Sex Abuse Scandals News Stories

Excerpts of Key Sex Abuse Scandals News Stories in Major Media

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.

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Twelve former residents of children's homes say they were abused by Lord Janner. [Janner], who died before a court could examine claims of child abuse against him, regularly visited homes in Leicester in the 1970s and 1980s. An ex-police officer says he reported suspicions about Lord Janner, a decade before police began a full inquiry. A "trial of the facts", due to take place in April, has now been shelved by prosecutors. However, the BBC has traced and interviewed dozens of men and women who lived at children's homes in Leicestershire in the 70s and 80s. It has also spoken to [several people] involved in investigating the case of Frank Beck, a notorious care home manager who was eventually convicted of child abuse. He was sent to prison in 1991, where he died in 1994. During Beck's trial, he and an alleged victim both sensationally claimed that Lord Janner was a child abuser, and the alleged victim was then interviewed by police. A former detective, Graeme Peene, told the BBC that in the late 1970s he reported Beck, after seeing him rubbing a boy's groin at The Beeches children's home. He was later asked to go back to The Beeches to return another boy who had run away, and was directed to Beck's office, [where] Lord Janner ... was sitting in an armchair "and next to Greville Janner was this young boy". Mr Peene says he considered it "an unusual occurrence" which was "something I felt ought to be reported". His report was sent to divisional headquarters where, he said, nothing was done.

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.

Three chances were missed to prosecute late peer Lord Janner over sex abuse claims, an inquiry has found. The independent inquiry, commissioned by the director of public prosecutions, found police and prosecutors missed opportunities to charge Lord Janner in 1991, 2002 and 2007. Before he died in December, the ex-Labour MP ... was accused of 22 counts of sex offences against boys between the 1960s and 80s. The inquiry found the 1991 decision not to charge Lord Janner was "wrong" as there was enough evidence against him. Furthermore in 2002, allegations against Lord Janner were not supplied by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service, and as a result no prosecution was possible, the inquiry said. And in 2007 Lord Janner should have been arrested and his home searched. Since Lord Janner's death a "trial of the facts", which was due to take place in April, has now been shelved by prosecutors. A Leicestershire Police investigation in 1991 failed to cover basic steps such as checking details of whether a 14-year-old boy - known as complainant one - had shared hotel rooms with Lord Janner. A second alleged victim came forward in April 2000 when police in Leicester were investigating abuse in children's homes. He made a statement claiming he had been seriously sexually abused by Lord Janner, but this was not passed to the CPS in a file submitted in 2002, and no further action was taken. Then in 2007 problems with the credibility of a third complainant meant Lord Janner could not be prosecuted.

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.

Cologne’s police chief has been removed from his post amid criticism of his force’s handling of a string of sexual assaults and robberies carried out by groups of men in the German city on New Year’s Eve. His enforced departure came as a witness to the violence told the Guardian the events appeared to have been coordinated. Lieli Shabani, 35, said she saw three Arabic speaking males who were “clearly giving instructions”. A leaked police report [describes] how officers were initially overwhelmed by events outside the city’s train station, after which more than 100 women filed criminal complaints of sexual assault and robbery, including two accounts of rape. Cologne mayor Henriette Reker suggested on Friday that police had held back information from her, and said in a statement that her “trust in the Cologne police leadership is significantly shaken”. The leaked police report, obtained by the German newspaper Bild, said women were forced to “run a gauntlet ... beyond description” to reach or leave the station. The incidents in and around the square in front of the main train station have led to accusations of a police and media cover-up. Evidence has emerged that similar attacks had taken place in seven other German cities.

Note: It's entirely possible that these attacks were coordinated in order to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and the manipulation of public perception.

