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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 51 - September 18, 2009 "750,000 pedophiles constantly prowling internet" warns UN...Some 750,000 sexual predators are constantly prowling the Internet in a bid to gain contact with children, a United Nations report warned on Wednesday. AFP story here 
"The number of sites devoted to child pornography worldwide is growing. The number of predators connected to the Internet at any one time is estimated to be 750,000," said Najat Maala, Special Rapporteur on the child prostitution and child pornography issue.
UNICEF also estimates there are more than four million websites featuring minors, including those of children aged under two years. More than 200 new images are also circulated daily, according to Maala, who pointed out the production and distribution of child pornographic images rakes in between 3 and 20 billion dollars (2.04 and 13.62 billion euros) a year. "Images of sexually exploited children are not only growing in number but are also increasingly shocking," added Maala, who estimates that between 10,000 and 100,000 minors are victims of the child pornography network. More than 4 million Web sites worldwide show images of children being sexually exploited, said Maala. ABC News story here "There is an increase in the number of sites recorded," she told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, citing research by the U.K.-industry group Internet Watch Foundation. "The number of images showing serious exploitation quadrupled between 2003 and 2007, showing abject images of brutal rape, bondage, oral sex and other forms of debasement," said Maala, a Moroccan medical doctor who was appointed to the unpaid U.N. post last year. She did not give precise figures. Internet chat rooms have become the main method for child abusers to recruit children, she told the 47-nation council. A study by the U.S. National Center on Missing and Exploited Children found 83 percent of people who had child pornography possessed images of children aged 6 to 12 years old, 39 percent had images of children between the ages of 3 and 5, and 19 percent had images of children younger than 3 years old, she said. For more information on protecting kids, see eGuide/online safety and eGuide/kids and pornography. Aussie case "worse than Fritzl"... An Australian man who allegedly raped his daughter almost daily for 30 years, kept her as a virtual prisoner and fathered her four children, has been charged by police. Herald Sun news story here 
In what has been described as a case as shocking as Josef Fritzl's in Austria, child welfare advocates have called for a full inquiry amid claims authorities failed to investigate the alleged abuse despite being warned decades ago. For information on the Josef Fritzl case, see vol7_iss20 and vol6_iss78.
One source close to the case claimed it could be "every bit as bad, if not worse, than the Josef Fritzl case. Especially the fact that she had so many children to her father". The Herald Sun has also spoken to neighbors of the family, who said they had suspicions of abuse but did not go to the authorities because they did not want to cause trouble. The victim's mother claims to have been unaware of any abuse, despite sharing a house with her daughter, husband and grandchildren until 2005. The Herald Sun understands the family has been known to authorities for more than 30 years. Three of the man's children with his wife died - two of cot death and another drowned. The surviving children are understood to have spent periods in care. It is claimed the man allegedly threatened his daughter with violence against her mother and siblings while he raped her at a variety of properties in Melbourne and country Victoria. The alleged rapes are said to have begun when the victim was aged about 11 in the 1970s and continued until 2007. Police have known about the alleged abuse since 2005, when the woman came forward, but were powerless to act because she said she did not want to co-operate with police because she was scared of her father. The woman gave birth to four of her father's children, each in major Melbourne hospitals. Supporters of the woman say none of the children's birth certificates record the name of the father, and all of the children have health and developmental problems. Despite one of the children - a girl - dying from severe developmental problems, and all three of the other children having major health problems, no health professional reported concerns about the woman, now in her 40s, to police or other authorities. Sources say the concerns about the father and the family were first reported to the welfare workers more than 30 years ago, but no action appears to have been taken. Garrido house searched for clues in other missing girl cases... The search for clues into the disappearances of two girls in the 1980s has led authorities to a now-familiar address: the Northern California home of the couple charged with kidnapping an 11-year-old and holding her captive in their backyard for 18 years. Fox News story here 
Police scoured Phillip and Nancy Garrido's property and a site next door Tuesday for any possible links tying them to the abductions of Michaela Garecht in 1988 in Hayward and Ilene Misheloff in 1989 in Dublin.
