tagged w/ Child Abuse
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The ACLU yesterday filed a lawsuit against various agencies of the Obama administration — the Justice and Defense Departments and the CIA — over their refusal to disclose any information about the assassination of American citizens. In October, the ACLU filed a FOIA request demanding disclosure of the most basic information about the CIA’s killing of 3 American citizens in Yemen: Anwar Awlaki and Samir Khan, killed by missiles fired by a U.S. drone in September, and Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, killed by another drone attack two weeks later.
The ACLU’s FOIA request sought merely to learn the legal and factual basis for these killings — meaning: tell us what legal theories you’ve adopted to secretly target U.S. citizens for execution, and what factual basis did you have to launch these specific strikes? The DOJ and CIA responded not only by refusing to provide any of this information, but refused even to confirm if any of the requested documents exist; in other words, as the ACLU put it yesterday , “these agencies are saying the targeted killing program is so secret that they can’t even acknowledge that it exists.” That refusal is what prompted yesterday’s lawsuit (in December, the New York Times also sued the Obama administration after it failed to produce DOJ legal memoranda “justifying” the assassination program in response to a FOIA request from reporters Charlie Savage and Scott Shane, but the ACLU’s lawsuit seeks disclosure of both the legal and factual bases for these executions).
Full Story: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administration_over_assassination_secrecy/singleton/The ACLU yesterday filed a lawsuit against various agencies of the Obama... more
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Sex trafficking of girls and boys on Backpage.com, owned by Village Voice Media, is becoming a disturbing trend.
A Georgia man was arrested for pimping two 17-year-old girls around the Nashville area. Detectives responded to a suspicious ad on Backpage.com and drove to a motel. There, they found the teens and their 37-year-old pimp, as well as a laptop computer, likely used for the online advertising. Just four days prior to that, four people in Denver were arrested for forcing a teen girl into prostitution. They also advertised her sexual services, including semi-nude pictures, on Backpage. And last year, a South Dakota couple was arrested for selling underage girls for sex on .... wait for it ... Backpage.com yet again.
Village Voice Media has a moral responsibility to ensure that young girls and boys aren't being abused in the commercial sex industry with help from their website.
Now, a rising movement of people of many faiths and backgrounds, motivated by their shared moral convictions, are taking action to end this practice.
Please join us in demanding that Village Voice Media - Backpage.com's parent company - stop selling ads that others use to sell minors on Backpage.com by shutting down the Adult section of the website.
http://tinyurl.com/6h7vtc9Sex trafficking of girls and boys on Backpage.com, owned by Village Voice Media, is... more
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LOrion
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added this
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19 days ago
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CNN...
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THE CNN FREEDOM PROJECT ENDING MODERN-DAY SLAVERY
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January 19th, 2012
12:03 PM ET
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Child slavery and chocolate: All too easy to find
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In "Chocolate's Child Slaves," CNN's David McKenzie travels into the heart of the Ivory Coast to investigate children working in the cocoa fields.
(More information and air times on CNN International.)
By David McKenzie and Brent Swails, CNN
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CLICK ON CNN LINK (at top) TO VIEW THREE VIDEOS
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Daloa, Ivory Coast (CNN) - Chocolate’s billion-dollar industry starts with workers like Abdul. He squats with a gang of a dozen harvesters on an Ivory Coast farm.
Abdul holds the yellow cocoa pod lengthwise and gives it two quick cracks, snapping it open to reveal milky white cocoa beans. He dumps the beans on a growing pile.
Abdul is 10 years old, a three-year veteran of the job.
He has never tasted chocolate.
During the course of an investigation for CNN’s Freedom Project initiative - an investigation that went deep into the cocoa fields of Ivory Coast - a team of CNN journalists found that child labor, trafficking and slavery are rife in an industry that produces some of the world’s best-known brands.
It was not supposed to be this way.
After a series of news reports surfaced in 2001 about gross violations in the cocoa industry, lawmakers in the United States put immense pressure on the industry to change.
“We felt like the public ought to know about it, and we ought to take some action to try to stop it,” said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who, together with Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, spearheaded the response. “How many people in America know that all this chocolate they are eating - candies and all of those wonderful chocolates - is being produced by terrible child labor?”
