Sex Abuse Scandals Media Articles
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
On November 25th, the most notorious rape case in recent memory took yet another shocking twist. In Steubenville, Ohio, where a 16-year-old girl was raped by two high school football players in August 2012, a grand jury indicted the city's School Superintendent, Michael McVey, on felony charges of tampering with evidence and obstructing justice. An elementary school principal and two coaches in the district were indicted as well, facing misdemeanor charges including failure to report child abuse and making false statements. Shortly after the news hit that morning, Deric Lostutter, a ... 26-year-old programmer in Lexington, Kentucky, [sent] me a message. "We were called liars and more," he wrote, but "we were right about it." He had reason to feel vindicated. As one of the most notorious members of the hacker collective, Anonymous, Lostutter battled to bring justice to Steubenville, exposing secrets of a town that's still reeling from the fallout today. He just never expected that he'd get raided by the FBI, and face more prison time than the rapists in the end. Anonymous is a purposefully chaotic and leaderless collective. Anyone can proclaim themselves a member or declare an "operation" against a target. But getting others to [care] is another story. This is what makes Lostutter stand out. Less than two months after creating his alter ego as KYAnonymous, he launched and organized two of group's most renowned and righteous operations yet: battling the Westboro Baptist Church and, most famously, the town of Steubenville, Ohio, after the high-profile rape of a teenage girl by players on the high school football team.
Note: On the final page of this revealing report, Lostutter claims he is facing 25 years in prison for his heroic acts. To learn about some of the disturbing forces which perpetuate sexual abuse in our society, watch the eye-opening Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Nearly 400 children have been rescued and 348 adults arrested following an expansive and extraordinary international child pornography investigation, Canadian police announced [on November 14]. The three-year [investigation], named Project Spade, ... revealed an entire child movie production and distribution company in Toronto operating via the web site azovfilms.com. The site was run by 42-year old Brian Way, according to police, and sold and distributed images of child exploitation to people across the world. Investigators catalogued hundreds of thousands of images and videos of horrific sexual acts against very young children, some of the worst they have ever viewed, [Joanna Beaven-Desjardins, head of Torontos Sex Crimes Unit] said at the press conference. Police seized over 45 terabytes of data from the $4-million business that distributed to over 50 counties including Australia, Spain, Mexico, Sweden and Greece. As a result of the investigation thus far, 50 people were arrested in Ontario, 58 in the rest of Canada, 76 in the United States, and 164 internationally. Among those arrested were 40 school teachers, nine doctors and nurses, six law enforcement personnel, nine pastors and priests and three foster parents, she said. Citing a particularly egregious example, she said police found over 350,000 images and over 9,000 videos of child sexual abuse in the home of a retired Canadian school teacher. Some of the images were of children known to the man and he was also charged with sexually abusing a child relative. Police said the children were "rescued from child exploitation" but did not give more details.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
We have called our report Betrayal of Trust, said [Victoria, Australia MP] Georgie Crozier as she presented the findings of the parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other non-government organisations. Children were betrayed by trusted figures in organisations of high standing and suffered unimaginable harm, she said. Parents of these children experienced a betrayal beyond comprehension. And the community was betrayed by the failure of organisations to protect children in their care. The reports criticism of the Catholic church is unsparing. Its recommendations are radical. If adopted they would strip the Catholic church of its virtual immunity in the courts and compel religious leaders of all faiths to report child abuse to the police. The committee has recommended that priests and other religious leaders face imprisonment if they fail to report or if they conceal criminal child abuse; or if they knowingly put a child at risk of abuse or fail to remove children to safety. Even more radical are recommendations that would open the courts to victims of abuse by clergy. All faiths would be exposed by legal changes that gave victims more time to take action and clarified the legal responsibility to protect children from offenders. But the particular legal protection now enjoyed by the Catholic church may be swept away if the Victorian government accepts the recommendation that the church like other churches becomes a legal entity under Australian law.
