him down the stairs and broke his fingers with a hammer shares his harrowing story — A boy who grew up suffering daily abuse at the hands of his own mother has shared his horrific story. Craig (not his real name to protect his identity), from Yorkshire, said he received so many broken bones and serious injuries as a boy that he knew all the names of the nurses at his local hospital. He was so abused he thought daily beatings were a normal part of growing up.

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Another Maltese reports beating for reporting abuse in Australian institutions — A Royal Commission in Australia has heard more shocking evidence by Maltese men about the abuse they suffered from Christian brothers when they were orphan boys. The commission, meeting in Perth, is investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse. The West Australian newspaper said hundreds of boys at the Bindoon, Tardun and Castledare institutions were beaten by day and raped by night.

Doubling up in prisons ‘creating culture of sex abuse’, warns former Mountjoy governor — THE ‘doubling up’ of inmates in single prison cells is perpetuating a culture of sexual abuse where prisoners are raping their cellmates, former governor of Mountjoy Prison John Lonergan told the Sunday Independent. Mr Lonergan spoke out just days after Justice Minister Alan Shatter apologised to the family of Gary Douch, a vulnerable prisoner who was beaten to death while packed into a holding cell with a mentally disturbed prisoner with a history of violence.

Lee Suckling: Lifting the lid on sexual abuse in the gay community — Just before Christmas 2010, I nabbed a media invite to the launch party of ParliOUT, the UK’s first support group for LGBT people working in Parliament. Bottles popped and Westminster’s gay elite celebrated the workplace equality network that allowed the 22 gay MPs and dozens of other staffers to make themselves more visible within parliamentary walls.