Zeller’s note:
I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I’ll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it’s true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning.
DetailsLike many small towns and families, people do not like to deal with child sexual assault and child abuse, in their communities and/or in their homes.
Despite the fact, that 1 in 3 girls, and 1 in 6 boys will be abused before their eighteenth birthday; despite the fact that only 10% tell and the other 90% are still living in a cloak of denial and secracy; despite the fact that 5 children die a day, due to child abuse and child sexual assualt!
DetailsState probation agents made three visits since mid-December to the Madison, Wis., house where prosecutors say a 15-year-old girl was tortured, starved and abused by her parents and stepbrother, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
The girl was found barefoot in pajamas Feb. 6 by a neighbor outside the Southeast Side house. Her stepmother, Melinda Drabek-Chritton; father, Chad Chritton; and stepbrother, Joshua Drabek, were charged Thursday with various counts related to child abuse.
According to a criminal complaint, the girl was forced to live in an unfinished basement, scavenge food from the garbage and eat her own feces.
DetailsAs a long time guardian ad-Litem I’ve encountered too many suicides and suicide attempts that are a direct result of child rape.
I have not read the suicide note written by the seven year old foster child that hung himself in Florida, but I have read the most powerful suicide note ever written by a person raped as a child and it is printed below.
DetailsHer advice to us was to report animal abuse because animal abuse gets investigated & when it is investigated, those people see things that can trigger a social worker saving a child.
This seemed pathetic to me at the time, but now I tell people how important it is.
DetailsWhat do you think about the impact of suicide on the children of the over one thousand MN veterans that have committed suicide? If you know the children of a suicidal parent you know torture.
DetailsThe Academy has studied and identified the relationship between interpersonal violence and health and could make a profound difference in the lives of abused people if the research, tools, and information they have compiled were to become part of the mainstream medical world. Doctors can make a difference. They need to know about www.AVAhealth.org
DetailsThe public reaction when a baby dies or is found in a dumpster should be one of sadness and a desire to see that children are safer in their community. Something like, “what can we do to see that this does not happen again?”
DetailsWhile the child abuse/child neglect crisis is one of major national concern, it also is of particular significance in the top 12 states that are above the national average for child abuse/neglect deaths (2.33 per 100,000 children): Florida 4.62; Nebraska 3.80; New Mexico 3.78; Tennessee 3.72; Oklahoma 3.42; Texas 3.32; Arkansas 2.99; Missouri 2.95; Louisiana and Ohio (both at 2.71); Georgia 2.67; and Colorado 2.65.
DetailsSince then, I have witnessed very young children (under 7) try to kill themselves and seen others exhibit terrifying behaviors (starting fires, stabbing, etc) that I know to be a direct result of the abuse they have suffered.
A few of these children I have been in contact with for over ten years and I know that not a day goes by without them reliving the unspeakable acts that have made them who they are.
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