But after intense lobbying by the cocoa industry, lawmakers weren’t able to push through a law. What they got was a voluntary protocol, signed by the heads of the chocolate industry, to stop the worst forms of child labor “as a matter of urgency.” One of the key goals was to certify the cocoa trade as child-labor free.
“It was meant to achieve the end of child slave labor in cocoa fields,” Engel said.
It didn’t.
UNICEF estimates that nearly a half-million children work on farms across Ivory Coast, which produces nearly 40% of the world’s supply of cocoa. The agency says hundreds of thousands of children, many of them trafficked across borders, are engaged in the worst forms of child labor.
A recent study by Tulane University says the industry’s efforts to stop child labor are “uneven” and “incomplete” and that 97% of Ivory Coast’s farmers had not been reached. But the industry’s main representative in the country disagrees with the assessment.
“I think the situation has improved exponentially,” said Rabola Kagohi, country director for the International Cocoa Initiative, the chocolate industry’s answer to fighting child labor and trafficking. “Today, the message is physically getting through.”
Kagohi works out of a basement office with one other permanent employee.
“There are some results,” he said. “I wish that you had spoken to some planters.”
None of the farmers CNN spoke to in the heart of the cocoa production region said they had ever been reached by the International Cocoa Initiative, the government or chocolate companies about child trafficking.
Children such as Abdul don’t know anything about protocols or certification. All they know is work.
When Abdul’s mother died, a stranger brought him across the border to the farm. Abdul says all he’s given is a little food, the torn clothes on his back, and an occasional tip from the farmer. Abdul is a modern child slave.
And he is not the only youngster working in his group.
Yacou insisted he is 16, but his face looks far younger.
“My mother brought me from Burkina Faso when my father died,” he said.
Scars crisscross Yacou’s legs from a machete. He can’t clear grass in the cocoa fields without cutting himself. During harvest season, he works day after day hacking the cocoa pods.
The emotional scars run much deeper.
“I wish I could go to school. I want to read and write,” he said. But Yacou hasn’t spent a single day in school, and he has no idea how to leave the farm.
“It makes me angry,” Engel said. As far as he’s concerned, the chocolate companies haven't done enough.
“They are working with us, and we are glad that they are working with us. But they could do better.”
One of the major players in the Ivory Coast cocoa trade is, not surprisingly, the Ivorian government. Although the country has cornered a vast chunk of a lucrative market, it is considered one of the world’s poorest by any measure.
But the government leadership blames politics and war for the problems in the cocoa industry.
“Thirty years of political instability caused a lot of damage to our economy generally, and to the agricultural sector particularly, and more specifically to the cocoa industry,” said Ivory Coast’s minister of agriculture, Sangafowa Coulibaly. “Unfortunately, these years have been lost.”
After an attempted coup in 2002, the country was split in half and kept from all-out civil war by the United Nations. There was protracted violence after the last disputed presidential elections, when then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede.
With the new government of Alassane Ouattara in charge, the government says it can now put much-needed reforms in place.
“Things can only get better,” Coulibaly said. “The main reason is that today, the political crisis is behind us, the armed conflict is behind us.”
But many observers believe that a new government won’t make it a priority to stop slavery in the cocoa fields.
And with peace, traffickers are free to do their work again. U.N. officials told CNN that the Ivory Coast conflict actually helped slow down trafficking because people were too afraid to move across borders.
Contrary to the promises of action, CNN’s investigation could only find promises. And those promises are empty to children like Abdul and Yacou.
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Post by: CNN's Brent Swails, CNN's David McKenzie
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THE CNN FREEDOM PROJECT ENDING MODERN-DAY SLAVERY
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January 19th,... more
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It's a boy! And he's five. Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, have spent half the decade concealing the gender of their son, Sasha.
"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping," Laxton said in an interview with the Cambridge News. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"
Take a look at the most controversial parenting stories of the year.
Laxton, a UK-based web editor, and her partner, Cooper, decided to keep Sasha's sex a secret when he was still in the womb. The birth announcement stated the name of the gender-neutral name of their child, but skipped the big reveal. Up until recently, the couple only told a few close friends and family members that Sasha was a boy and managed to keep the rest of the world in the dark. But now that he's starting school the secret's out.