Authorities need to quickly determine whether a string of New Year's Eve sexual assaults and robberies in Cologne blamed largely on foreigners may be linked to similar offenses in other cities, Germany's justice minister said in comments published Sunday. Authorities and witnesses say the attackers were among about 1,000 men gathered at Cologne's central train station, some of whom broke off into small groups that groped and robbed women. "If such a horde gathers in order to commit crimes, that appears in some form to be planned," Justice Minister Heiko Maas told the newspaper Bild. Police in Hamburg are also investigating similar sexual assaults and thefts in the St. Pauli district, which occurred on a smaller scale in the northern city on New Year's Eve. Authorities in Sweden and Finland are also investigating similar incidents in their countries. Cologne police are investigating 379 criminal complaints filed with them, about 40 percent of which involve allegations of sexual offenses. So far, of 31 suspects detained by police for questioning, 18 were asylum seekers but there were also two Germans, an American and others, and none of them were accused specifically of committing sexual assaults.

Note: It's entirely possible that these attacks were coordinated in order to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment. There were news reports that the police stood by and let these assaults happen. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and the manipulation of public perception.

In 2002, the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, a group of five investigative journalists, uncovered the widespread sexual abuse of children by scores of the district’s clergy. They also revealed a cover-up: that priests accused of misconduct were being systematically removed and allowed to work in other parishes. The journalists’ story, and those who suffered at the hands of the clergy, are the subject of Spotlight, a Hollywood movie. Phil Saviano was battling to get his story heard long before the Spotlight team’s stories were published. Saviano ... was abused by his parish priest from the age of 12. Now in his 60s, [he] was one of the victims who refused a settlement from the church and retained, unlike others, his right to speak freely about his experience. He’s the founding member of the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. After the Spotlight investigation, Snap’s membership swelled to more than 22,000 as victims came forward, according to its executive director, David Clohessy. “Before Spotlight’s work, Snap members were usually ignored,” he says. “They were unsuccessfully trying to warn parishioners, parents, police, prosecutors and the public about this massive, ongoing danger to kids. After Spotlight’s work, people started to pay attention.” Since the Spotlight investigation, the Vatican has moved to establish a tribunal to hear cases of bishops accused of perpetrating or covering up child abuse.

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.

United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping personnel must lose their status as “a privileged class,” according to a former senior U.N. official, after fresh allegations of sexual abuse of minors by peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) emerged. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in CAR - known as MINUSCA - said on Tuesday that it was investigating allegations concerning sexual exploitation and abuse of minors, as well as other misconduct, by peacekeepers and international forces. The peacekeepers came from Gabon, Egypt and Morocco, and AFP reported that the allegations brings the total number of sexual abuse cases against U.N. peacekeepers in CAR to 26. According to Paula Donovan, who served as a senior advisor to the U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2003 to 2006, the latest allegations mean that the U.N.’s “sex abuse crisis is now more exposed than ever before, but there’s no evidence that the U.N. has changed the way it’s dealing with the problem. The U.N. treats reports of sexual abuse by its personnel as administrative matters to be handled internally and in secret, rather than as serious violent crimes,” says Donovan.

Note: A personal friend of WantToKnow.info manager Fred Burks served with the Peace Corps in Africa where she saw learned of horrendous sexual abuse, but was told by all of her superiors in Peace Corps not to touch that one. 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. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.

In total, incidents involving sexual assault in which the children of service members are victims occur hundreds of times each year, data the Defense Department provided ... show. The figures offer greater insight into the sexual abuse of children committed by service members, a problem of uncertain scale due to a lack of transparency into the military's legal proceedings. With more than 1 million military dependents, the number of cases appears statistically small. An AP investigation ... found more inmates are in military prisons for child sex crimes than for any other offense. But the military's opaque justice system keeps the public from knowing the full extent of their crimes or how much time they spend behind bars. Responding to AP's findings, three Democratic senators have urged Defense Secretary Ash Carter to lift what they called the military justice system's "cloak of secrecy" and make records from sex-crimes trials readily accessible. The senators also raised another concern. Child sex-assault cases are not included in the Defense Department's annual report to Congress on sexual assaults, which focuses primarily on adult-on-adult incidents, they said. The senators ... told Carter in a Dec. 8 letter they are concerned the department may be underestimating how many sexual assaults are occurring in the military.

Note: When it comes to sexual abuse, the US military has reportedly fostered a culture of coverup. 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.

