CPIU

Pastor’s child porn charges

whoiscarol — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:29:35 +0000

Eric Spandorf, an online pastor, is in a Tampa, Florida, jail and faces 66 child pornography charges.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_freevideo+%28RSS%3A+Video%29#/video/crime/2010/03/05/ng.pastor.facing.charges.cnn

Ill. soldier discharged after child porn charge

whoiscarol — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:10:28 +0000

Aol Noticias

Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – The National Guard says a western Illinois soldier charged with possession of child pornography in Afghanistan has been discharged from the Army and will not face a court-martial.

Illinois National Guard Maj. Brad Leighton says William Miller of Galesburg agreed this week to a Chapter 10 discharge, which means he admitted to unspecified misconduct and has been dishonorably discharged.

It is not clear if Miller will be prosecuted when he comes home. Army officials say they have not been in contact with civilian authorities.

Miller was charged Jan. 5 with possession of child pornography.

Miller’s family has said he had innocent photos they sent him of a young relative. Army officials contend the charges are not related to those photos.

43 arrested in child porn swoop in Spain

whoiscarol — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:00:34 +0000

By h.b. – Mar 2, 2010 – 9:50 AM

The arrests have been made across the country

43 people have been arrested in several provinces across the country on the latest National Police swoop against child pornography. 95 searches have been carried out and a further 61 people are indicted in the case. More than 1.2 million archives have been impounded, taken from 21 computers, 142 hard discs, 264 DVDs and 9 memory cards.

The initial complaint was presented to the police in Cataluña, who were alerted to the existence of a P2P network being used after a user downloaded a video of two adults abusing two youngsters.

The operation took place in Madrid, Comunidad Valenciana, Andalucía, Aragón, Asturias, Cantabria, Navarra, País Vasco, Murcia, Galicia, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, La Rioja, Baleares, Extremadura and Canarias.

Spain arrests 26 in kiddie-porn bust

whoiscarol — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:01:02 +0000

Valencia, Spain, Feb 9 (EFE).- Spanish police have arrested 26 people and implicated 10 more in a new operation against the possession and distribution of child pornography on the Internet.

Rolled out in 18 provinces over four months, the operation managed to intercept thousands of kiddie-porn files and seize 10 computers, 78 hard drives, a memory pen and 673 CDs and DVDs with pedophilic content, police said.

Last May a citizen in the eastern town of Torrent told police about the existence of some files with child-pornography content on the Internet, and from that moment agents concentrated on locating people who could be sharing those files.

The agents found several users who were making available to other people an index with different names that made a “clear reference” to kiddie-porn content, and so were able to locate all the users across several Spanish provinces.

Minister of Commerce: No more sex tourism

whoiscarol — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:20:13 +0000

BOGOTÁ, D.C.: Minister of Commerce, Luis Guillermo Plata is discussing ways to halt the trafficking of children for sex tourism.

http://www.colombianews.tv/news/2410-minister-commerce-no-more-sex-tourism

Separated Haitian children risk being sold, trafficked or kept in slave-like conditions – UN human rights experts

whoiscarol — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:05:45 +0000

GENEVA ( February 2010) – “There is an increased risk of unaccompanied children in Haiti, including orphans and restaveks*, being abducted, enslaved, sold or trafficked, due to increased insecurity in the country,” a group of UN human rights experts warned Tuesday**.

The experts, who are mandated by the Human Rights Council to monitor slavery, sale of children, trafficking and violence against children, stressed that “protection of children must be at the heart of the relief operation in Haiti.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and Independent Expert on Haiti have also emphasized the critical need to protect children in the chaotic aftermath of the earthquake, and in light of the particular dangers posed by thousands of gang-members and other criminals who escaped from prisons damaged by the quake.

“Unaccompanied children are particularly vulnerable and it is essential, wherever possible, to register, trace and reunite children with their families,” the UN experts said, adding that “during the evacuation efforts, it is imperative to avoid the unnecessary separation of families which may place children at higher risk, aggravate their trauma and distress and hinder their recovery and reintegration.”

The group praised the UN’s establishment of a ‘Child Protection Sub-Cluster,’ which is geared to safeguard children’s rights and prevent violence, abuse and exploitation, and highlighted the efforts of this body to set-up a rapid registration system for unaccompanied children. “One of their key goals is to register children under five, and older girls, children and youth with mental disabilities or serious injuries, as well as restaveks that have been separated from their ‘employers,’” the UN experts said. “We welcome this vital initiative.”

They also urged the international organizations and governments assisting Haitians “to ensure that the work on child protection remains a priority and continues to be properly funded and coordinated under the umbrella of the United Nations.”

(*) Restavek means “staying with” and refers to the Haitian system under which parents who cannot support their children send them to live with more affluent relatives or strangers from whom they are supposed to receive food, shelter and education in exchange for work. The Restaveksystem is prone to exploitation and sometimes leads to children being kept as virtual slaves.

(**) Ms. Gulnara Shahinian, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery; Ms. Najat M’jid Maalla, Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; Ms. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children; and Ms. Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence against Children.

