As to the rites of any Student, the following copies were taken of some of BBC’s Predators: (Buchanan (Butch) & Dutton to be added; BBC Portal 1990)
Michael Golding, Music
Murre-Alan, Music
Sound familiar? Great to read on of another’s coping with CSA!
January 19, 2016
HUSSAIN WALA: “I don’t regret speaking out, but since then, people have looked at me with strange eyes,” laments a 16-year-old Ahmed*.
He was one of 20 children sexually abused by a gang who sold videos of the acts and used them for blackmail purposes.
The police, who had conspicuously failed to act despite pleas from some parents, eventually arrested 37 men after clashes between relatives and authorities brought the issue into the media spotlight last summer, years after the abuse began.
Six months after one of the country’s biggest paedophilia abuse case broke, police now confirm 17 of the accused remain in prison awaiting trial, while three more are out on bail.
Read: Kasur child molestation case baseless, says inquiry report
But the young victims who defied taboos to seek justice say they have little hope for rebuilding their lives.
In recent years, more and more families in Pakistan have dared to speak out against sexual abuse of their children.
But the fight against predators remains in its infancy.
Powerful taboos, gaps in legislation and a lack of awareness continue to fuel a phenomenon that remains hidden, yet deeply embedded within society.
Ahmed drags his feet listlessly in the narrow winding streets of Hussain Khan Wala, a large village in rural Punjab.
Like the other abused teens, he feels stigmatised and without any kind of support after five years of abuse.
“I feel terrible when my friends stare at me. I know what they are thinking,” he mutters. “My classmates and teachers look down on me, so I stopped going to school.”
Also read: Kasur sex abuse ─ ‘I thought of killing myself everyday’
Though the case finally made it to the national news media in July, the local police were found to have turned a blind eye to the crimes for several months “which amounts not only to criminal negligence, rather it was connivance”, according to a report by the National Commission for Human Rights.
Several of the accused belong to locally influential families.
It took a series of clashes between the victims’ families and police, in which dozens were injured, for politicians to act and demand arrests.
The families and victims were then served up to the media, with some local leaders placing the number of abused children at 280 — though that figure is believed to have been inflated as a result of attempts to leverage the tragedy for business and political gain.
Explore: Kasur child abuse case ‘not organised crime’
Authorities established that 20 youths were raped and sodomised, the only two sex crimes recognised under Pakistani law.
The country’s penal code does not prohibit sexual abuse that does not involve penetration, nor child pornography.
“This case shows there are no institutional structures to tackle sexual abuse or to protect children,” says Valerie Khan, the director of Group Development Pakistan, a local NGO which advocates legal reforms.
A law criminalising sexual abuse of children is currently being debated by Pakistan’s Senate.
These reforms are all the more urgent given the growing number of cases being reported, according to child rights’ group Sahil, which records statistics based on press reports in the absence of official data.
The group recorded fewer than 2,000 cases in 2008, but more than 3,500 in 2014, a rise it said “reflects an increase in social awareness of the problem”.
Post-Kasur: This project helps people break silence over child sexual abuse
Veteran human rights activist Hina Jilani said that while increased reporting was welcome, cases must be handled sensitively — noting that activists, judges and police were not trained in how to question child victims.
Another obstacle to greater reporting of crimes are the families themselves, who are often reluctant to intervene when they feel their “honour” is at stake, according to Jilani.
Eighteen-year-old Sara* says it was unreported childhood abuse, and the subsequent loss of her honour that drove her toward prostitution.
Forced to abandon her studies to work following the death of her father at the age of 16, she found herself at the mercy of an employer who she says raped her.
“If I would tell my family, they would not go to the police station,” says the frail young woman, because of the shame it would bring.
Read: Accused says children abused in his presence
It was difficult for her to make her complaint herself because “there (are) no lady police” at the station, she said, and she quit her job fearing more attacks.
Having lost her sense of worth, she turned to an intermediary at a beauty salon who guided her toward prostitution, which she now uses to support her family.
Wearing light make-up and modern but modest clothing, she has all the airs of a carefree high-schooler — apart from the fact she walks the streets alone at night.
Back in Hussain Khan Wala, the parents of abused children are waiting for the government to help them rebuild their lives anew elsewhere.
Hasan*, a labourer whose 17 year old son was among those abused, said “(They) should be sent to Islamabad or abroad because they can not study here, you must remove them from the atmosphere.”
─ *Names have been changed to protect identities of victims.
RETRIEVED https://www.dawn.com/news/1233985
With the anticipation, similar to days before birth of a first child, another form of publication will soon be released. From our smaller presence in earlier days of the 5 yr Child Abuse Royal Commission (CARC), the need to ‘join the dots’ began to call out. Hopefully, with the increased-global visitors of our RCbbc Blog, we’re now able to Share another media: Newsletters! eNews are becoming a greater extension of the 247 work-cycle, allowing wider varieties of audio, visual, text & combinations of media to be exchanged. A business plan is still being developed, yet many feel that these swapping of ideas is helpful.