For years, Becks has been referring to her child, the youngest of three, as "the infant" on her personal blog. But guarding the public from her son's gender was only part of her quest to let her kid just be a kid.
Sasha dresses in clothes he likes -- be it a hand-me-downs from his sister or his brother. The big no-no's are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts. In one photo, sent to friends and family, Sasha's dressed in a shiny pink girl's swimsuit. "Children like sparkly things," says Beck. "And if someone thought Sasha was a girl because he was wearing a pink swimming costume, then what effect would that have? "
Sasha's also not short on dolls, though Barbie is also off limits. "She's banned because she's horrible," Laxton says in Cambridge interview.
On a macro level she hopes her son sets an example for other parents and makes them reconsider buying their sons trucks or forcing their daughters into tights. She's seen how those consumer trappings affect how and who kids play with in the sandbox.
See how one preschool is fighting gender bias in the classroom
But the sandbox is just a precursor to the classroom. When Sasha turned five and headed to school, Laxton was forced to make her son's sex public. That meant Sasha would have to get used to being a boy in the eyes of his peers. Still, his mom is intervening. While the school requires different uniforms for boys and girls, Sasha wears a girl's blouse with his pants.
"I don't think I'd do it if I thought it was going to make him unhappy, but at the moment he's not really bothered either way. We haven't had any difficult scenarios yet."
Last year another couple, Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, of Toronto made a similar decision when they had their baby, Storm. At the time, certain psychiatric experts voiced concern over their decision. "To have a sense of self and personal identity is a critical part of normal healthy development," Dr. Eugene Beresin, director of training in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, told ABC News. "This blocks that and sets the child up for bullying, scapegoating and marginalization."
But as parents well know, bullying is hard for any child to avoid. It's more important to raise someone who's confident enough in himself to overcome peer pressure. It's also important to have his parents have his back (remember the mom who defended her son's choice in a Halloween costume?) Maybe Sasha's early years will be character building, maybe he'll have a higher emotional quotient being raised with dual perspectives on gender. Or the reverse could be true: Sasha may have less of a formed identity because of his upbringing, and feel angry at his mom for dressing him in flowery shirts and telling the world about it. Then again, maybe he'll get over it.
As for Laxton, she says she's open to her son pursing any career or sexual preference he chooses as he matures. "As long as he has good relationships and good friends," she says, "then nothing else matters, does it?"
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-finally-reveals-childs-gender-five-years-birth-180300388.htmlIt's a boy! And he's five. Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44,... more
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With almost 17 million people packed into its crowded city streets, New Delhi is the perfect place for people to get lost.
But some are never found again. They disappear. That is what happened to Rao Kumar’s 12-year-old son, Ravi.With almost 17 million people packed into its crowded city streets, New Delhi is the... more
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EXCLUSIVE: Tour of a lifetime featuring DJ Mona-Lisa...music icon, reality star and world renown broadcaster. Amidst false rumors, cyberspace hottest star strives to become happy! Hit songs by popular artist, Leona Lewis relates to intricate pain thus enabling Femme Fatale to become the ultimate 5 stars video courtesy of DJ Mona-Lisa Broadcast, advocate of children raped and molested: http://youtu.be/ExXEYJ-9LEAEXCLUSIVE: Tour of a lifetime featuring DJ Mona-Lisa...music icon, reality star and... more
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While the establishment media has ceaselessly smeared Ron Paul for the controversial content of decades-old newsletters that were not even written by him, the comparatively shocking scandal of Rick Santorum having sponsored alleged child molester Jerry Sandusky has been almost universally ignored.
Santorum, who has cultivated an image as a clean-cut social conservative trumpeting family values, nominated Sandusky for a “Congressional Angels in Adoption Award,” after Sandusky had already been accused of at least five cases of child molestation.
“Its philosophy is simple,” said Santorum of Sandusky’s charity, “It is easier to develop a child than to rehabilitate an adult.”While the establishment media has ceaselessly smeared Ron Paul for the controversial... more
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Knowledge is one of the most valuable and beautiful gifts that we can give ourselves in this world.
Ghandi once said "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." And while these words are so profound I put them on a sticky note next to my alarm clock in college in hopes it would make me get my ass out of bed on time, there is something that peaceful little son of a bitch forgot to mention about knowledge.
