America’s Crazy World of Child Protection (find your state here)
America’s Crazy World of Child Protection (find your state here)
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Mike Tikkanen’s Public Comments to the Guardian ad Litem Cost Effectiveness Analysis Report
Mike Tikkanen’s Public Comments on the Guardian ad Litem Cost Effectiveness Analysis
for the Minnesota Guardian ad Litem Board Dated September 15, 2023
This report (the actual final report is posted below)
Tennessee’s Child Marriage Bill & Taliban Doctrine
Massachusetts has the lowest minimum marriage age with parental consent of 14 years old for boys and 12 years old for girls. Afghan parents sell their 7 year-old daughters into arranged marriages & the Taliban has for years practiced child sex abuse.
Tennessee may soon have child brides in common with the Taliban and Afghan parents.
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Child Sex Abuse & The Mormon & Baptist Church (stopping child abuse requires adults report it)
The KARA article below from 2016 about the Mormon & Baptist Church hiding abuse provides insight into how hard it is to achieve transparency and accountability in children’s rights issues. This May 2022 NY Times article captures the fact that not much has changed.
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Child Rape, Data, Reporting & Religion
This NY Times article about Baptist Sex-abuse survivors shines a light on the commonality of child sex abuse in America. For a very long time, Tennessee allowed ten year olds to wed (almost always to older men).
DetailsOther People’s Children Are Not Society’s Problem – Senator Ron Johnson
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is not alone in publicly stating the expensive and mean spirited political platform
Other People’s Children Are Not Society’s Problem – Senator Ron Johnson
Children Living & Dying As Martyrs to a Parents Religion
Many American newborns remain untested and untreated for very treatable metabolic disorders, hearing, sight & blood lead level s. 48 States allow religious exemptions from vaccination.
Some states allow religion to keep children from TB testing in school. 43 states give some kind of criminal or civil immunity to parents injuring their children by withholding medical care on religious grounds.
Six states let parents keep teachers from teaching their children about disease in school.
Over the years KARA has reported on children dying because their parents withheld medical treatment because the church told them to do so.
Some religions allow child neglect and abuse & some states allow a religious defense against charges of murdering their child – and “some can’t be charged with murder at all” (Slate).
2 years ago, Kansas State Rep Gail Finney vowed to pass a bill that allowed caregivers to leave bruises and cause bleeding. Arkansas State Rep Charles Fuqua promoted the death penalty for rebellious children (based on religious grounds).
As a volunteer County guardian ad-Litem, it has been awful to observe sexually abused two and four year old children and children suffering from violent physical abuse and neglect live through that abuse & try to overcome the terror and traumas inflicted upon them to make for themselves a normal life. Not many do.
KARA believes the U.S. should ratify the International Rights of the Child Treaty (we are the only nation not to have done so).
There are many cults in America that need to be exposed for the terrible way they treat children. Here’s one reported on by the Daily Beast this morning (send KARA your examples & forward this to your state rep).
Here’s a breakdown from Children’s Healthcare that shows a breakdown of states and their religious exemptions.
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Women’s Rights & Children’s Rights
100 years ago, women were property (legally) and a husband could do just about anything to his wife. Murder was still murder, but anything else was treated by law enforcement much like animal abuse was in the day (not a big deal for the courts to be concerned with).
20 years ago I became a volunteer *CASA guardian ad Litem (voice for the child) in County child protection and saw first hand what it’s like for an American citizen to have no voice in the home, no voice in the courts and no voice in the media.
Over 25 years ago the rest of the world (194 nations) decided that children have basic human rights and begin signing the International Rights of the Child Treaty. Under this document, children are to have the rights to education, safety and well being including not to be made soldiers and not to be enslaved).
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Parental Rights & Child Wellbeing
Is it Child Safety and Wellbeing or Parental Rights?
Have we lost sight of the purpose of Child Protective Services in our political wars to keep the rights of the person that can scream the loudest?
DetailsCatholic Charities of Boston vs. The Vatican (from 2012)
I should know. I was the chairman of the board of directors for Catholic Charities of Boston.
I feel compelled to set the record straight and let voters in Maine, who might not remember what actually happened, know the truth.
Like many of my fellow Catholics, I believe our greatest commandment is to help those who are in need and to love our neighbors as ourselves. That call is why I joined the board of directors of Catholic Charities of Boston.
I was especially proud of our work facilitating the adoption of abandoned and neglected children.
Catholic Charities used the one and only criteria that’s appropriate for adoption agencies — the best interest of the child.
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