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The suspicious death of young girl has sparked rioting in southwest China, Reuters reports. 10,000 people attacked government offices in Weng'an county, Guizhou province when the girl's body surfaced in a local river. You see, the government called the death a suicide, but residents believe that the girl was raped and murdered by the relative of a government official. (There are YouTube videos documenting the violence.) According to Reuters, "The girl's family had rejected the authorities' offer of 3,000 yuan ($440) compensation, later upped to 30,000 yuan, and residents had donated money to the family to sue local authorities." Mentions of the incident were recently removed from Chinese websites, as China wants to keep its image as pleasant as possible in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. [Reuters, YouTube]
Worst People Ever
Texas Sicko Now On Trial For Spearheading "Swingers Club"
Some tales are so aggressively grotesque they take on a surreal quality, and so it is with the group of men and women who ran the "Swingers Club" in the tiny town of Mineola, Texas, in which the perpetrators drugged children, some as young as five, with "silly pills" (Vicodin) and forced them to perform sex shows in 2004. Oh, and also? The AP reports that three of the children involved are siblings (now ages 12, 10 and 7), and the fourth is their aunt (currently 10 years old). Jury selection in the trial of Patrick "Booger Red" Kelly, 41, an alleged ring leader of the Mineola Swingers Club, begins today, and he faces five years to life in prison for each charge of abuse. Perhaps the most disturbing detail of this already Gothic case is that there were 50 to 100 audience members for each of the sex shows in which these children "performed"; one of the six adults who has already been convicted of charges related to this case is the parent of the siblings. More »
big love
Texas Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of FLDS; Children Will Likely Be Returned
The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints minors who were seized from the cult's Texas compound will be Yearning For Zion no longer — the Texas Supreme court has upheld a lower court's decision, and declared that the removal of children from the FLDS stronghold was unwarranted. Church spokesman Rod Parker says, "at this point there is no legal basis to hold anyone," and he wants the children to be reunited with their parents as soon as possible. What happens next is not entirely clear, according to the Los Angeles Times, because while the removal of the children was ruled unwarranted, the state is still allowed to "take other measures to protect [the children] while [the trial court] deliberated." Those measures, legal experts believe, could include requiring parents to stay in the area and/or move out of the Yearning For Zion ranch in addition to further DNA testing, the L.A. Times reports. More »
Humanitarian Horrors
Sexual Abuse By Aid Workers Is Underreported In Developing, Struggling Nations
There's no way to sugarcoat or qualify this: news wires are abuzz with reports of widespread abuse of minors by UN peacekeepers and other humanitarian workers in post-conflict nations. According to a report released today by UK nonprofit Save the Children that focuses on the Ivory Coast, Haiti, and southern Sudan, "the perpetrators of sexual abuse of children could be found in every type of humanitarian organization at all levels." In Sudan, "people don't report [sexual abuse] because they are worried that the agency will stop working here, and we need them," a teen says. There are many specific instances of abuse described by the the organization, but the most chilling so far is the story of 'Elizabeth' (pictured above left), a 13-year-old from the Ivory Coast. More »
Another day, another accusation of sexual abuse against KBR in Iraq. This time, KBR contractors at the British Embassy are accused of using jobs at the embassy as their own personal forced dating/escort service, and dismissing Iraqis who refused or complained. When one finally complained to the British Foreign Office, they interviewed her and her two witnesses and then turned the investigation over to KBR. We all know what happened next, right? They fired the witnesses, didn't interview anyone and declared themselves innocent of all charges. The British government isn't re-opening the investigation or changing its practices, of course, and reports are that the bad behavior of the KBR contractors continues apace at the embassy. Oh, and a commenter on the Times UK site said she's not to be believed because she's probably old and ugly, because sexual abuse and assault are about the attractiveness of the woman and not the fucked-up nature of the dude. [Times UK]