Over the past 15 months, beleaguered Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane has released a steady stream of messages retrieved from a state email server that show state officials and employees trading pornographic, racist and misogynistic messages. There are jokes about rape and sexual assault, photos mocking African Americans and other minorities, and insults leveled at people because of their weight, their sexual orientation or their religion. The scandal that has been dubbed "Porngate" ... is a disaster for the state’s justice system. Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected to that office, faces a criminal indictment for felony perjury and multiple misdemeanors in an unrelated case. [Her] office ... has long maintained she’s innocent of the charges. She has cast herself as a victim of a powerful, political “old boys network,” angry that she’s shared their darkest emails. About 10,000 messages have been shared at this point. There could be as many as 100,000. Thus far, the scandal has resulted in the firing of at least six state employees and the resignation of a state Supreme Court judge. Another justice will go before a judicial ethics board later this month on charges of misconduct. If found guilty, he too could be removed from the bench. At least 60 people working for the attorney general’s office were reprimanded because of sexually explicit content found on their state computers.

Note: This is clearly a case where an old boys network involved with child sex abuse rings is coming down as hard as possible to get rid of the courageous attorney general who is exposing their dirty deeds. For more on this, see http://truthaboutkathleenkane.com. 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.

The United Nations' "gross institutional failure" to act on allegations that French and other peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic led to even more assaults, according to a new report. One young boy who initially reported an attack on his friends more than a year ago now says he has been raped, too. [An] independent panel found that the accounts by children as young as 9 of trading oral sex and other acts in exchange for food in the middle of a war zone in early 2014 were "passed from desk to desk, inbox to inbox, across multiple U.N. offices, with no one willing to take responsibility." Among those said to have looked the other way were the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, as well as human rights staffers. The panel, led by Canadian judge Marie Deschamps, found that U.N. staffers failed or hesitated to pass the children's allegations to more senior officials, sometimes because of political concerns with France involved; showed "unconscionable delays" in protecting and supporting the children; failed to further investigate the allegations; failed to properly vet peacekeepers for past abuses; and, overall, appeared more concerned with whether one U.N. staffer had improperly alerted French authorities. "The welfare of the victims and the accountability of the perpetrators appeared to be an afterthought, if considered at all," the report says. As of now, more than a year and a half after U.N. staffers first heard the children's allegations of sexual abuse, no one has been arrested.

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.

For the past two years, the Pentagon has acknowledged having a severe problem with sexual assault in the ranks. Soldiers entrusted with key roles in the campaign against sexual assault and harassment have ... been accused of committing those very offenses. The Army Reserve’s 80th Training Command summoned about 350 personnel to an Orlando hotel in 2013 for a four-day conference on sexual-assault prevention. One session highlighted how excessive drinking is often at the root of sex crimes committed by those in uniform. Soon after the conference began, sheriff’s deputies were called to the hotel to investigate a report that a female guest had been raped by one of the participants - an inebriated soldier she had met at the hotel pool. Overall, the Defense Department received 6,131 reports of sexual assault last year, a figure that has more than doubled since 2007. In March, a sexual-assault-prevention officer for an Army battalion at Fort Hood, Tex., pleaded guilty to acting as a pimp by luring cash-strapped young female soldiers into a prostitution ring. Last year, the Army disciplined its former top sex-crimes prosecutor after receiving a complaint that he had kissed and groped a female officer - while attending a conference on sexual assault. The system shows that the military doesn’t really take sexual assault seriously.

Note: When it comes to sexual abuse, the US military has reportedly fostered a culture of coverup. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.

A damning submission to the royal commission on child sexual abuse has recommended 77 adverse findings against the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia. The church fostered distrust of secular authorities and its response to child sexual abuse fell short of best practice, counsel to the commission Angus Stewart QC found in his submission. Since 1950 the church has received 1,066 allegations against its members and did not report any of them to police. Stewart ... was critical of the church for requiring abuse victim BCB, who gave evidence at the July hearing, to confront her abuser and for not allowing the involvement of women when her complaint was being investigated. The evidence in July was that although elders in the Western Australia congregation – where BCB was abused by elder Bill Neill – believed her, Neill was allowed to keep his job. BCB – who was in her mid-teens and had been groomed by Neill for a number of years – was made to continue to attend Bible classes with him and discouraged from discussing the abuse with anyone, Stewart found. Among the other findings open to the commission was that there was no justification for the Jehovah’s Witnesses not to report to police when the victim was a minor and others were still at risk, Stewart said.