Note: For more on child abuse by trusted institutions, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here. For an in-depth report showing how even police assigned to investigate child abuse were intimately involved in the cover-up, click here.
More than a million people have signed an online petition demanding justice after three men accused of brutally gang-raping a girl in Kenya were ordered to cut grass as punishment. The policemen who ordered the punishment should be disciplined for failing to investigate rape charges, the petition said. The 16-year-old was gang-raped and dumped in a pit latrine in Busia. When her case came to light earlier this month, it caused national outrage. The director of public prosecutions has ordered the national police to investigate why the local force, known as administration police, did not fully investigate the alleged rape, and instead ordered the suspects to cut grass. The alleged rapists are reported to have gone into hiding. The petition - published by online campaign group Avaaz called on Kenya's police chief David Kimaiyo to "deliver justice" for the girl, named Liz. Her alleged attackers should be immediately arrested and prosecuted and disciplinary action should be instituted against police officers who "dismally failed to handle her case", the petition said. "By holding these police officers to account you will send a strong message to police everywhere that rape is not a misdemeanour, it is a serious crime, and if police do not uphold the law they will be held to account," it added. "We call on you to ensure Liz's case is a turning point to end the war on girls." The 16-year-old was attacked after returning from a grandfather's funeral in a village in Busia, western Kenya, the local Daily Nation newspaper reported.
Note: For more on sex crimes, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The trial in [a] Mumbai gang-rape case has opened ... without the crush of reporters who documented every twist in a similar case in New Delhi in which a woman died after being gang-raped on a private bus. The Mumbai case provides an unusual glimpse into a group of bored young men who had committed the same crime often enough to develop a routine. The police say the men had committed at least five rapes in the same spot. Their casual confidence reinforces the notion that rape has been a largely invisible crime here, where convictions are infrequent and victims silently go away. Not until their arrest, at a moment when sexual violence has grabbed headlines and risen to the top of the states agenda, did the seriousness of the crime sink in. It was exactly like watching a kid in school who has been caught doing something, said [the victim's coworker], who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of the victim, who cannot be identified according to Indian law. Its like a bunch of kids who found a dog and tied a bunch of firecrackers to its tail, just to see what would happen. Only in this case it was far more egregious. It was malevolent, what happened. None of the men worked regularly. There were jobs chicken-plucking at a neighborhood stand a hot, stinking eight-hour shift that paid 250 rupees, or $4. The men told their families they wanted something better, something indoors, but that thing never seemed to come. They passed time playing cards and drinking.
Note: For more on sex crimes, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A Colorado court [has] released a long-sealed 1999 grand jury indictment of JonBenet Ramsey's parents for child abuse resulting in death, but it gave no specifics and did not accuse them of killing her. Prosecutors declined to act on the indictment and charge John or Patsy Ramsey at the time, and years later they publicly exonerated the couple and suggested an unknown intruder was the culprit. Yet the Boulder Police Department which put the Ramseys under an "umbrella of suspicion" soon after the 6-year-old beauty queen's slaying in 1996 portrayed the belated document release as a vindication of their investigation. "The grand jury of 12 objective jurors ultimately agreed with investigators that probable cause existed for the filing of charges," the department said in a statement. The Ramseys' lawyer, L. Lin Wood, however, called the unsealing of just four pages of the grand jury record a "miscarriage of justice" and noted that the panel did not have the benefit of DNA evidence that cleared the couple years later. JonBenet was found strangled in the basement of her home on Dec. 26, 1996 the start of a murder mystery that would fascinate the nation for months and spawn books, TV movies and countless theories about who killed her. A grand jury spent more than a year combing through a mountain of evidence before preparing charges. But they were never made public after the Boulder district attorney announced there wasn't enough evidence to charge anyone.