Unicef says 15 kids snatched from hospitals in Haiti

whoiscarol — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:22:28 +0000

Geneva, (EFE).- At least 15 children have disappeared from Haiti’s hospitals since the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation, the United Nations Children’s Fund said Friday.

“We have documented around 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals and not with their own family at the time,” Unicef adviser Jean-Luc Legrand said in Geneva.

He said Unicef fears the youngsters may have been abducted by traffickers operating from the neighboring Dominican Republic.

“Unicef has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti that existed already beforehand,” Legrand said. “Unfortunately, many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption market.”

“This is going on. This is happening now. We are starting to have the first evidence of that, this is unquestionable,” he said.

Unicef has therefore activated all available alert mechanisms to make sure that these kidnappings cease, and is organizing reception camps to shelter all unaccompanied children.

Legrand emphasized that these children “are not orphans.”

It must be reliably proved that they have neither of their two parents, according to Legrand, who also noted that even children who lost both parents were likely to have relatives in Haiti ready and willing to adopt them.

Unicef has established to date 20 reception centers for unaccompanied minors and attends 2,000 a day, but the goal is to be able to help 4,000 a day.

An estimated 3 million people – a third of Haiti’s population – have been affected by the quake, and as many as 200,000 may have died.

Legrand said that Unicef is not only concerned about the fate of children but also of young girls working as domestic employees who could easily fall into the hands of sex-trafficking rings.

The United Nations Population Fund, known as UNFPA, recalled that before the earthquake, Haiti was the world’s most dangerous country for a woman to give birth, a situation that has only become worse in the aftermath of the catastrophe.

Estimates indicate that some 63,000 pregnant women will give birth in the coming week, and UNFPA said Friday that some 10,000 of those women need medical attention now due to complications from their pregnancies.

Both Unicef and UNFPA warned that they fear outbreaks of sexual violence against women.

In order to ward off future illnesses, Unicef said that next week it will launch a vaccination campaign against tetanus, polio and measles for 360,000 children under 5.

With regard to the distribution of aid in general, Unicef spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said that drinking water is being distributed at 98 different points around Port-au-Prince for some 150,000 people, an amount she called “totally insufficient.”

Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program, Emilia Casella, said Friday that up to now 1.4 million food rations have been distributed to some 200,000 people.

She said that the situation could improve soon because some survivors now have the wherewithal for cooking, and are receiving cereals, legumes and rice to make hot meals.

With regard to criticism about the difficulty of distributing aid outside the capital, the spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Elisabeth Byrs, cited the difficulties being dealt with on the ground in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

Hotels and airlines to fight child sex tourism

whoiscarol — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:13:17 +0000

Pratul Sharma

New Delhi, January 2010

Hotels and airlines will no longer allow the use of the Internet on their premises by anyone searching for child pornography or sites that peddle child sex tourism.

If any of their employees is found helping tourists abuse children, these industries will ensure the workers are sacked and arrested. Besides, all employees will be trained to keep an eye on paedophiles.

These are some of the guidelines framed for the tourism industry to curb child sex tourism. The guidelines have been drawn up by Pacific Asia Travel Association’s (PATA) India chapter and the ministry of tourism. Sources said state tourism departments will start implementing them in the next two months.

The guidelines also require the tourism industry to conduct all future businesses by introducing a clause in the contracts that will discourage sexual exploitation of children.

Sources said curbing child sex tourism, now a major industry not only in coastal tourist hubs but also in the religious towns of Orissa and Tamil Nadu, cannot be done by the police and NGOs alone. “Until hotels, tour operators and even airlines play an active role in curbing child abuse, the menace cannot be contained,” a tourism ministry official said.

Several cases of child prostitution have been unearthed in India in recent years. Among them was the arrest of Albert Freddy Peats in Goa in 1991. He was charged with sexually exploiting children under the pretext of running a shelter for them. He was the first person in India to serve a life term for paedophilia.

Even the government agrees that in the pretext of drawing more tourists to the country, such cases were being brushed under the carpet.

The new guidelines will require tour operators, hoteliers and airlines to include information about the illegality of child abuse in their promotional brochures and other publicity materials.

New rules to stop tourists from using children for sex

whoiscarol — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:34:12 +0000

Vineeta Pandey / DNA Thursday, January 7, 2010 2:09 IST

New Delhi: The government will crack down on the tourism industry if they don’t stop visitors from bringing children into their hotel rooms for sex or watching child pornography on the Internet.

The Centre has sent hotel owners and tour operators a set of guidelines and a code of conduct to prevent the sexual exploitation of children by guests. This means the tourism ministry not only wants all hotels and cyber cafes to keep an eye on what people watch on the Internet but also deny them access to child pornography content on websites and television.

The code forbids tourists from seeking out children for sex via chat rooms, discussions groups etc. Staff in hotels and cyber cafes at all tourist spots have been asked to alert local police if they find child pornography material on guests.