Attorney Rudolf Mayer will use an insanity defense with client Josef Fritzl , the evil Austrian who imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in the family basement and fathered 7 children by her. "I believe that the trigger was a mental disorder, because I can't imagine that someone has sex with his own daughter without having a mental disorder," Mayer said, according to the AP. Mayer plans to push for Fritzl's internment in a psychiatric institution as opposed to a jail, if certified insane and convicted. In other Fritzl news, Josef's sister-in-law, Christine, has spoken out against him, calling him a "tyrant" and saying that her sister, Josef's wife Rosemarie, was too terrified of her husband to ever cross him. She even stuck by Fritzl when he was convicted of raping a nurse in 1967. Christine says Rosemarie only cared about their children and with the recent, horrific revelations of recent weeks, "For sure, the world has collapsed for her." [AP via CNN, AP via MSNBC]
We've heard a lot about the possible mistreatment of girls in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community, but reports are just beginning to emerge about the sexual abuse of young boys as well. Texas officials are investigating the boys taken from the Yearning For Zion compound after "interviews and journal entries suggested young boys may have been sexually abused," reports USA Today. Many of the boys also have broken bones, but doctors who examined the children said the injuries were from minor accidents and did not indicate a parental harm. FLDS spokesman Rod Parker told the AP, "Probably over 90% of the injuries are forearm fractures from ground-level or low level falls... I can also tell you that we don't live in a community where there is a pattern of abuse." [USA Today]
House Of Horrors
More news is coming out about Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter in a windowless dungeon for 24 years. Firstly: DNA tests confirm that Fritzl is the father of the seven children birthed by his daughter, Elisabeth. (Three of whom recently emerged from the dungeon to see natural daylight for the first time.) The eldest of the children, 19-year-old Kerstin, is in a coma at the hospital. Her condition is the result of a lack of oxygen. As for Elisabeth, one police officer who saw her says of the 42-year-old woman: "She has been so starved of sunlight that her skin and hair were pure white and she had to shield her eyes from the light." There are many more details, including pictures of Fritzl's underground lair, with its sad tile and creepy/tragic kiddie animal stickers. [Times, Telegraph, Telegraph, Guardian, BBC, Daily Mail]
babies having babies
Over Half Of Female FLDS Teens In Texas Custody Have Been Pregnant
Here we are, worried about the sexualization of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus, when 31 out of 53 girls from the ages of 14-17 from the Yearning For Zion ranch are pregnant or already have children. Although the polygamist Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints have been claiming that they do not marry off 13 and 14 year old girls to older men, the number of very young yet pregnant girls seems to refute these claims. What's more, there are 53 girls ages 14-17 who were taken from the ranch, while only 17 boys in that age group were living with the sect. (The gender divisions in children under 14 were about 50/50.) This gives credence to the tales of "lost boys" of the FDLS: adolescent males who were exiled from the sect to keep the gender imbalance favorable for polygamous unions. More »
flowers in the cellar
Austrian Man Locked His Daughter In The Basement For 24 Years
Upon first reading the horrific story of 73-year-old Austrian Josef Fritzl, who locked his daughter, Elisabeth, in the family cellar in 1984 and proceeded to allegedly father as many as seven of her children, my reaction was damn, that is some V.C. Andrews shit. But then I read more of the reports, and I can no longer relate Fritzl's crime to a campy, pop culture artifact: Keeping your daughter and half of her children locked for over two decades in what authorities describe as a damp, narrow "series of underground rooms equipped for sleeping and cooking," according to the BBC, is nothing short of evil. CNN reports that on August 8, 1984 Fritzl's daughter, the now 42-year-old Elisabeth, was enticed by her father "into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room." Elisabeth, who had been sexually abused by Josef since she was 11, was reported missing two weeks later. More »
clips
The clip above is a PSA about the trauma of sexual abuse and the importance of treating victims to help them get over that trauma. It effectively conveys the haunting creepiness that abuse victims feel, with its use of a (vaguely NSFW) slithery, fleshy, snake-like thing that sorta looks like a cross between an arm and a phallus. (The commercial is European, which could partly explain why its so "edgy".) More »
Creepy PSA On Sexual Abuse Will Leave You Feeling Violated
