Posts tagged child abuse

The latest scandal rocking Pennsylvania State University’s football team, in which disturbing details surfaced that former Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly raped and molested at least eight young boys between the ages of 10 and 15, echoes the dark truth at the heart of evil intent in all cases of child sexual abuse. As things presently stand, Jerry Sandusky has been arraigned and released on bail. University President Graham Spanier and Coach Joe Paterno have been fired, effective immediately.

The grand jury report details Sandusky’s contact with boys ranged from touching, and tickling to oral and anal sex. The stark details are difficult to stomach as an adult, let alone experience from the perspective of a pre-pubescent or adolescent boy.

Over the past few years similar incidents of sexual impropriety in the realm of sports have surfaced, with one common trend: the victims are exclusively young black boys from underprivileged backgrounds.

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Quite coincidentally, I came across this video that’s currently making the rounds on urban blogs in the US, while reading the latest Caribbean report from the Global Initiative to End all Corporal Punishment of Children.

Good parenting, or child abuse?

Update: The flogger, who turns out to be the child’s “mentor”, has been arrested for child abuse.

UNICEF has launched a new and praiseworthy campaign against child sexual abuse in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, where incidences of such abuse remain unacceptably high.

Shirking the subtleties typical of other UNICEF campaigns, the PSAs clearly define sexual abuse, encourage parents to believe their children when they say they’ve been molested and, importantly, urge caretakers to report adults implicated in sexual abuse.

Naturally, the challenge requires more than PSAs. What remains urgently required are more keenly-targeted behaviour change interventions and legislative responses to prevent and appropriately punish incidences of child sex abuse.

(Source: youtube.com)

It seems Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church can’t seem to catch a break.

Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested last Friday, May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges.

Seppia allegedly asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,” he allegedly said.

In other news, isn’t the Pope’s hat lovely?

(Source: TIME)