It’s the disorder that robs people of their ability to feel whole.
When it comes to the disorder that can splinter people into discrete and fractious personalities, it’s important to note that this complex disorder is not uncommon.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is often misdiagnosed. For the sufferer, the experience can be deeply confusing, with a distorted sense of self and long periods of time lost to dissociation.
Caused by childhood abuse, incest and neglect, the disorder often develops as a coping mechanism. It allows young kids to compartmentalize abuse so they can survive when caregivers or family members make them feel unsafe.
DID is described as a complex form of post-traumatic stress and dissociation, which causes a discontinuity in one’s self of self.
Professor Warwick Middleton is a leader in research and treatment on the disorder and has been working in the field for decades. Speaking to News.com.au, he recalls first writing a paper on the condition in 1991.
DID can be categorized as a developmental disorder, where a person’s personality fails to integrate as they develop.
It’s defined as an “identity disruption” and you may know it as “multiple personality disorder.” In some cultures, it may be identified as spiritual or demonic possession.
They have symptoms that you might have seen depicted in movies like “Sybil” or TV shows like “The United States of Tara.”
Sufferers of the disorder have a complex system of dissociation, which Middleton describes as “splitting off at different times into different identity states.”
“The individual might experience this as internal or external voices, which may argue and which may be associated with particular behaviors. Alternative handwritings. A whole spectrum of things,” he said.
What Middleton describes is a form of dissociation where the sufferer splits off into what appears to be a completely different “personalities.” Sufferers usually have at least two distinct personalities at some point in their life, some may have many more.
Middleton says that the majority of sufferers also fulfill criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and somatization, while many of them have eating disorders and social phobias.
“Typically they present in their thirties, having bounced around the system for quite a while,” he said. “Because they hear voices … they’re given antipsychotics. From our research, about 20 percent of them are diagnosed with bipolar disorder.”
“If you look a bit closer they don’t have bipolar. That was just someone identifying them switching between different personality states.”
People who suffer from DID often have trouble remembering things.
In the autobiographical memory of their life, there are gaps where they have no recollection of what happened or what they did — and not in a regularly reported way, like when you drive home and arrive at your door with little recall of your journey.
It’s about losing big parts of your life to your other “personalities” who take over, commandeering your consciousness. While it might sound like the stuff of movies, the disorder is very real.
From Middleton’s research, he suggests it occurs in about 1.1 percent of the adult population. He describes this as being a “relatively common” condition.
“(People with DID) range in a spectrum — (there) are people who sort of live on the fringes of existence who are chronically mentally ill, bouncing around services to people who are very high achieving, who may work in mental health services themselves.”
Sufferers often report weeks or months of their life passing by them where they have no memory and feel no agency over what transpired in that period.”
In the early nineties, the disorder was not often diagnosed and hardly at all identified by mental health professionals. These days it is much more commonly diagnosed.
Middleton says his interest in the disorder developed because there was “very little clinical awareness” and it wasn’t a diagnosis routinely made.
The other problem was that the issue of family assault and “incest” wasn’t properly acknowledged within Australia, where he is based, at the time.
“We now know that incest is, unfortunately, very common,” Middleton said.
“Basically in every country in the world where systematic research is done into childhood trauma and the presence of dissociative disorders we get very similar patterns.”
He said with standard treatment like cognitive behavioral therapy, the outcomes are very poor for sufferers of this disorder.
Treatment options with good outcomes include phase-orientated treatment.
Middleton was the first person, along with his colleague Dr. Jeremy Butts to publish research linking childhood trauma with the presence of DID. This paper was published over 20 years ago in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.
He’s been a long-term director of the Society for Trauma and Dissociation.
Their findings showed that across the world, almost all sufferers of DID had, during childhood, suffered from some form of abuse, be it physical, sexual or neglect.
For more information on CPTSD and other issues visit our YouTube Channel
If you need support or would like to connect with like-minded people join our Private and Closed online Facebook Group for Child Abuse Survivors and those with CPTSD. Click here to join
The Memoir You Will Bear Witness is available on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback
Almost all of us have, at some time or other, run into an old flame and felt the desire to reconnect. What draws us is a mix of nostalgia and the desire to correct past mistakes, to “get it right” this time.
The problem is that many of the former relationships to which we find ourselves drawn as abuse survivors were, to put it mildly, toxic.
Why do we save the love letters of a man who repeatedly cheated on us? Why are we tempted to call the boyfriend who stole our charge cards and emptied our bank account? Why do we find ourselves checking Facebook for the ex who put us in the emergency room?
The answer is not that time heals all wounds. It is not that we are seeking closure, that we enjoy pain…or that we are simply too dim to know better.
One reason is familiarity. There is something powerfully familiar about these toxic relationships. They evoke buried memories from our past, memories we once associated with love.
Such memories are not generally in the forefront of our consciousness. But a woman whose father was sharp and impatient with her as a child is likely to choose a partner with the same shortcomings. A man whose mother was elusive and unresponsive is likely to find women with those qualities attractive.
The more closely an adult relationship mirrors the abuse we experienced in childhood, the more emotional power that relationship will hold for us. And the more appealing that partner will seem. It is as if we are wrestling with an irresistible force.
That force is not, however, love.
This series will continue next week.
FOR MORE OF MY ARTICLES ON POVERTY, POLITICS, AND MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE CHECK OUT MY BLOG A LAWYER’S PRAYERS AT: https://alawyersprayers.com
Retreieved: https://avoicereclaimed.com/2019/02/24/returning-to-toxic-relationships-part-1/
A Chorley, Lancashire, couple hid their crimes for years by lying to social services and ‘brainwashing’ their children into believing their sadistic punishments were ‘horseplay’.
— Read on www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244335/Parents-brainwashed-children-hide-years-horrific-abuse-face-jail.html
Red Flags
http://avoicereclaimed.com/2019/01/13/red-flags/
— Read on avoicereclaimed.com/2019/01/13/red-flags/
It can be difficult, at the outset of a relationship, to predict whether a prospective partner will become abusive. However, there are certain danger signals which, in combination, should not be ignored. These involve embarrassment/criticism, control/manipulation, isolation, blame, threats, and violence.
Here is a list of “red flags” [1][2]:
Embarrassment/Criticism
• A partner who regularly disparages your friends, family, ideas, and goals.
• A partner who deliberately embarrasses and insults you. Such a partner may humiliate you in public, or criticize you viciously in private. He or she may attack your looks or your parenting skills, as a means of undermining your confidence.
Control/Manipulation
• A partner who prevents you from making decisions. This interference may, at first, be as simple as telling you what you can and cannot wear to work.
• A partner who is extremely jealous and possessive. Such a partner continually tracks where you go, whom you meet, and what you do. He or she may expect to you check in, throughout the day, and spend every moment of your free time with him/her.
• A partner with a hair-trigger temper. You walk on eggshells to keep the peace.
• A partner who takes your money or refuses to provide you necessary income for expenses.
• A partner who plays “mind games” to make you feel guilty. Such a partner may, for instance, threaten to commit suicide if you leave him or her.
• A partner who pressures you to have sex, or to engage in a type of sexual activity with which you are not comfortable.
• A partner who prevents you from using birth control.
• A partner who pressures you to use drugs or alcohol.
Isolation
• A partner who discourages or prevents you from seeing friends and family. Such a partner may begin by fielding the phone calls intended for you, then distort or fail to relay the messages left for you.
• A partner who prevents you from going to work or school.
Blame
• A partner who refuses to take responsibility for his/her own actions and failures.
• A partner who blames you for his/her drug or alcohol abuse (and even his/her boss’ behavior).
• A partner who pretends the abuse is not taking place or blames you for it.
Threats
• A partner who glares at you in a threatening manner, or acts in a way that frightens you. Such a partner may, for instance, brandish a gun or knife in your presence. He or she may drive at a dangerously high speed with you in the vehicle, despite your pleas to stop.
• A partner who threatens to hurt or kill your pets.
• A partner who threatens to hurt or kill your children, or take custody of them away from you.
• A partner who threatens to hurt or kill you.
Violence
• A partner who destroys your property. This may take the form of slashing your clothes or harming a pet.
• A partner who shoves, slaps, chokes, punches, or hits you or your children with an object.
• A partner who attempts to prevent you from pressing criminal charges for abuse.
The tragic fact is that domestic abuse ends in death, in all too many cases. Forewarned is forearmed.
—
[1] National Domestic Violence Hotline, “Know the Red Flags of Abuse”, https://www.thehotline.org/2012/09/11/red-flags-of-abuse/.
[2] New Hope for Women, “Red Flags for Domestic Abuse”, http://www.newhopeforwomen.org/red-flags-for-domestic-abuse.
FOR MORE OF MY ARTICLES ON POVERTY, POLITICS, AND MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE CHECK OUT MY BLOG A LAWYER’S PRAYERS AT: https://alawyersprayers.com
Having re-watched a favourite TV Series (Da Vinci Demons), attention was drawn to something that’s now screaming out louder and loader. Despite the appalling deception, tomfoolery & murders committed in the times of Leonardo Da Vinci (15th Cen.) in this staged re-enactment, the common powers possessed by the Catholic Church was always taken for granted. Social dynamics included a default framework of the church’s primary inclusion in the basic ecosystem. Australia’s recent mis-focus on Captain Cook, ahead of Captain Flinders & Bungaree. Each summarises how History has been remembered, not genuinely proven.
Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had been the Initial national confrontation, followed by numerous other global countries addressing this common issue. Catholic Vatican’s Pope (Francis) has at least begun publicly addressing this issue, after Millenia of denials-hiding evidence-moving wrongdoers & almost a century of rewritten Papal Orders advocating sins being hidden. As mammoth an issue this is, what’s becoming apparent is the immensity of addressing it. The lives of these children is paramount, as is the resulting residual impacts these Sexual Abuses has had. Postings such as these help share some of these factual truths.
As numerous bodies of Surviving Victims, Medical, Commercial & Community bodies provide help, News reports in the Journalism of individual to broad scale cases & each country offering their own nuances of interpreting & reacting to these ordeals – the immensity of this understanding also risks being ‘swept under the carpet‘ as CSA had been, to grow to what it had. Together, we need to openly address this publicly, openly, transparently & suitably as possible. Groups such as this RoyalCommBBC are only getting started on our mission & via your simply sharing these posts about your contacts – another Survivour may remember things & get suitable help, pictures may remind a family of an unsolved mystery or News of someone being caught out for inappropriate behaviour triggers off flashbacks leading to arrest. We hope this helps out open up our lives.
AT LEAST 231 children at a famous Catholic boys’ choir in Germany were victims of physical abuse, a lawyer commissioned to investigate the scandal said today.
The Domspatzen, a 1,000-year-old choir in Regensburg, Bavaria, was dragged into the massive sexual abuse scandal plaguing the Catholic Church in 2010, when allegations of assaults that took place several decades ago went public.
The choir was run by Pope Benedict’s elder brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 to 1994 when most of the claimed abuses took place.
Ratzinger has said that the alleged sexual abuse was “never discussed” in the time that he ran the choir attached to the boarding school.
Lawyer Ulrich Weber, who had been commissioned by the diocese to look into the cases, said at a press conference today that his research, which included 70 interviews with victims, uncovered abuse that took place from 1945 to the early 1990s.
“I have here 231 reports of physical abuse,” he said, announcing a figure far higher than had previously been assumed.
These ranged from sexual assault to rape, severe beatings and food deprivation, said Weber.
The reported cases of sexual abuse in Regensburg were mostly concentrated in the period of the mid to end 1970s.
Weber added that “50 victims spoke of ten perpetrators”.
The director and composer Franz Wittenbrink, a former pupil of the boarding school, had told Der Spiegel magazine in 2010 that there was a “system of sadistic punishments connected to sexual pleasure”.
Several other German institutions have also been engulfed by the ongoing clerical abuse scandal, including an elite Jesuit school in Berlin which had admitted to systematic sexual abuse of pupils by two priests in the 1970s and 1980s.
Most of the priests concerned are not expected to face criminal charges however, because the alleged crimes took place too long ago.
However, there had been calls for a change in the law and for the church to pay compensation to victims.
In February last year, the Regensburg diocese had said there were 72 victims of abuse, and had offered compensation of €2,500 each.
Retrieved from https://www.thejournal.ie/regensburg-domspatzen-ratzinger-benedict-choir-child-abuse-scandal-2538826-Jan2016/
Facebook has gone on the attack as one scandal after another — Russian meddling, data sharing, hate speech — has led to a congressional and consumer backlash.Tom Brenner for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html
“These figures confirm what we have known; there is huge inequity between the Catholic Church’s wealth and their responses to survivors,” said Helen Last, chief executive of the In Good Faith Foundation, which supports abuse survivors.
“The 600 survivors registered for our foundation’s services continue to experience minimal compensation and lack of comprehensive care in relation to their church abuses. They say their needs are the lowest of church priorities.”
Healy said the church’s meeting the claims of survivors whose complaints of abuse were upheld was “amongst its highest priorities”. He said that since that report the church had paid an extra $17.2 million to survivors.
The Age’s investigation also calls into question the privileges the church enjoys, including exemptions from nearly all forms of taxation and billions of dollars in government funding each year to run services – $7.9 billion for its Australian schools alone in 2015.
It involved obtaining property valuations from 36 Victorian councils, including most of the Melbourne metropolitan area, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, many under freedom of information.
It identified more than 1860 church-owned properties with “capital improved value” (land plus buildings) of just under $7 billion.
SOURCES: https://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2018/catholic-inc-what-the-church-is-really-worth/
https://newviralstory.com/the-long-painful-wait-for-abuse-survivors-to-see-redress/