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.

Nearly 7,000 Peace Corps currently serve in about 65 countries. Roughly one in five of them is sexually assaulted during that service, according to the results of a recent anonymous Peace Corps safety questionnaire, obtained exclusively by CBS News. The report also shows that nearly half don't report the assaults. More than 500 volunteers have reported experiencing a sexual assault in a little over two years. CBS News spoke with nearly a dozen who questioned how their recent cases were handled. They told us they ... were threatened they would be fired. Five years ago, the Peace Corps - a government agency - faced intense scrutiny over its response to sexual assaults. The agency's director at the time vowed change. "I hired a nationally recognized leader in victims' rights to be our first agency's victim advocate," former Peace Corps director Aaron Williams said during a congressional hearing in 2011. That leader was Kellie Green. "I pushed the agency to really do what they have the capability of doing," Green said. Earlier this month, the Peace Corps suspended her without pay for allegedly creating a hostile work environment. But Green says she was punished for standing up for the victims she was hired to protect. Inspector General reports show multiple cases of Peace Corps personnel - accused in sexual assaults - resigning ahead of administrative action, then being allowed to re-apply to the agency. Green is pursuing whistleblower protection. The Peace Corps disputes ... that it retaliated against her.

Note: In 2011, BBC began asking if the U.S. government was "at war with whistleblowers". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.

Not long ago, Tuesday morning’s revelations at the royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse would have made headlines round the world. Priest after priest in the Melbourne archdiocese of the Catholic church was caught abusing children. And for decades bishop after bishop ignored these crimes. But Melbourne fits the now familiar pattern of the Catholic world. In Melbourne over the past 35 years, 454 people made claims or substantiated complaints about child sexual abuse by priests, religious employees or volunteers. Of those, 335 made claims against priests. Seven accused priests accounted for 54% of all claims. What sets the city apart from cities in Europe and America is how little the church has had to pay. Absent but everywhere was George Pell. Though other bishops living and dead will have their reputations raked over by the commission, the hearings over the next month will essentially assess the record of the man who now sits in Rome as the treasurer of the Catholic church. Father Peter Searson [abused] children in the poor parish of Doveton. Parents, parishioners and teachers all wanted the priest gone. Pell appears to have done little.

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.

About 50,000 cases of sexual abuse were recorded by police and local authorities in the two years to March 2014. Official figures vastly underestimate the true scale of child sexual abuse. The actual number of children abused in that period is thought to be as many as 450,000. [A new] report, by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC), found that about 85% of sexually abused young people are not receiving help and treatment. The majority of victims remain unidentified because the services that should protect them, including police and social services, rely on children to speak out, says the report. Two-thirds of cases, both known and unknown to the authorities, are believed to be victims of abuse in the family. Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, said: “In recent years the terrible experiences of sexual abuse that some children have suffered in institutions or at the hands of groups of perpetrators have come to light and preventing and tackling these been made a priority.” It was time to “wake up”, Longfield said, and urgently address the most common form of child sexual abuse – that which takes place within families or their trusted circle.

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 "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.

"Spotlight" ... is the saga of how the Boston Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for uncovering not only decades of sexual abuse by Catholic priests but also systematic maneuvers by the church's Boston archdiocese to shield the more than 70 perpetrators. The story "Spotlight" tells is significant twice over. First for its depiction of the uncovering of what proved to be an international scandal, and also for the way it quietly but potently illustrates society's need for old-fashioned investigative journalism, the kind of labor-intensive telling-truth-to-power work that's increasingly in jeopardy. As "Spotlight" opens in July 2001 ... a new man, the imperturbable Marty Baron, the rare Globe editor not to grow up in Boston, is about to take over the paper. In fact, practically the first thing Baron does is ... focus on the accusations of clergy sexual misconduct. The [news] team (all of whom are lapsed Catholics), as well as the staff in general, symbolized by dubious assistant managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. are well aware of the enormity of what they're taking on. For one thing, 53% of the Globe's subscribers are Catholic and, for another, as someone says, "the Church thinks in terms of centuries." Because it has done its homework ... "Spotlight" is especially good at the dynamics of interviewing, on what happens when reporters say things like, "Do you want to be on the right side of this story when it breaks?" Honest enough to zing the Globe for neglecting this story for years before it took it on, "Spotlight" is both damning and inspiring.

