February 6, 2010
Official figures indicate that more than 200 “honor” killings take place each year in Turkey – almost half of all murders in Turkey.
In this story, a Turkish girl was buried alive by her family for taking to boys:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/turkish-girl-buried-alive_n_450019.html
February 4, 2010
In a very sad saga, a woman named Katie Marie Tagle dated a man named Stephen Garcia and had a baby with him. Katie Marie has said that he abused her throughout their entire relationship.
She broke up with him, became involved with another man, and had to go to family court over custody and visitation of their infant son, Wyatt.
Stephen, enraged over Katie leaving him, began making multiple threats to take Katie’s life and the baby’s life and continued to be violent toward Katie, at one point proposing to her and then physically knocking her down during a child exchange.
Upon receiving these threats, Katie went to court to seek restraining orders, each of which the judges denied indicating that they believed Katie was lying to gain advantage in the pending custody proceedings.
The day after the third courtroom denial, Stephen sent Katie an e-mail containing a story called “Necessary Evil.”
The story describes in detail Katie’s and Stephen’s relationship, and in the end, the story has two endings. In “Happy Ending,” the female character returns to the man. In “Tragic Ending,” the character takes his son to a lake, puts him to sleep with Benadryl and the baby dies. “He will have a better life with you then (sic) we can give him here,” the man tells God before taking his own life.
Katie called 9-1-1 after reading the story, and the responding deputy immediately went to the courthouse and obtained an emergency restraining order for her.
However, in Victorville court Jan. 14, Judge Robert Lemkau would not uphold the restraining order and ordered Katie to immediately give Wyatt to Stephen, as it was the day his scheduled visitation was to begin.
The judge made it clear that he believed Katie was lying to gain an unfair advantage in custody proceedings. Then, instead of ensuring the child’s safety in the event the mother might be right, the judge decided to err on the side of endangering the child by ordering that the baby immediately be handed over unsupervised to the man who repeatedly threatened to take the child’s and the mother’s lives in writing.
Here is the incredible transcript to that hearing.
http://photos.vvdailypress.com/files/multimedia/soundslides/Court.pdf
This is nothing unusual. This goes on in courts all the time. In the presence of a custody dispute, judges routinely believe that anyone claiming abuse is doing so to gain unfair advantage in cutody proceedings, and routinely order the child then placed with the abuser, regularly going so far as to completely deny custody or visitation to the reporting parent.
What is unusual in this case is that within 10 days of that hearing, Stephen took Wyatt up into the mountains and killed the baby and himself, just as he had repeatedly warned.
Here is a detailed version of this story:
http://www.mountain-news.com/articles/2010/02/04/news/news1.txt
January 28, 2010
Senator Jake Knotts of South Carolina has recently proposed a bill giving teachers, principals, schools and school districts absolute civil and criminal protection from liability for any injury or harm resulting from their beating school children. No this did not happen in the Middle Ages. This is January 2010! Here is the language of this amazing bill:
Proposed Bill – S. 1042
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:
SECTION 1. Article 1, Chapter 25, Title 59 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:
“Section 59-25-60. (A) A teacher who disciplines a student on school district property by means of corporal punishment while acting within the scope of his employment is immune from all civil and criminal liability that may arise from the incident. The same immunity is extended to the principal, school, school administrators, school district, and school district administrators for which the teacher is employed.
(B) For purposes of this section:
(1) ‘Corporal punishment’ means physical punishment inflicted by an adult in authority within the guidelines established by the school district on a student enrolled in a public school of a school district of this State.
(2) ‘Principal’ means the administrative head of a public school of this State.
(3) ‘Teacher’ includes both a teacher as defined in Section 59-1-130 and a teacher aide as defined in Section 59-1-140.
(4) ‘School district’ means a legal entity as defined in Section 59-1-160.”
SECTION 2. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.
There must some sort of support for this in South Carolina, but how can anyone believe that children should be beaten and that neither they, their parents, nor their guardians should have any recourse to protect them. It seems that many people do.
Here are some interesting facts on this issue:
January 25, 2010
A judge in Wisconsin has ordered a mother jailed because her daughter will not comply with a court order to live every other week with an abusive father. The mother was ordered jailed 30 days or until the daughter complies and taken into custody immediately after the last court hearing where she presented evidence that the daughter is “terrified of going; she has night terrors and severe anxiety.”
Her ex, Craig Hensberger, was arrested three times for domestic violence and once for child abuse. His criminal record also includes two DUI arrests, one of which happened while driving with his daughter.
Can this really be permitted to occur, using our nation’s judiciary power? Shouldn’t we have oversight procedures to ensure children are safe, rather than permitting court power to be used in such gruesome ways? Why would anyone believe that forcing a child to spend time alone with a parent with a history of abuse is a good thing to do? So many unanswered questions. Obviously, a child’s safety should always take precedence over a parent’s “rights”.
Further, how shocking is it that a court would threaten a child with the jailing of her own mother. The sort of guilt and shame the girl must feel must be unbelievable.
Well, the story get even more shocking. Here is the next installment. Really just too much to believe: http://refusesvisitpressrelease.blogspot.com/2009/11/father-refuses-visitation.html#comments
The fact that horrible things are taking place in family courts all over America is no secret. Judges and other court officials are enabling child abuse and destroying children’s bond with protective parents!
Public protest over this despicable situation is growing.
But we need more widespread awareness.
January 24, 2010
This is the result of unsupervised overnight visitation with his toddler given to a man with a history of violence:
Father indicted in scalding that led to amputation of son’s toes, Chicago Breaking News Center, December 9, 2009.
January 14, 2010
The benefits of breastfeeding cannot be overemphasized. Numerous studies show that breastfeeding not only improves immune function, reduces life-long disease, and increases IQ, it also helps prevent abuse and neglect due to the mothering hormones it releases. See UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative Statement On New Breastfeeding, January 7, 2010, and UQ Research Finds the Mum Bud Bond May Reduce Neglect, The University of Queensland Australia News, December 9, 2009.
It appears that the mother’s body was created with built-in mechanisms to support the her healthy and positive rearing of infants to create physically and emotionally healthy adults. Yet human beings routinely breach this bond and create circumstances of physical and/or emotional abuse and neglect.
January 14, 2010
A 2-year-old boy was found with 50 needles inside his tiny body, apparently inserted with deliberate intention to cause pain, by the boy’s ex-step-father who reportedly confessed to inserting them one by one with the help of two women. I think of a tiny adorable 2-year-old and wonder how anyone could possibly want to hurt him, yet some people are drawn by their subconscious mind to impose on innocents the pain that their parents imposed on them. Illogical yet it has gone on throughout history – the senseless torture of innocents.
January 14, 2010
Researchers have found that the incidence of child maltreatment, including abuse or neglect, is higher in migraine patients. They’ve also found that migraine sufferers reporting childhood abuse have higher occurrence of comorbid pain conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), interstitial cystitis (IC), and arthritis. See details in this Science Daily article:
Abuse in Childhood Linked to Migraine and Other Pain Disorders, Science Daily, January 6, 2010.
December 9, 2009
“A child whose life is full of the threat and fear of punishment is locked into babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, to learn to take responsibility for his life and acts. Most important of all, we should not assume that having to yield to the threat of our superior force is good for the child’s character. It is never good for anyone’s character.” – John Holt, Freedom and Beyond.