Note: Why were these documents kept secret for so many years? Could there be more to this case than meets the eye? For more on abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Although hes known for successful comedies, '80s child actor Corey Feldmans own story reads like a tragedy. In [his] new memoir, Coreyography, Feldman weaves a harrowing Hollywood tale of sex, drugs and profound loneliness on his road to stardom. Feldmans book covers parental abuse, twisted friendships and devastating drug abuse. As his star began to rise in hit movies like Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, Gremlins and The Goonies Feldman had no guidance or support from his parents. His mother -- a former Playboy model who suffered from depression and drug problems -- tortured her son about his weight and, at one point, force-fed him diet pills. He says his father was a musician who routinely encouraged Feldman to get high with him. By age 7, Feldman was a successful commercial actor and the main breadwinner of the family. Feldman found refuge on Hollywood sets and yearned for adult role models and supporters. While director Steven Spielberg became a trusted friend, many adults let him down. His father hired an assistant in his early 20s who Feldman calls Ron. The two became inseparable, with Ron providing Feldman with various drugs and eventually coercing him into sex. Feldman says he was petrified, and revolted the first time Ron abused him, but their twisted friendship lasted for years. Ron wasnt the only pedophile Feldman encountered in his search for stable adult relationships. Slowly, over a period of many years, he writes, I would begin to realize that many of the people I had surrounded myself with were monsters. One person he felt safe with was Michael Jackson. He calls the singer's world his happy place and said Jackson brought him back to his innocence.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A former police officer has spoken about some of his colleagues' attitude to Jimmy Savile in the 1960s - saying that everyone in the force knew "Jimmy liked them young". The ex-officer ... was with Leeds City Police in the 1960s. He used to patrol areas of the city where Savile was well known. Late one night, just before midnight, he noticed Jimmy Savile's Rolls Royce parked in a secluded spot on the edge of Roundhay Park. "As I went past I saw the interior lights were on," he said. "He was sat in the driver's seat and was talking to a young lady in the passenger seat. She looked ... perhaps 15 or 16. "I said, 'What's the matter, Jimmy - what are you doing up here?' "He said, 'Yeah, we're fine, aren't we?' And she smiled. Then he said, 'We're waiting for 12 o'clock, son.' "Why?" I asked. 'Because it's her birthday tomorrow, she's 16.' And he winked at me. "I asked the girl, 'Are you ok?' "She smiled - there was no impression she was being forced to be there. "Jimmy then said, 'Now get back on your bike before you lose your job.'" The former officer said today that the attitudes of the time were "different" and accepts that such actions today would be unthinkable. "Leeds City Police ... turned a blind eye to 15-year-olds but never considered that as paedophilia. The officer ... believes that attitude of the police towards Savile lasted for years afterwards, [and] that police may have informally talked to Savile about the age of his girlfriends in the 1960s. Jimmy Savile, a former TV presenter and radio DJ ... is believed to have abused hundreds.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Up to 30 hospitals are now under investigation as part of the inquiry into Jimmy Savile's alleged abuse of patients at NHS hospitals. Inquiries had originally just focused on Broadmoor and Stoke Mandeville and Leeds General Infirmary. Revelations that Savile had sexually abused children prompted hundreds of victims to come forward, including those who said they were attacked on BBC premises and at a number of other institutions. Savile had a bedroom at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, an office and living quarters at Broadmoor, and widespread access to Leeds General Infirmary. Liz Dux, an abuse lawyer who represents more than 70 of the claimants, told the BBC she was worried the extension would prolong the distress of her clients. "These hospitals were known about - all my clients gave their evidence some time ago to the NHS investigation. These victims want the investigation concluded, naturally as efficiently as possible, but they want it over, they need closure," she said. The revelations about Savile have led to a number of inquiries. The police investigation, Operation Yewtree, ... has three strands. One looking specifically at the actions of Savile is due to report in the new year. The BBC understands it will put the number of alleged victims at over 500. The second strand concerns allegations against "Savile and others". The third relates to complaints against other people unconnected to the Savile investigations, made by people who came forward after widespread coverage of the scandal