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.

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.

The United States has become a major importer of sex slaves. Between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the United States. How many of these are victims of sex traffickers? Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, America's largest anti-slavery organization, says ... at least 10,000 a year. John Miller, the State Department's director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, conceded: "That figure could be low. What we know is that the number is huge." Bales estimates that there are 30,000 to 50,000 sex slaves in captivity in the United States at any given time. Sex-trafficking victims widely believe that if they talk, they or someone they love will be killed. And their fear is not unfounded. The trafficking rings reach back into the girls' hometowns, and local law enforcement is often complicit in the sex trade. In a series of excruciating conversations, Andrea explained to me how the trafficking ring that kept her worked. Girls were shuttled in open cars between the Plainfield, N.J., stash house and other locations in northern New Jersey. Andrea named trading hubs at highway rest stops in Deming, N.M.; Kingman, Ariz.; Boulder City, Nev.; and Glendale, Calif. The operating assumption among American police departments is that women who sell their bodies do so by choice, and undocumented foreign women who sell their bodies are not only prostitutes (that is, voluntary sex workers) but also trespassers on U.S. soil.

Note: The vast majority of child sex slaves in the US are American kids. International sex trafficking is a $99 billion industry. 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.

A yearlong Associated Press investigation into sex abuse by cops, jail guards, deputies and other state law enforcement officials uncovered a broken system for policing bad officers, with significant flaws in how agencies deal with those suspected of sexual misconduct and glaring warning signs that go unreported or get overlooked. The AP examination found about 1,000 officers in six years who lost their licenses because of sex crimes that included rape, or sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. That number fails to reflect the breadth of the problem, however, because it measures only officers who faced an official process called decertification and not all states have such a system or provided records. In states that do revoke law enforcement licenses, the process can take years, enabling problem officers to find other jobs. And while there is a national index of decertified officers [containing] the names of nearly 20,000 officers who have lost their licenses for problems that include sex abuse ... contributing is voluntary, and only 39 states do so. Michael Ragusa - now serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting three women - admitted during the hiring process with the Miami Police Department that he'd solicited a prostitute, committed theft, sold stolen property and abused a relative. The investigator in charge of his background check had himself been disciplined 26 times and was once arrested for falsifying documents.

Note: The article above describes many heart-wrenching examples of how government corruption can foster and abet sexual abuse. 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.

A graduate of an exclusive New England prep school was cleared of felony rape but convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses Friday against a 15-year-old freshman girl in a case that exposed a campus tradition in which seniors competed to see how many younger students they could have sex with. A jury of nine men and three women took eight hours to reach its verdict in the case against 19-year-old Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vt., who was accused of forcing himself on the girl in a dark and noisy mechanical room at St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., two days before he graduated in 2014. Labrie ... was acquitted of the most serious charges against him - three counts of felony rape, each punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison - but was found guilty of three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault and other offenses. Each count carries up to a year behind bars. The 159-year-old boarding school ... has long been a training ground for politicians, Nobel laureates, corporate executives and other members of the country's elite. The rape was part of Senior Salute ... described to detectives as a competition in which graduating seniors tried to have sex with underclassmen and kept score on a wall behind a set of washing machines. Alumni of St. Paul's include Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who graduated in 1962 alongside former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Three Pulitzer prize winners ... also attended the school, as did at least 13 U.S. ambassadors.

Note: Graduating seniors of this elite prep school compete to have sex with as many girls as they can. They then go on to assume positions of power. It's time for this culture to change. To help in this vital effort, please educate yourself by watching the 60 Minutes documentary "Spies, Lords, and Predators" and the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence." Then spread the word far and wide. Thank you! For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.