Straight F's...
The Bush Administration has released a report card on each state's performance in meeting the 14 standards of child protection and has given every state an F. 16 states-Alaska, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming-got a zero for not meeting any of the standards. Read the Article Here To read the New York Times take on the subject, visit Read the Article Here. To see what the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives thinks we can do to fix the system, see http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/article/050304.php.

Junk science of "parent alienation syndrome"
A Louisiana woman has planned a 40-day walk to protest kids being places in the custody of their abusers because of the "junk science of 'parent alienation syndrome'" Read the Article Here For the National District Attorney's Association's take on this psychobabble, see our earlier newsletter at
http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol2_iss3.html

More on sex trafficking...
We've previously reported on Administration efforts to stop the sex trafficking of women and children into the U.S. The department of Health & Human Services has now set up a hotline to help victims of sex trafficking. If you think you know of someone who is a victim of human trafficking, please call the special toll-free HHS information and referral hotline at 1-888-373-7888.

In other news...
Robert Peters offers an interesting look at the link between pornography and violent sex crimes Read the Article Here

Students at St. Mary's College in Maryland carried on a "May Day" tradition of bicycling naked across campus. Read the Article Here

Are kids really pulled out of homes just because the parents are poor? Robert Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform thinks it happens in places like Minnesota, Colorado, Iowa and Nebraska. Read the Article Here

A study in the May 19 issue of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that the level of trauma in victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) was much higher when the victim had a relationship with the perpetrator involving trust, guardianship or authority, once again clinically proving the obvious.

Leahy T, Pretty G, Tenenbaum G. (2004). Perpetrator methodology as a predictor of traumatic symptomatology in adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. J Interpers Violence, 2004 May; 19(5):521-40.