Unsurprisingly, rapes were more common in poorer communities than richer and committed by people known to the victims more often than not. Nearly thirty percent of victims were assaulted by their fellow students, while 20 percent were assaulted by teachers and another 20 percent were assaulted by family members. The remaining 30 percent were assaulted by non-family members who weren't teachers.

Neil Andersson and Ari Ho-Foster, who co-authored the study, rightly point out that the sheer volume of sexual abuse is likely to multiply given that children who are abused are more likely to become abusers — and, in fact, 10% of the victims in the study admit to also being perpetrators. They also suggest that the actual rate of abuse might be much higher given the continuing stigma associated with rape. One thing they don't delve into is how much the rate of assaults today has to do with the rate of assaults in previous generations — is this a multi-generational problem now multiplied by the sheer number of adult victims? Is the onset of widespread abuse associated with a specific period of time or has this been acceptable behavior for generations of schoolboys? It's hard to say.

Until 2007, raping a boy was not classified as a rape but as an "indecent assault," a legal change that the authors applaud. They additionally note that decreasing the rape of young boys could pay serious dividends in reducing the rate of HIV infection in South Africa, which then makes one consider the possibility that older people are preying on too-young children in order to satisfy sexual urges without fear of disease. How is is even possible that using a condom has less of a stigma than raping a child?

South African Epidemic Of Schoolboy Sexual Abuse [Science Daily]
Oprah School Abuse Trial Starts [BBC]

Two other adults, Jamie Pittman, 36 and his girlfriend Shauntel Mayo, 29, have been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for their roles, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Jurors deliberated for only five minutes before returning guilty verdicts in Pittman and Mayo's trial.

The Swingers Club was exposed in 2005 when one of the girls involved told her foster mother about the shows, saying, "everybody does nasty stuff in there." Permanent custody of the three siblings was recently granted to John and Margie Cantrell, but in a twist worthy of the most melodramatic soap opera, last week John Cantrell was charged with sexually assaulting a minor in California 18 years ago. The Cantrells claim that the accusations are false.

Texas Town Reels From Sex Abuse Of Children [AP via MSNBC]
Jury Selection To Begin Monday For Third Defendant In Mineola Swingers’ Club Case [Tyler Morning Telegraph]

Three of the Texas Supreme court members wrote in a dissenting opinion that while the Department of Family and Protective Services was wrong to take all the children, there was proper evidence given in order to remove adolescent girls from "a pattern or practice of sexual abuse."

While the Department of Family and Protective Services clearly abused power, some of the evidence presented by the Department was incredibly damning. According to the Texas Supreme Court decision, "the Department presented 'Bishop’s Records'— documents seized from the Ranch — indicating the presence of several extremely young mothers or pregnant 'wives' on the Ranch: a sixteen-year-old 'wife' with a child, a sixteen-year-old pregnant 'wife,' two pregnant fifteen-year-old “wives,” and a thirteen-year-old who had conceived a child." The expert witness from the FLDS themselves "confirmed that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints accepts the age of 'physical development' (that is, first menstruation) as the age of eligibility for 'marriage.'"

Texas Court Upholds Polygamist Removals Ruling [Reuters]
FLDS Ruling Upheld By Texas Supreme Court [Los Angeles Times]
FLDS Ruling [Texas Supreme Court]

According to the BBC, 10 UN "peacekeepers" gang-raped Elizabeth in a field. "They grabbed me and threw me to the ground and they forced themselves on me... I tried to escape but there were 10 of them and I could do nothing…I was terrified. Then they just left me there bleeding." When village elders tried to report the abuse, they were ignored.

Save the Children suggests that a global watchdog organization be formed to monitor these kinds of abuses, supplemented by local complaints mechanisms and public awareness campaigns. In the meantime, the UN says it has a zero tolerance policy when allegations of sexual abuse are at hand, and last year 100 Sri Lankan soldiers stationed in Haiti were sent home when it became evident that they were paying for sex.

Charity: Aid Workers Raping, Abusing Children [CNN]
Sexual Abuse Of Children By Aid Workers Too Often Unreported [Save the Children]
Peacekeepers 'Abusing Children' [BBC]

Earlier: If You Can't Afford Rice In Haiti, You Eat Dirt

FDLS brass of course, deny that any sexual abuse has occurred. Church spokesman Rod Parker thinks that the Texas Child Protective Services is underestimating the ages of the pregnant girls. Parker told the AP, "I do have serious questions about how they are determining age in there."

Each of the 463 minors taken from the YFZ ranch by the state of Texas is supposed to have an individual hearing by June 5 in order to determine if they should be put into foster care. Civil Liberties groups are arguing alongside that FDLS that the initial accusations of abuse only focused on teen girls, yet the state of Texas took every child, no matter age or gender. But couldn't it be argued that a culture that condones — however tacitly — the abuse of teenage girls is no culture for any child to be raised in?