Some things, no matter how hard you try, you just can't unlearn.
Sure, there are some things, such as the Snuggie, that make me a bit cranky. But if I was in a freezing car, broken down on the side of the road in the middle of a blizzard and needed to stay warm to stave off possible hypothermia, would I wrap myself in a Snuggie to keep warm? Of course not. But I wouldn't blame someone else if they did. Do what you need to do to to stay alive. But maybe just plan ahead next time and have a bathrobe handy instead. Or, you know....real clothes.
There are a few things, however, that when I research them send me into a fit of pale Irish fury so severe that I have difficulty forming complete sentences out loud. Luckily, this blog is all about the written word, so I will do my best to articulate in writing the heaping pile of bullshit I have just experienced courtesy of the interwebs.
Toddlers and Tiaras
I don't know if the rest of you are aware of this, but there is such a thing as a child beauty pageant. In these pageants, girls, and sometimes boys, as young a 8 months old (according to my cursory research) compete to see who will be named the child most likely to grow up to have severe psychological problems. It's like high school yearbook superlatives, except all of the contestants are still knee high to a duck and haven't yet begun trying to dry hump anything with a pulse.
Read More at Link:
http://itslonelyuphere.blogspot.com/2012/01/toddlers-and-mother-fing-tiaras.htmlKnowledge is one of the most valuable and beautiful gifts that we can give ourselves... more
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KevJ
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1 month ago
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There's nothing funny about child rape, but I approve of this kind of protest.
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Even if you were watching closely as UH dominated Penn State in the Ticketcity.com Bowl Monday, you might not have noticed one attendee.
The notorious Pedobear, an internet meme embodying child molesters, was not only there, not only carrying a sign with the Penn State symbol saying "Keep Quiet and Don't Tell Anyone," but he showed up on the JumboTron, as the above picture from Deadspin shows.
Deadspin says the Shaggy Bevo UT message board took credit.
We're sure Cotton Bowl security simply thought he was a Houston Cougar (or a Nittany Lion?), but we're hoping there are no pictures of him making the Cougar hand signal.There's nothing funny about child rape, but I approve of this kind of protest.... more
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PLS SIGN AND SHARE! Everyone in the country should be aghast that this man still has a job!
"A key reason for the petition, according to organizers, is what they characterize as Arpaio’s office’s disregard for constitutional rights. The letter that is part of the petition cites the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office failure “to investigate hundreds of sex-crime cases involving children,” which it says “is just one in a long list of atrocities that have taken place during Arpaio's 20 years in power.”
http://tinyurl.com/c9g8qktPLS SIGN AND SHARE! Everyone in the country should be aghast that this man still has a... more
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LOrion
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added this
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1 month ago
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Parents, it seems, are no longer trusted to parent. If you fail to take on the latest childcare fad deemed best by policy makers for your baby, then you risk being judged a 'bad parent' - guilty of some kind of negligence and abuse. Hence the recent story in the UK of four children being taken away from their parents, without a right to contact, because the family were fat. WORLDbytes Citizen TV makers visited Jennie Bristow, journalist and writer of Standing Up To Supernanny and Alison Small and Jane Sandeman, members of the Institute of Ideas Parenting Forum who provide a critical and thought provoking perspective, questioning prevailing distrust.Parents, it seems, are no longer trusted to parent. If you fail to take on the latest... more
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An Orthodox Jewish community has had to face up to claims of child sex abuse after 83 men and two women were arrested.An Orthodox Jewish community has had to face up to claims of child sex abuse after 83... more
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If we elect Newt, we can expect the same for our children...
By Jessica Hopper
Rock Center
Samba Diarra, 15, journeyed 200 miles to live in a plastic hut alone and work in an artisanal gold mine in Mali. The teen came to the mine to help support his five younger brothers and sisters.
“The main reason I left home is to help my parents and sending them money is my main goal,” Diarra said.
Diarra’s parents can’t afford to send him to school because he has to support his younger siblings. He is one of at least 20,000 children working in Mali’s artisanal mines.
Mali is Africa’s third largest gold producer. Artisanal mines rely on heavy human labor and little mechanization. People throughout West Africa are flocking to work in the primitive pits.
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“Globally, we’ve seen an increase with the number of artisanal gold miners because of the rise of gold prices, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to better living conditions,” said Juliane Kippenberg who helped author a forthcoming Human Rights Watch report on Mali’s mines.
Read the rest here:
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/05/9213056-digging-for-gold-children-work-in-harsh-conditions-paid-with-bags-of-dirtIf we elect Newt, we can expect the same for our children...
By Jessica Hopper... more
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So what's up with these extremely racist British women that go HAM on people because of their ethnicity? It must be really bad over there. The other video below is of another racist British woman on another London tram going off on an Indian dude. WTF ...disgusting potty mouths. Stay Classy United Kingdom.So what's up with these extremely racist British women that go HAM on people... more
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A child protection group is launching a television service that it hopes will help prevent sex abuse scandals like the one engulfing Penn State University’s football team.A child protection group is launching a television service that it hopes will help... more
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Apparently Penn State is not alone in deciding that the health and well-being of the institute is more important than the lives of children who are victimized.
The Citadel in South Carolina, a military academy, did not pursue sexual misconduct allegations against one of their camp counselors four years ago. The perpetrator went on to molest 5 more children, and is currently jailed for those offenses.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/13/justice/south-carolina-citadel-abuse/?hpt=us_c2Apparently Penn State is not alone in deciding that the health and well-being of the... more
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The Penn State child rape scandal/coverup is a matter of Homeland Security (see Franklin Coverup)
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In an exclusive interview with ESPNWilliamsport.com former Press Secretary for Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Chuck Ardo stated that in conversations he has had with high ranking officials with knowledge of the situation at Penn State “Tom Ridge would be welcomed as the leading candidate” (to replace outgoing PSU President Graham Spanier).
Within the state of Pennsylvania and nationally Ridge is well respected for his work not only as a Governor but as the first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Spanier will either retire or be fired as early as this afternoon. Current Governor Tom Corbett is currently traveling and is expected to be in State College as early as this afternoon to meet with the Board of Trustees at Penn State.
Once it is announced that Spanier is no longer PSU President, it is believed that the Honorable Tom Ridge will be appointed acting President of Penn State University by Governor Corbett. The appointment must also be ratified by the Board of Trustees at Penn State. Additional sources have shared with ESPNWilliamsport.com that the move to install Ridge will be greeted with overwhelming support.
http://blog.pennlive.com/midstate_impact/2008/02/_519861911052007.jpgThe Penn State child rape scandal/coverup is a matter of Homeland Security (see... more
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There is a brutal movement in America that legitimizes child abuse in the name of God. Two stories recently converged to make us pay attention. Last week, a video went viral of a Texas judge brutally whipping his disabled daughterThere is a brutal movement in America that legitimizes child abuse in the name of God.... more
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Many folks in the media have been asking: What will this terrible scandal do to Joe Paterno's legacy?
Folks, this is Joe Paterno's legacy....
Still, from now on when I think of Paterno, I won't think of his 400-and-whatever wins or his spotless (until now) program. I won't remember what Paterno did, but what he didn't do. What he didn't do is what got him fired Wednesday by the Penn State board of trustees.
Firing Joe Paterno doesn't fix everything, but it's a great start.
With responsibility comes responsibility.
Look, witnesses have testified that Sandusky did bad things with young boys in the Penn State football shower room. At least two janitors knew. At least one assistant coach knew. The athletic director and the school vice president knew. The school president knew. Paterno knew.
What is the over-under number on how many people have to know about a depraved predator working under their noses before one of them takes a step to stop the predator and protect the victims?
http://tinyurl.com/7auas56Many folks in the media have been asking: What will this terrible scandal do to Joe... more
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LOrion
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added this
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3 months ago
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Introduction
Every five hours a child dies from abuse or neglect in the US.
The latest government figures show an estimated 1,770 children were killed as a result of maltreatment in 2009.
A recent congressional report concludes the real number could be nearer 2,500.
In fact, America has the worst child abuse record in the industrialised world. Why? The BBC's Natalia Antelava investigates.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15288865Introduction
Every five hours a child dies from abuse or neglect in the US.
The... more
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