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children in institutional settings, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The international band of Internet activists known as Anonymous has chosen the rural Missouri town of Maryville as the target of its latest campaign, after the Kansas City Star published a powerful examination of a possible rape case that went unprosecuted by local authorities. Known for successful hacks of organizations ranging from the Church of Scientology to PayPal to the government of Brazil, Anonymous released a statement: If Maryville wont defend these young girls, if the police are too cowardly or corrupt to do their jobs, if justice system has abandoned them, then we will have to stand for them." [Matthew] Barnett was a 17-year-old senior on the Maryville High School football team. Daisy, a freshman cheerleader, was delighted by the senior boys attentions, and ignored her older brothers advice to steer clear of him, [the Star] reported. Barnett, the grandson of former state representative Rex Barnett, later admitted to police that he knew the girl was drinking at his house and that he had sex with her while she was drunk. He loaded the girl, in tears, into his car and left her unconscious on her front porch in subfreezing cold. Much of the town turned on the Coleman family, Daisys mother Melinda was fired from her job, and after the Colemans left town their house burned down under suspicious circumstances. Melinda Coleman is not the only one wondering whether the prominence of Barnetts family had something to do with the decision not to prosecute.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
When children tell adults they are being abused, their confidants only take action in just over half of cases, according to a study by the NSPCC [National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children]. Eight out of 10 abused under-18s tried to tell an adult, according to research based on interviews with 60 young adults. But adults acted in only 58 per cent of cases. One young woman described how police and social workers bungled her attempts to report her sexually abusive father. "The first time I told, I told my teacher, and then a social worker came, and two police officers. But they invited my mum and dad and sat them in the room with me. Then they asked me what happened, and so I denied it and said, 'No, nothing's happening,' because I could see my dad in the corner and I just thought, 'Oh my God!'" It took an average of seven years for those children who had been sexually abused to successfully tell someone about what was happening and to get help. Pam Miller, co-author of the report called No One Noticed, No One Heard, ..., said: "We were surprised at the number of people who had told someone about their abuse as a child, particularly given the extreme amount of abuse they suffered."
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Christian mission field is a "magnet" for sexual abusers, Boz Tchividjian, a Liberty University law professor who investigates abuse said Thursday to a room of journalists. While comparing evangelicals to Catholics on abuse response, "I think we are worse," he said at the Religion Newswriters Association conference, saying too many evangelicals had "sacrificed the souls" of young victims. "Protestants can be very arrogant when pointing to Catholics," said Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), which has investigated sex abuse allegations. Earlier this summer, GRACE spearheaded an online petition decrying the "silence" and "inattention" of evangelical leaders to sexual abuse in their churches. Still, [Tchividjian] says, he sees some positive movements among some Protestants. Abusers discourage whistle-blowing by condemning gossip to try to keep people from reporting abuse, he said. Victims are also told to protect the reputation of Jesus. Too many Protestant institutions have sacrificed souls in order to protect their institutions, he said. "Weve got the Gospels backwards," he said. Tchividjian said he is speaking with Pepperdine University, a Church of Christ-affiliated school in California, about creating a national GRACE center.
