April 26, 2010
I’ve just found out that the brilliant and amazing Alice Miller died on April 14, 2010 at the age of 87. She was a psychotherapist, a prolific writer, and a devoted champion of children’s rights, working throughout her life to spread awareness of the effects of child abuse.
Here is a video message she put out a few years back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2hF2ujCeFw
and here is a link to her website:
http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php
April 26, 2010
I attended the Child Abuse Symposium in Santa Clara County, California last Friday and heard a highly effective and important presentation by Dr. John Stirling, Director of the Center for Child Protection at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and Medical Director of Santa Clara County’s Children Shelter.
Dr. Stirling presented the findings of the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study, a study that has been out for years, which shows a direct link between child mistreatment and adult health and well-being.
Here is a synopsis of the primary findings of the ACE Study performed by Dr. Vincent Felitti. Fundamentally, the study found that childhood adversity has a direct correlation with adult disfunction and poor health.
Please read the synopsis of this important study:
http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/winter02/goldtolead.html
April 10, 2010
Sexual abuse is so much more widespread than some people think. New evidence has been publicized that U.S. swim team coaches have molested and secretly taped teenage girls on the swim team for decades. 36 coaches are now banned from U.S. Swimming for life for sexual misconduct.
See the Huffington Post story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/09/us-swimming-sex-scandal-r_n_531912.html
March 26, 2010
In this article in the Washington Post, triggered by the Pope’s recent apology, Sinead O’Connor eloquently writes about her personal experiences relating to child abuse and the Catholic Church, her views on recent events relating to the Catholic Church, as well her belief in God.
March 21, 2010
A number of us have heard recently about the mounting sexual abuse claims against the Catholic Church. Well, children have been used as sexual objects by adults since ancient history.
The latest news: In a trial in Oregon, a former Boy Scout is suing the Boy Scout organization for damages arising out of the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a Boy Scout leader. The victim in this trial has obtained access to “the perversion files” – files detailing incidents of sexual abuse of boys by Scout leaders within the Boy Scout organization over the years, which the Boy Scouts have deemed private and confidential. Details contained in the files are expected to be released to the public during the trial.
More detail in this article:
http://rawstory.com/2010/03/report-boy-scouts-covered-sex-abuse-decades/
March 14, 2010
51 year-old award winning MTV video director, Aswad Ayinde, has been charged with repeatedly raping and impregnating his daughters over decades and using extreme violence and threats to prevent them from telling the authorities.
Ayinde, who won an MTV award for directing The Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly,” fathered six kids with his daughters from the mid-1980s to 2002 – and delivered the babies himself, according to New Jersey prosecutors. Ayinde also had nine kids with his ex-wife, Beverly, and at least three more with two other women in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors said Ayinde kept the kids from informing the authorities by beating them with wooden boards or kicking them with steel-toed boots.
“I was afraid to ever accuse him of being demented or being a pedophile,” Beverly Ayinde, who married him in 1977, told the court. “I knew the word, but I wouldn’t dare use it because it would result in a beating.”
Ayinde also made a point of moving his family from town to town, even squatting in an abandoned funeral home in New Jersey. Later, he moved to Brooklyn and began passing himself off as an artist, brazenly boasting his now-grown daughters were his wives.
More:
March 6, 2010
Researchers at the School of Medicine and the Trinity Institute for Neuroscience at the Trinity College Dublin have shown that child abuse leads to negative structural brain changes including an increased susceptibility to depression:
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/02/26/Child-abuse-can-cause-brain-changes/UPI-24541267212440/
February 28, 2010
Many people believe that if a child is too young to remember wrongs done to the child, then it doesn’t matter. A number of such people harm innocent children and babies in misguided attempts to relieve their own pain.
However, many recent studies have led to significant new evidence showing that a child’s brain and body are damaged for life when that child is mistreated, even where the mistreatment happened when the child was too young to remember it.
Here is a brief article about a recent study showing that childhood abuse damages the DNA of the victim and leads to difficulties in stress regulation due to actual physiological damage in the body.
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jan-feb/061
February 20, 2010
In this sad and horrible case, a 10 year-old girl, Charlenni Ferreira, was killed by her father and step-mother in Philadelphia after years of horrific abuse. Known injuries included gashes on her hands, a fractured shoulder blade, bone deformities on her arm from past trauma, bruising down her legs, scratches over her face, a fractured hip which kept her from walking properly, a split lip, a “cauliflower ear”, cigarette burns, evidence of long-term sexual abuse, and lacerations to her scalp.
Despite at least two reports from school nurses from 2006 until 2009, Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services left the girl in her father and step-mother’s care for years until she died from an infection caused by untreated broken ribs, which filled her lungs with fluid and collapsed them. When she died, she also had a seven-inch gash to her head that was stuffed with gauze and covered by a hair weave.
Apparently, the department left the child in the father and step-mother’s care because it did not have conclusive evidence of child abuse.
In the following article, a review panel consisting of Philadelphia’s medical examiner, a prosecutor, doctors, social workers, and DHS officials exonerated Philadelphia’s handling of the matter.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_region/20100219_Panel_exonerates_DHS_in_child-abuse_death.html
February 8, 2010
I hate to keep bringing you horror stories of child abuse, but perhaps it’s needed. We need resources allocated where they belong. I’m willing to bet this man was severely abused as a child.
Here is the story: