An American woman who established a charity to help vulnerable girls in Liberia has resigned, six months after taking a leave of absence in the wake of allegations that a local staffer raped several girls in the charity’s care.
Related: Liberia launches investigation into alleged rapes at US-backed school
Continue reading...Employers and health insurers are using family-planning apps to gather intimate information about your fertility, menstrual cycle and pregnancy
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Continue reading...Chief judge calls Pell’s crimes ‘breathtakingly arrogant’ as he sentences Pell to six years in jail, with non-parole period of three years and eight months
• George Pell sentenced to six years in jail – live updates
Cardinal George Pell may spend at least three years and eight months in jail after being convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996, with the judge describing his offending as “brazen and forceful” and “breathtakingly arrogant” because he believed the victims would never complain.
The 77-year-old was sentenced to six years, with a non-parole period of three years and eight months.
Continue reading...Judges said alleged victim’s story was not credible enough because she was unattractive
About 200 people protested outside a court of appeal in the Italian city of Ancona after it was revealed that two men were cleared of rape charges partly because the alleged victim looked “too masculine” to be a target of attraction.
The reasons behind the 2017 ruling came to light only on Friday, when Italy’s highest appeal court scrapped the lower court’s verdict and ordered a retrial.
Continue reading...New allegation comes as Kelly, who was recently arrested over 10 counts of sexual assault, returns to jail for failing to pay child support
A fresh allegation has been made against R Kelly, by an unnamed woman who says the R&B star sexually assaulted her when she was 13, and later infected her with herpes.
Police in Detroit are investigating the claims made by the woman, who says she and Kelly had sex at a hotel in the city in December 2001, and a few weeks later at a recording studio. The woman says she visited Kelly at his home over the next four years, eventually contracting herpes from him when she was 17.
Continue reading...Arizona Republican, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, spoke about her experience during a Senate hearing Wednesday
Senator Martha McSally, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, has said she was raped in the air force by a superior officer.
The Arizona Republican, a 26-year military veteran, made the disclosure at a Senate hearing on Wednesday on the armed services’ efforts to prevent sexual assaults and improve the response when they occur.
Continue reading...Anti-choice doctors and health officials accused of obstructing legal terminations after 11-year-old girl gave birth to rapist’s child
The lives of thousands of girls in Argentina are being put at risk as legal abortions are delayed and obstructed by doctors trying to force pregnancies to full term.
The issue of anti-choice doctors, medical institutions and government officials deliberately trying to hold up legally sanctioned terminations was brought into sharp focus last week when it emerged that an 11-year-old girl’s baby was born alive because health officials delayed her request for an abortion. The girl had fallen pregnant after being raped by her grandmother’s boyfriend.
Continue reading...Clare Linane, whose husband Peter Blenkiron is a survivor of clerical child abuse, writes in response to Andrew Bolt’s defence of George Pell
I am a Ballarat local who has been living with the aftermath of child sexual abuse for many years. My husband, Peter Blenkiron, is a survivor of clergy abuse at 11-years-old. You met him whilst in Rome three years ago.
I am compelled to write to you after you expressed your opinion that George Pell has been falsely convicted.
Continue reading...After a ‘sleepless night reflecting’, barrister says sorry for his ‘terrible choice of phrase’
Robert Richter has apologised for his “terrible choice of phrase” in describing George Pell’s sexual abuse of a 13-year-old choirboy as “vanilla sexual penetration”.
The queen’s counsel has been widely criticised for the remark, which came during a plea hearing for the cardinal who is now behind bars awaiting sentence for orally raping the boy, and molesting him and another 13-year-old after a Sunday mass in 1996.
Continue reading...In this extract from Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, one boy’s family tell Louise Milligan the cataclysmic effect abuse had on him
This is the story of two teenage boys sent on scholarships from what were then Melbourne’s inner suburbs to a Catholic boys’ school – St Kevin’s College. St Kevin’s is in Toorak, Melbourne’s most exclusive precinct.
The school is wedged between the Kooyong Tennis Club and the Yarra River, and closed behind grand iron gates with gilded lettering. The boys wear boater hats and navy blazers, candy-striped with emerald and gold. While the area the boys came from has now gentrified, in the 1990s it might as well have been a different planet.
Continue reading...Allegations ranged from adult staff members having relationships with minors to forcible touching, HHS documents show
Almost 5,000 complaints of sexual abuse and harassment of migrant children in US custody have been filed over the past four years, according to government documents released this week. The allegations range from adult staff members having relationships with minors, and the showing of pornographic videos, to forcible touching.
According to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) documents released on Tuesday on Capitol Hill by the Florida Democratic representative Ted Deutch’s office, the reports date back to October 2015, during the Obama administration. However, most of the sexual abuse and harassment reported occurred since Donald Trump took office.
Continue reading...The only question on the agenda today was how long the man who once bestrode the Catholic world will be living behind bars
The script was bare. “Take him away, please,” said Judge Peter Kidd at 3.10pm and Cardinal George Pell picked up his stick, nodded to the guards fore and aft and walked through a blank door at the end of the dock into the underworld.