Note: For more on institutional sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
An "organised ring" of paedophiles believed to include Anglican and Catholic clergy used a Sunday afternoon "children's Christian program" in the 1970s to sexually abuse boys at a church-run Wallsend boys home. The United Protestant Association has issued an unreserved apology. "These men changed from week to week, suggesting a larger, organised ring," UPA general manager Steve Walkerden and after-care support worker Graham Hercus said on Friday. "We are aware of a group of men who did come to the home in the 1970s for a number of years ... who routinely took smaller boys into downstairs rooms in the building and abused them." Anglican priest Peter Rushton - acknowledged by the church in 2010 as a sexual abuser of children - and "volunteer carer" and convicted child sex offender Robert Holland, are believed to have taken boys from the home. A third "volunteer carer" at Woodlands was quietly convicted of child sex offences more than a decade ago. Another "volunteer carer" from Germany sexually abused about 10 boys in the 1970s before leaving Australia. The UPA has [also] paid compensation and provided support to a woman for repeated sexual assault over a six-year period at its girls home, Ellimatta. Many children were placed in the homes by court order; others were placed there voluntarily by parents, usually because of marriage breakup or the death of a partner.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An Australian inquiry into church and institutional child abuse began public hearings [on September 9], with warnings that widespread and "shocking" allegations would be heard against places of worship, orphanages, community groups and schools. Justice Peter McClellan opened the hearings in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, announced by the government last November, saying that thousands of people had so far come forward. "It is now well known that the sexual abuse of children has been widespread in the Australian community, however the full range of institutions in which it has occurred is not generally understood," McClellan said in an address. "Many of the stories we are hearing will shock many people." Some "preliminary themes have already emerged", he said. In residential institutions such as orphanages and boarding schools ... the commission had established that "sexual abuse is almost always accompanied by almost unbelievable levels of physical violence inflicted on the children by the adults who have responsibility for their welfare". The events would often set off a domino effect, with a victim's schoolwork suffering, limiting their future employment prospects, and their ability to trust others and form relationships damaged beyond repair. "The damage to an individual, be it a boy or girl, who was abused at a time when, because of their age, they are unable to resist an abuser or report the abuse to others, may be life-changing," he said, adding that even "low level" abuse could have "catastrophic" consequences.
Note: For powerful information already released on this including names of famous Australians implicated, click here.
In the first major study of child abuse and neglect in 20 years, researchers with the National Academy of Sciences reported [on September 12] that the damaging consequences of abuse can not only reshape a childs brain but also last a lifetime. Untreated, the effects of child abuse and neglect, the researchers found, can profoundly influence victims physical and mental health, their ability to control emotions and impulses, their achievement in school, and the relationships they form as children and as adults. The researchers recommended an immediate, coordinated national strategy to better understand, treat and prevent child abuse and neglect, noting that each year, abuse and neglect costs an estimated $80 billion in the direct costs of hospitalization, law enforcement and child welfare and the indirect costs of special education, juvenile and adult criminal justice, adult homelessness, and lost work productivity. The report ... found that while rates of physical and sexual child abuse have declined in the past 20 years, rates of emotional and psychological abuse, the kind that can produce the most serious long-lasting effects, have increased. Every year, child-protection agencies receive 3 million referrals for child abuse and neglect involving about 6 million children, the report found, though with unreported instances, the actual number is probably much higher, the researchers said. Child victims are equally likely to be male or female, the report found. The majority are younger than 5. About 80 percent of the perpetrators are parents, the vast majority biological parents. More than half of the perpetrators are female.
Note: For more on the tragic impacts suffered by victims of sexual abuse, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A video made by 11 year-old Yemeni girl Nada Al-Adhal speaking about child marriage has gone viral. After it was translated and posted on YouTube, over seven million have watched Al-Adhal petition against the widespread practice of forced child marriages which led her to flee her family, and which, according to her powerful appeal, leads to the suicides of children all over Yemen. Go ahead and marry me off. Ill kill myself, just like that, she says in a message to her parents. Im better off dead. Twenty years after the Convention on the Rights of the Child passed through the UN, envisioning a future in which all children have the right to be safeguarded against violence, exploitation and abuse, Al-Adhals campaign against child marriage is only one example of children around the world speaking out against continuing violations against their human rights. In 2009 Manan Ansari, a young child labour activist from Jharkhand, [India] spoke at the International Labour Conference about his experiences as a child working in the mica mines of the region, and his work to free children from the dangers of the labour and give them access to school education. Last October Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Malala Yousafzai made world news when she was shot by the Taliban for championing education for girls. Since her recovery she has been hailed as a hero and an inspiration for her perseverance, telling world leaders in her speech at the United Nations on her 16th birthday; they thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed.
Note: The moving, three-minute video of this brave 11-year-old girl can be viewed at this link.
