Mary Falcon talks to Katelen Fortunati, the author of the Safer Society’s Storybooks for children with incarcerated parent(s). (See Self Help, Children / Adolescents). They discuss, how parent-child attachments are impacted by parental incarceration, how communication is affected and ways around this by drawing and writing to the parent; also the importance of truth about the situation. Attachment and mental health issues are discussed. Counselling and accompanying the children on visits to the incarcerated parent also formed part of Katelen’s work.
Category: Media
Online Sexual Grooming
The NSPCC has released figures from a Freedom of Information request to police forces in England and Wales which show that there were at least 4,373 offences of sexual communication with a child recorded in the year to April 2019 compared with 3,217 in the previous year; where age was provided, One in five victims were aged 11 or younger; and the number of recorded instances of the use of Instagram was more than double that of the previous year.
Article: Recorded online sexual grooming crimes rise by a third
Disclosure on Child Sexual Abuse
The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) has published key messages from research on disclosures of child sexual abuse. Findings include: disclosure is best understood as a process which is influenced by relationships and may extend over a considerable period of time; rates of verbal disclosure are low at the time that abuse occurs; children say they are trying to disclose their abuse when they show signs or act in ways that they hope adults will notice; teachers are the professionals to whom children will most commonly disclose; and certain children may face additional barriers to disclosure.
Read the blog: Don’t wait for them to tell us: recognising and responding to signs of child sexual abuse
We need to talk about Cornwall’s online child sex offenders – Opinion
An article by a Court Reporter who considers the effect on families of his reporting.
Need for more discussion around paedophilia in order to prevent child sex abuse
Virtuous Paedophiles (VP) is introduced and a number of recommendations for addressing situations where a person admits to being attracted to children are given.“I’d say first not to panic, and to remember this is the same person you’ve known all along, with all their complexity and good points. It’s something they didn’t choose and can’t change, and telling you is a big risk they are taking.” Ethan, from VP, thus suggests gently trying to find out if the person is abusing children or thinks they might be in serious danger of doing so as this calls for action to stop it immediately or prevent it from happening. “Calling police is usually not the best first step, as it sets in motion a highly invasive process that can easily make everything worse. Research the laws and procedures in your area before revealing anything.”
It is crucial to have a conversation about paedophilia and the lack of resources and services available to paedophiles in Australia. Increased awareness and understanding of paedophilia is important in order to remove the stigma associated with an indiscriminate mental disorder. A discussion about the inadequacy of services available to paedophiles is absolutely beneficial, especially when it can prevent child sex abuse.
My dad the respectable paedophile
The son of a man convicted for viewing iioc talks of the effect on him and how different his and his wife’s reaction is to some other members of the family.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/06/my-father-the-respectable-paedophile
Self-styled ‘paedophile hunters’ revealed
In February 2018 there had been more than 100 incidents reported to police by hunters in Northern Ireland, but no-one has been charged as a result and there have been no convictions. The issues surrounding this are dicussed.
‘Paedophile hunter’ to face criminal charges.
Charges including assault, disorderly behaviour and false imprisonment were laid against a member of a paedophile hunting group. However, of other cases examined there were insufficient grounds to proceed with charges. The concern over the quality of evidence provided by hunters are expressed.
Paeodophiles need help not condemnation
A short article by Jack Dawson about his story of seeking help for paedophilia. The original article was published in 2017.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/3216b48d-3195-4f67-8149-54586689ae3c
Massive miscarriage of justice
Back in 2002 Operation Ore, a police investigation in the USA started into people accessing online child pornography sites. The information came from the use of credit cards. However, after many convictions and the lives and families being destroyed, the evidence showed that many of those convicted weren’t paedophiles at all. They were victims of straightforward online credit card fraud.