Nothing his barrister, Robert Richter, argued could have saved Pell from this fate.
Continue reading...Cardinal Pell is remanded in custody following his conviction for child sexual assault, which judge calls ‘callous, brazen offending’
Cardinal George Pell has been taken in custody following a sentencing hearing in which his lawyer, Robert Richter, described one of Pell’s offences as a “plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating”.
After the hearing, with Pell’s lawyer having withdrawn his application for bail, the chief judge, Peter Kidd, said: “Take him away, please.” Pell will be sentenced on 13 March after his conviction for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys.
Continue reading...Holy See says convicted child abuser will remain a cardinal at least until appeal is heard, but he is no longer prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy
The Vatican has confirmed that Cardinal George Pell’s position as the prefect of its Secretariat for the Economy has not been renewed, with the role one of the highest in the Catholic hierarchy.
In December Pell was found guilty of one charge of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16 and four counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16. The verdict could not be widely reported until Tuesday owing to a suppression order.
Continue reading...Close associate of Pope Francis faces jail sentence for child sexual abuse crimes
The Catholic church’s already shaky credibility on sexual abuse was dealt another hammer blow on Tuesday, with its third most powerful figure and a close associate of Pope Francis facing a jail sentence for crimes committed against two choirboys in the 1990s.
The news that Cardinal George Pell – who until the weekend was in charge of the Holy See’s finances and of rooting out corruption at the heart of the church – had been found guilty on five charges of sexual abuse was painful and shocking, said the Vatican.
Continue reading...George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two 13-year-olds in 1996 and 1997 at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. Follow live updates
• Full report: Pell found guilty of child sexual assault
• Explainer: what has Pell been convicted of?
• Five times guilty: how Pell’s past caught up with him
• Journalists accused of breaking suppression order may face jail
• ‘Disgraceful rubbish’: the moment Pell reacted to child abuse allegations
Some detail on the process behind stripping someone of the Order of Australia.
in what circumstance could George Pell's Order of Australia be rescinded? per the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General
-Council for the Order of Australia investigates
-recommends action to the GG
-process can't be finalised until end of court proceedings pic.twitter.com/eUlOXYL5v9
Another blow.
Richmond Football Club has today removed Cardinal George Pell as a Club Vice Patron. While acknowledging his right to appeal, the Club has formed a view that his association is no longer tenable or appropriate.
Continue reading...Pontiff talks of ‘remorse’ and ‘never again’ but the church’s culture is impervious to change, and there will be more horrors to come
• Follow live updates on the reaction to Cardinal George Pell’s conviction
• Full report: Pell found guilty of child sexual assault
• Explainer: who is Pell and what has he been convicted of?
Pope Francis must have hoped that last week’s unprecedented summit in Rome of senior bishops and church figures from around the world would mark a turning point for his papacy on sexual abuse. The world would see that the Vatican was finally getting a grip on the issue that has caused such grave damage to the church for the past 20 years.
Such hopes have been dealt a devastating blow by the news that Cardinal George Pell, until recently the third most senior figure at the Vatican, is facing a prison term for the sexual abuse of minors in the 1990s.
Continue reading...Judges have moved to ensure that women driven by revenge and self-interest will no longer be able to make spurious allegations when relationships end
Their romance began at work. She asked him out for coffee with her friends. He took her out for lunch. Dinners and walks in New Delhi’s Lodhi Gardens followed. Then, for 18 months, they were in a sexual relationship.
But last year, when Pavan Gupta* turned 24, his parents began pressuring him to marry. When they introduced him to a girl he liked, Gupta ended his relationship with his girlfriend, Geeta Jain, telling her he could not disappoint his parents. “I liked her but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with her. I always told her I was an only child and would have to go along with my parents’ choice,” says Gupta.
Continue reading...Pressure grows on two-time Costa Rica president as former Observer journalist speaks out over alleged assault in 1990
Oscar Árias, the Nobel peace laureate and two-time president of Costa Rica, is facing mounting accusations of sexual misconduct after a criminal complaint alleging assault was filed against him.
Four women have now said they were assaulted by Árias. The complaint, filed by an unnamed activist, was followed by public allegations by Eleonora Antillon, a Costa Rican journalist, who said she too had been assaulted by Árias in the mid-80s, when she was working for his campaign.
Continue reading...Plea deal, involving attorney who became Trump’s labor secretary, saw financier avoid severe penalty for abusing girls
The justice department has opened an investigation into federal prosecutors’ handling of a plea deal in which a wealthy, politically connected Florida financier avoided potentially severe penalties for sexually abusing teenage girls in favor of a relatively light state conviction.
The department’s Office of Professional Responsibility wrote in a letter Wednesday to the Republican senator Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, that it would examine whether professional misconduct occurred in the highly publicized case of Jeffrey Epstein. The letter cited a series of recent articles by the Miami Herald that focused new attention on how the deal came about.
Continue reading...