Law enforcement officials announced [on July 15] that a recent five-week sweep snared more than 250 suspected child predators, including nine teachers and three clergymen. Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Morton said that 255 child predators were arrested and 61 child victims were rescued in so-called "Operation iGuardian," which targeted online sexual abusers as well as those who possess, produce or trade child pornography. Morton said that the international investigation, which ran from May 28 to June 30, revealed that online sexual abuse is pervasive and growing. The majority of the rescued child victims were girls, Morton said. Twenty-two of the victims were 9 years old or younger -- including four under the age of 3. The remaining 39 children were between the ages of 10 and 17. Of those arrested, 20 people were charged with online sexual enticement of a minor, with the remaining 235 people charged with child pornography production, possession or distribution of child pornography, traveling with the intent to have sex with a minor, or other offenses, including rape. Only four of the suspected predators nabbed in the investigation were women. Investigators have arrested 1,674 people in similar investigations this fiscal year alone, ICE officials said.
Note: For more on sex abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Seventeen years ago, a nervous-sounding woman rang and asked me to publicise a top-secret report. She was not the whistleblower, she explained, but a go-between. She would not give me her name: Its safer if you dont know. That secret report revealed the extensive rape and savage beating of countless children in North Wales childrens homes. It was titled Child Abuse: An independent investigation commissioned by Clwyd County Council, period 1974-1995. Last week, John Jillings report on the Clwyd scandal was finally published. But Flintshire county council successor to Clwyd has heavily censored it. I dug out the original and discovered, unsurprisingly, that the cover-up continues. At least one paper and a news channel independently acquired the report: clearly, others whistle-blew. The coverage was widespread, and the whistleblowers drip-feed strategy worked: no one was arrested or sued. Clamour mounted, and the Government announced a public inquiry. The late judge, Sir Ronald Waterhouse, took evidence over three years, and in 2000 produced a report, Lost in Care. His tribunal had cost millions and ultimately achieved little, other than fat fees for lawyers. It amplified the horrors described by Jillings but it did not lead to arrests or managers being disciplined or struck off. The authorities had issued such stern libel threats to Jillingss panel that it only named a few of the accused staff who were allowed to resign unpunished. But he exposed the excuses of the jobsworths who allowed sadists to control these terrible homes. This is the real censored dynamite in the report.
Note: For more on sex abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee ... reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation. Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has emphatically denied seeking to shield church funds as the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. He [said in a statement] that these were old and discredited attacks. However, the files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability. The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show. The release of more than 6,000 pages of documents on Monday was hailed by victims and their advocates as a vindication and a historic step toward transparency and accountability. They were well aware that the archives would bring unusually intense scrutiny to the countrys most high-profile prelate, Cardinal Dolan. The documents lift the curtain on his role as a workaday church functionary concerned with safeguarding assets, persuading abusive priests to leave voluntarily in exchange for continued stipends and benefits, and complying with Romes sluggish canonical procedures for dismissing uncooperative priests. In one case, the Vatican took five years to remove a convicted sex offender from the priesthood.
Note: For the New York Times editorial on this "shocking" news, click here. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Live streaming of child sex abuse via webcams is an emerging threat, experts have warned, amid a doubling of reported indecent images. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said children were being "abused to order". Offenders targeted vulnerable families overseas, paying them to facilitate child abuse, according to its report. CEOP said those carrying out abuse used a "hidden internet" to disguise their identity and avoid detection. The child protection body - part of Home Office's Serious Organised Crime Agency - said it received 8,000 reports of indecent images of children being shared last year. It said live streaming emerged in 2012 as a means of producing and distributing images. "We're seeing cases where they're effectively being abused to order for paying customers," chief executive Peter Davies told the BBC. He said some of those exploiting children via the internet were in the UK. An estimated 50,000 UK web users are involved in distributing abuse images. Children were forced to engage in sexual activity on live webcams in exchange for payment to the family or organised crime gangs. Tech-savvy paedophiles have turned to networks specifically designed to conceal the identity and location of their users. Using a variety of technological tricks, so-called "dark nets" - Tor, I2P, Freenet and many others - hide the giveaway identifiers while allowing people to go on using the web.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
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