US Catholic Church new child sex abuse scandal, trafficking of women
also :
Childhood stress leads to adult ill health, studies say
Half the Sky: how the trafficking of women today is on a par with genocide
US Catholic Church tarred with new child sex abuse scandal
(AFP) - 8/19/10 LOS ANGELES - The Roman Catholic Church in the United
States has become embroiled in a new pedophilia scandal with six women and one
man alleging sexual abuse by a priest over three decades. The lawsuit filed
Wednesday in Oakland, California accused Father Stephen Kiesle of acts of
sexual abuse between 1972 and 2001, and alleged that Catholic Church
officials knew of the crimes but did not stop them...."The Catholic bishops in
the
United States of America and the Holy See have long facilitated the sexual
molestation of children by engaging in the harboring and protection of
known child molesting priests," read a copy of the latest lawsuit obtained by
AFP. "The bishops and Catholic hierarchs have done so to prevent the priest
s from being prosecuted and to avoid scandal," the lawsuit read.
It said church figures "have subjected Catholic families and children in
these communities to known pedophiles, counting on the devotion and
reverence in the communities to keep any further abuse by the priests secret."
The
plaintiffs, six women and one man, said they were abused by Kiesle
throughout childhood and adolescence, although one alleged victim, Teresa
Rosson,
48, said she suffered abuse at the hand of the cleric until about a decade
ago....The church paid out 436 million dollars in 2008 for sex abuse cases
involving clergy members, according to an official report last year.
_http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gQBBSk_uYg4jA3-9tCdlGsxSDhnw_
(http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gQBBSk_uYg4jA3-9tCdlGsxSDh
nw)
Half the Sky: how the trafficking of women today is on a par with genocide
The authors of a new book, Half the Sky, say the slavery and abuse of
women is the greatest moral outrage of our century
Ed Pilkington The Guardian, 19 August 2010....The story of Neth and Momm
is just a small indication of the lengths Kristof and WuDunn are prepared
to go to expose the injustices that they see in the modern world. Buying up
child prostitutes is pretty extreme, but no more than the message they are
seeking to deliver in their groundbreaking book, Half the Sky.
In it, they argue that the world is in the grip of a massive moral outrage
no less egregious in scale or in the intensity of despair than the African
slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries or the genocides of the 20th.
They believe this outrage is a key factor behind many of the most pressing
economic and political issues today, from famine in Africa to Islamist
terrorism and climate change. Yet they say the phenomenon is largely hidden,
invisible to most of us and passing relatively unreported. At worst it is
actively tolerated; at best it is ignored....WuDunn chimes in: "When you hear
that 60 to 100 million females are missing in the current population, we
thought that number compares in the scope and size. And then you compare the
slave trade at its peak in the 1780s, when there were 80,000 slaves
transported from Africa to the New World, and you see there are now 10 times
that
amount of women trafficked across international borders, so you start to
think you are talking about comparable weight."....Half the Sky: How to Change
the World by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is published by Virago
_http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/19/women-slavery-half-the-sky_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/19/women-slavery-half-the-sky)
Half the Sky: how the other half suffer Half the Sky has been described
as 'a brutal awakening' and is a bestseller in the US. But can its
accounts of violence and injustice to women in the developing world really
come as
such a surprise?
Germaine Greer The Guardian....The book lays out "an agenda for the
world's women focusing on three particular abuses: sex trafficking and forced
prostitution; gender-based violence, including honour killings and mass rape;
and maternal mortality, which still needlessly claims one woman a minute".
Gender-based violence here includes wife-beating in Asia, but not
wife-killing in Britain or America. "Rape has become endemic in South Africa"
we
learn – as if rape had not coexisted with apartheid.
_http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/31/half-the-sky-germaine-gr
eer_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/31/half-the-sky-germaine-greer)
Childhood stress leads to adult ill health, studies say
Stress in childhood has long-term effects say psychologists 14 August
2010 Adversity and stress early in life leads to long-term ill health and
early death, a group of psychologists warn. A series of studies suggest that
childhood stress caused by poverty or abuse can lead to heart disease,
inflammation, and speed up cell ageing. The American Psychological Association
meeting heard that early experiences "cast a long shadow" on health....
Another study presented at the conference showed that childhood events
such as the death of a parent or abuse can make people more vulnerable to the
effects of stress in later life and even shorten lifespan. Researchers at
Ohio State University looked at a group of older adults - some of whom were
carers for people with dementia. They measured several markers of
inflammation in the blood which can be signs of stress, as well as the length
of
telomeres - protective caps on the ends of chromosomes which have been linked
to age-related diseases. The 132 participants also answered a questionnaire
on depression and past child abuse and neglect.
A third study reported some sort of physical, emotional or sexual abuse
during childhood. Those who did face adversity as children had shorter
telomeres and increased levels of inflammation even after controlling for age,
care-giving status, gender, body mass index, exercise and sleep. Study leader
Professor Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, said: "Our latest research shows that
childhood adversity casts a long shadow on one's health and can lead to
inflammation and cell ageing much earlier than for those who haven't
experienced
these events. "Those reporting multiple adversities could shorten their
lifespan by seven to 15 years," she added. Dr Andrea Danese, a clinical
lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said such studies had to be
interpreted carefully because there is a chance that people do not recall
their childhoods accurately and you can only show an association not prove
causality. "But that doesn't mean I don't believe these results.
"The evidence is quite consistent. "It's already been established that
childhood stress has an effect on mental health and it now seems like it has an
enduring effect on physical health." He said that stress causes an
increase in inflammatory proteins which could underpin the physical
consequences
suggested by the research.
_http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10965862_
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10965862)