Hotels have also been asked not to ‘help’ tourists get access to children for sex or employ minors in their industry, Union tourism secretary Sujit Banerjee said. If hotels and tour operators do not abide by the rules, they will lose their license and face penal action.

Moreover, the government has told tour operators to brief their customers in advance about the new norms to prevent sexual exploitation of children. As part of this, airlines have been asked to run an awareness campaign through its in-flight magazines, ticket jackets, Internet links and video on long-haul flights.

India is not the only country formulating such rules. Similar codes were to be enforced by all countries who expressed their commitment to stop the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in the 2008 World Congress (in Rio de Janeiro) .

Experts say that child sex tourism is rising sharply in India, not just in tourist havens but also in religious hubs in Tamil Nadu and Orissa. India has been identified as a source, transit point and destination for child trafficking in the international circuit. A large number of children are also trafficked within the country.

Suspect in rape was out on bail

whoiscarol — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:23:27 +0000

Kingston man charged with 2d assault on a child

Joseph Gardner of Kingston (right) pleaded not guilty yesterday in Plymouth District Court to charges of raping a 3-year-old girl. (Ted Fitzgerald/ Associated Press/ Pool)

By John R. Ellement and Jonathan Saltzman

Globe Staff

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said Gardner faced “heinous allegations’’ in the first arrest and that prosecutors were disappointed that Plymouth District Court Judge Thomas F. Brownell set bail at $10,000 instead of the $200,000 they originally sought.

After Gardner’s indictment, the first rape case was transferred to Superior Court, where prosecutors again requested high bail – $150,000. But Judge Joseph M. Walker III kept bail at $10,000, and Gardner remained free.

Depending on the circumstances, Cruz said, judges typically impose a range of bail amounts in sexual assault cases. In some instances, he said, judges have released rape suspects on their own recognizance.

Judges are typically barred from speaking about pending cases.

Jack M. Atwood, a Plymouth lawyer whom McColloch works for and who represented Gardner on the first rape charges, did not return phone calls.

John G. Swomley, a Boston defense lawyer who has represented many individuals accused of sex offenses, said the $10,000 bail struck him as low.

“If the allegations are credible and there doesn’t appear to be something that wouldn’t be suggestive of fabrication, it would normally be a much higher bail,’’ said Swomley, who is not involved in Gardner’s cases.

Still, he said, the judges might have considered that Gardner had never been accused of a sex offense before August, according to public records.

In the first case, Gardner allegedly broke into a Kingston home through a bathroom window, according to the mother of the alleged victim, whose name the Globe is withholding because it would indirectly identify her daughter, the victim of a sexual assault. The Globe does not identify sexual assault victims.

Investigators gathered fingerprints and other forensic evidence that tied Gardner to the crime, she said.

According to a Kingston police report filed in court, the first alleged victim was staying at a woman relative’s house with another female relative, age 10, on Aug. 22. Between 4 and 6 a.m., the woman heard the 6-year-old crying and the 10-year-old girl yelling but dismissed it as a routine disturbance.

But around 6 a.m., the woman got up and was told by the 6-year-old that “a man was in her room . . . and was hurting her,’’ said the police report. A container of baby powder was on the floor and the powder was on the bed.

The woman discovered Gardner – to whom she was related by a former spouse – just steps away from the girls’ bedroom. Gardner said he was there to pick up garbage and take it to the dump, but the woman told police Gardner did not come through the front door and was not supposed to be in her home.

Gardner, who had baby powder on him, was ordered to leave but returned later with his father, David Gardner, according to the police report. Joseph Gardner “was very upset’’ and tearfully denied harming the 6-year-old girl, according to the report.

The woman took the girl to Jordan Hospital in Plymouth and was told by medical staff that the child would have to be taken to Boston to be interviewed by a specially trained medical team, said the report.

But while waiting at the hospital, the girl appeared to recant. A nurse overheard her say “she made it all up’’; outside the hospital, though, the girl told her relative she denied being attacked “because she just wanted to go home,’’ according to the report.

Meanwhile, the 10-year-old gave police a graphic account of the assault, the report said.

The events leading up to the second alleged rape began when Gardner started dating a woman with whom he had gone to high school, prosecutors said. The woman brought her two children, a 3-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy, to spend the night at Gardner’s home on Friday, prosecutors said.

Gardner lives on Summer Street with his 4-year-old son. The woman had slept there without her children the night before, court records show.

The woman told investigators that she heard her 3-year-old crying in the middle of the night but dismissed it because the girl often got upset while sleeping.

The next morning the woman noticed that her daughter was no longer wearing a pull-up diaper and she asked her about it. The girl then allegedly told her mother that Gardner sexually assaulted her and told the girl he would kill her father if she told anyone, according to police. The woman took her daughter to Jordan Hospital, which notified police.

When police arrested Gardner at home on Sunday morning, he said the woman’s allegations were untrue. “She accused me of this yesterday and wanted money so I gave it to her,’’ Gardner told police, according to court records. “She must have heard about my other case.’’

Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.