The similarities between those cases and the 1991 kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard, for which the Garridos are charged, prompted the search and gave hope to family members who have not stopped looking for their children for the past two decades. For more on this story, see vol7_iss48, vol7_iss49, and vol7_iss50. Since the arrest, several law enforcement agencies in the San Francisco Bay area have re-examined old kidnapping cases and other unsolved crimes looking for anything that may link the Garridos, and specifically Phillip, to their investigations. Authorities said the search would take days. Police were looking for clothes, DNA evidence, remains and any other evidence of the abductions. Alameda County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson said Thursday two cadaver dogs alerted at a site in Phillip and Nancy Garrido's backyard. AP News story here Nelson would not say where in the yard the dogs picked up a scent. He also cautioned about false positives, and said the area is known to have Native American or animal remains. In other news... 
A 67-year-old Chicago school bus driver is in police custody for allegedly holding an elementary school boy against his will on a bus where he allegedly sexually assaulted him during the school day, police said. CBS2chicago news story here The man has not been charged as of 1:30 a.m., according to police, who said he was arrested at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at 5335 S. Kenwood Ave. in the Hyde Park neighborhood, on allegations he held a boy under age 11 - and possibly as young as 5 - on a school bus where he allegedly sexually assaulted him during the school day. The child was taken to University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital in an unidentified condition. Chicago Public Schools Murray Language Academy, for grades kindergarten through 6th grade is listed at the Kenwood Avenue address. Police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said police were investigating an allegation of unlawful restraint that occurred between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Tuesday. "It's an ongoing investigation," Gaines said early Thursday. Police said the bus was towed and taken in as evidence and the boy was being interviewed.
ABC News features a print and video investigative report on American sex tourists in Cambodia arrested in the undercover operations of "Operation Twisted Traveler" ABC News story here Cambodia has long been a top destination for pedophiles from the United States and all over the world, according to law enforcement officials and humanitarian groups. An ABC reporter learned it could be astonishingly easy to essentially buy a young girl from her family in Cambodia. "We meet a 15-year-old girl selling water on the street. She introduced us to her mother. In broad daylight, she said, she's willing to make a deal."
Meanwhile in Philadelphia, a wealthy Russian-American businessman who traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, in December 2003 and in January 2004 to have sex with three underage orphan girls was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. Philly.com news story here "Wealthy Americans who think they can shortcut child-sex laws by traveling overseas need to take note of this sentence," U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said. Federal authorities have prosecuted more than 50 sex-tourism cases since passage of a law in 2003 that makes it a crime to travel overseas to have sex with underage children. And in Connecticut, a former Connecticut resident has been indicted with sexually abusing nine boys at a school for poor children he founded in Haiti, allegedly threatening them with expulsion or withholding benefits if they did not comply with his demands. AP News story here U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy announced Thursday that Douglas Perlitz, 39, founder of the Project Pierre Toussaint school in Cap-Haitien, was indicted by a federal grand jury on numerous counts. Perlitz founded the school and raised money for its operation when he lived in Connecticut. The arrest should be a warning to child sex predators who think they can get away with victimizing children outside the U.S., said John T. Morton, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 
More than 8 million Americans seriously consider suicide each year, according to a new government study. CBS News story here About 32,000 suicides occur in the United States each year, but a new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration indicates that many more give the idea serious thought. SAMHSA report here The new SAMHSA report is based on a survey of 46,190 people aged 18 and older. In the past, the question about suicide had only been asked of people who reported major depression but in 2008 it was added to all questionnaires. Other findings include that people 18 to 25 years old were far more likely to have seriously considered suicide in the previous year (6.7 percent) than those 26 to 49 (3.9 percent); just 2.3 percent seriously considered suicide among those 50 or older; and that among people with a substance abuse disorder, 11 percent had considered suicide, compared to 3 percent for people without such disorders. For more information, see eGuide/teen suicide
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