The clip above is a PSA about the trauma of sexual abuse and the importance of treating victims to help them get over that trauma. It effectively conveys the haunting creepiness that abuse victims feel, with its use of a (vaguely NSFW) slithery, fleshy, snake-like thing that sorta looks like a cross between an arm and a phallus. (The commercial is European, which could partly explain why its so "edgy".) More »
Be All You Can Be
On the heels of conservative writer Heather MacDonald's declaration that college rape statistics are overinflated comes this study from the Government Accountability Office which says that rape is likely underreported in the military. According to the GAO, "Navy Academy midshipmen in Annapolis, Md., reported 26 incidents of sexual harassment from 2003 to 2006, while Air Force Academy cadets in Colorado Springs reported six, and cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., reported none." This seemingly contradicts a 2006 survey of military academy students wherein 9% of female and 1% of male students reported unwanted sexual contact, according to UPI. For those of you keeping track at home, "that would mean about 300 victims, a much higher number than in the GAO report." Women in the military afraid to report abuse? Color us shocked. [UPI]
On the heels of conservative writer Heather MacDonald's declaration that college rape statistics are overinflated comes this study from the Government Accountability Office which says that rape is likely underreported in the military. According to the GAO, "Navy Academy midshipmen in Annapolis, Md., reported 26 incidents of sexual harassment from 2003 to 2006, while Air Force Academy cadets in Colorado Springs reported six, and cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., reported none." This seemingly contradicts a 2006 survey of military academy students wherein 9% of female and 1% of male students reported unwanted sexual contact, according to UPI. For those of you keeping track at home, "that would mean about 300 victims, a much higher number than in the GAO report." Women in the military afraid to report abuse? Color us shocked. [UPI]
no country for young women
Missing Marine Found Dead; Likely Murderer Missing
Brace yourself for this Monday morning tale of woe: the remains of 20-year-old Maria Lauterbach, the pregnant Marine who had been missing since before Christmas, have been found in the backyard of her accused rapist, fellow Marine Cesar Armando Laurean. The burnt body of Lauterbach and her unborn child were found in a makeshift grave on Saturday. (It is unclear if Lauterbach's pregnancy was a result of her alleged rape.) Laurean, who has since skipped Jacksonville, North Carolina, where he and Lauterbach both served at Camp Lejeune, admitted to burying Lauterbach, but claimed in a note that Lauterbach slit her own throat. Which would explain the blood splattered all over the walls of his house! Oh, by the way, this piece of shit was also married. His wife, reports CBS News, is said to be "heartbroken". More »
pregnant and missing
Mom Of Missing, Pregnant Marine Says She Was Victim Of Sexual Assault By A Superior
Remember yesterday evening's speculation that missing pregnant 20-year-old Marine Maria Lauterbach's disappearance might have something to do with a sexual assault? Well documents have surfaced today quoting Maria's mother alleging that her daughter was the victim of sexual assault at the hands of a superior officer. To recap: Maria's family last heard from her on December 14; they reported her missing on December 19th after they were unable to reach her. Maria's cell phone was found on the side of a road near her military base, North Carolina's Camp Lejeune. There was "suspicious activity" on Lauterbach's bank account on December 24. Oh, and of course, Maria was scheduled to testify as a witness to some sort of incident that took place at Camp Lejeune. More »
Australian District Court judge Sarah Bradley (pictured) is being roundly condemned for handing out zero jail time to a group of nine men who raped a ten-year-old Aboriginal girl. Bradley said the preteen "probably agreed" to have sex with the gang of males, who range in age from 14-26 (one of them is a repeat sex offender) and are rumored to be from more "prominent families" than the victim. According to a local child protection campaigner, "If this was a white girl in white suburban Brisbane there's no way the defendants would have walked out of court." [Guardian]
end of days
Simpsons Graffiti On Pagan Fields: Cute, But Where's Homer's Cock?
- We were feeling kinda blue today. Then we saw this. [Boing Boing]
- Now that Isaiah Washington has a new job maybe he'll stop his pointless bitching. The former Grey's Anatomy cast member been cast in 5 episodes of the upcoming TV show based on The Bionic Woman. [E!]
- In the UK curry laced with ecstasy = attempted murder. Over here curry laced with ecstasy sounds kind of like a fun Friday night! [BBC]