Most Teen Girls From Ranch Have Been Pregnant [AP via MSNBC]
CPS: Half of Sect's Teen Girls Have Been Pregnant [AP via CNN]

Earlier: Authorities Take 400 More Kids From Polygamist Sect In Texas
Texas Officials Keep Teen Moms From Polygamist Sect In State Custody

This crime, perpetrated in the town of Amstetten, 93 miles outside of Vienna, was only discovered because Elisabeth's 19-year-old daughter, Kerstin, became so seriously ill that she had to go to the hospital. A DNA test done on Kersten showed that Josef was her biological father, and that set off an investigation that uncovered Josef's "house of horrors," as many papers are calling it. One of the more bizarre aspects of the gruesome tale is that Josef's wife, Elisabeth's mother Rosemarie, reportedly didn't know about what was going on in her cellar, and thought the three children that she and Josef were raising above ground were left on their doorstep by the still-"missing" Elisabeth.

The case is somewhat of a national embarrassment for Austria, as in 2006, it was discovered that a woman named Natascha Kampusch had been held in a cellar for 8 years by an abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, who had kidnapped her when she was 10 years old. Austrian newspaper Der Standard said in an op-ed about the crimes, "The entire nation must ask itself just what is fundamentally going wrong."

All six of the children — three boys and three girls — who were raised in the Fritzl's household are now in the care of authorities. There was a seventh child, who was the twin of another one of the children, but it died shortly after birth and was thrown into an incinerator by Josef. Police spokesman Franz Polzer told the BBC, "[The children] are being cared for individually - those between 12 and 16 years of age who grew up with their grandparents, and two boys who, when they came out yesterday with their mother, saw the daylight for the first time in their lives."

Austrian 'Hid Daughter In Cellar' [BBC]
Austrian Detectives Study Cellar [BBC]
Austrian Admits 24-year Abuse Of Daughter In Cellar [Reuters]
'House of Horrors' Father Confesses [CNN]

Dunkelziffer Tentacle [YouTube]

Lauterbach filed the rape charges against Laurean (pictured) in April, and according to the Washington Post, Maria was harassed so badly in the meantime by her fellow Marines that she had to move off-base. Neither Lauterbach nor Laurean was reassigned to a different base after these charges were filed, because, according to military authorities, they were on "friendly terms" and Maria was ostensibly protected by a military order issued in May and renewed three times since then.

As has been reported before 20% of female veterans who seek care from the VA hospital showed symptoms of military sexual trauma. CBS News notes that there have been "complaints from female service members that the male-dominated chain of command did not take their allegations seriously," and the reticence of the Department of Defense to get involved in the Jamie Leigh Jones rape case further implies that the U.S. military does not care about the safety of the women in its employ.

Laurean is currently still missing, and though there have been sightings of him in Louisiana, none have been confirmed. Doddering local sheriff, Ed Brown, who, when Maria first went missing, implied that she had simply run away, had this to say about Laurean when asked what the Marine was capable of: ""Based on what I saw in that grave, anything."

Urgency Of Search For Marine Questioned [Washington Post]
Possible Sighting Of Marine Murder Suspect [CBS News]
No 'Confirmed Sightings' Of Suspect In Marine's Killing [CNN]

Earlier:
Mom Of Missing, Pregnant Marine Says She Was Victim Of Sexual Assault By A Superior
What Did Missing Marine Maria Lauterbach Witness Before She Mysteriously Vanished?
DoD To Jamie Leigh Jones: You're On Your Own, Sweetie

In addition, Lauterbach wasn't just pregnant, she was almost to term. Her due date was January 8. Jacksonville's Sheriff Ed Brown told reporters, "You pray that she's alive." We certainly do.

Sheriff Pleads With Missing Marine To Get Help[CNN]

Earlier: What Did Missing Marine Maria Lauterbach Witness Before She Mysteriously Vanished?

• 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]

• The Killers' Brandon Flowers and his wife now have a son. They are both 26. We were about to feel a little depressed about this, but then we remembered that all three of the Hansons are now married with children. And now we feel really depressed. [People]
• The Catholic Church has been ordered to fork over $660 million to 500 alleged sexual abuse victims in Los Angeles alone. [CNN]
• The X-Files Movie, Round II?! Oh 1998, it's as if we never left you! [Entertainment Weekly]
• President Bush has pledged his support to Palestinian President Abbas. Oh, Georgie — way to play the Arabs both ways! [NYT]
• So unacceptable: Celebrity The Apprentice. Any (has been) star who goes on this show will lose whatever piddling amount of respect we still hold for them. [USA Today]
• 1 U.S. casualty identified over the weekend. [DoD]