National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse
National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse
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NAASCA Highlights
- Media Watch -
EDITOR'S NOTE: Here are a few recent stories and feature articles from a variety of sources that are related to the kinds of issues we cover on our web site. They'll represent a small percentage of the information available to us, the public, as we fight to provide meaningful recovery services and help for those who've suffered child abuse. We'll add to and update this page regularly, bringing you just a few of the featured articles on the web site.
Here are a few recent stories and feature articles from a variety of media sources that are related to the kinds of issues we cover on our web site. They'll represent a small percentage of the information available to us, the public, as we fight to provide meaningful recovery services and help for those who've suffered child abuse. We'll add to and update this page regularly.
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includes responses to
this OPINION piece
from NY Times readers
As the Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State University shows, reporting on allegations of sex crimes poses a challenge not only to get the story right but to deliver it in language that puts the facts in the proper light. Some readers, responding to The New York Times's first reports on the case, strongly objected to wording in the articles that, in their view, either underplayed the details or wrongly applied the language of consensual sex to the narrative.
The objections focused on the most severe of the accusations against Mr. Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant coach. According to the grand jury report, he subjected a boy estimated to be 10 years old to “anal intercourse” in locker room showers at the university in 2002.
by Teresa Huizar -- Executive Director, National Children's Alliance
In response to the recently aired investigative news report on child abuse fatalities in the United States by the BBC, I want to call attention to the importance of child advocacy in the U.S. This issue deserves our attention now more than ever before.
This multimedia, 22-minute story, entitled "America's Death Shame," began airing Monday, Oct. 17 on BBC World News affiliates, including PBS and NPR stations in most American cities.
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Today My Life Begins
Jessica Stevens, co-host on our "Stop Child Abuse Now" radio talk show, offers this Bruno Mars video for your consideration. She says, "I support Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, and this song is perfect for the new life that awaits you. There is Hope and Healing for All."
Jaycee Dugard makes a first Public Service announcement on behalf of The JAYC Foundation:
"Just Ask Yourself to Care. If you see something that looks wrong or amiss, speak out! You might be wrong, but you might just save someone's life. This is presented by the JAYC Foundation."
The kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard occurred on June 10, 1991 in South Lake Tahoe, California. Dugard was 11 years old at the time and was abducted from a street while she was walking from home to a school bus stop.
Searches began immediately, but no reliable leads were generated. She remained missing for more nearly two decades.
In 2009, convicted sex offender Phillip Craig Garrido and his wife were arrested when Dugard was recsued after being kept in a concealed area behind their house in Antioch for 18 years. During this time Dugard bore two daughters to Garrido, who were aged 11 and 15 at the time of her reappearance.
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"Concrete Angel" video
uploaded by KakashiStudent
YouTube - July 1, 2007
This is a video I made in memory of Dennis Jurgens, a four year old boy
murdered by his abusive mother.
This is a library full of the stories of famous people and celebrities who have survived abuse and gone on to thrive and find joy, folks whose inspiring stories you may want to read.
According to former child star Corey Feldman, child molestation is rampant in the entertainment industry, as he told Nightline in an interview. "The No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia," he said Wednesday. According to Feldman, the “casting couch” exists for children, too.
Feldman asserts that directors and other adults in the industry take advantage of young aspiring actors on a regular basis. “It's all done under the radar... But it's the big secret,” the 40-year-old said. Feldman also claimed that former co-star Corey Haim's death last year was the end result of sexual abuse by an unnamed "Hollywood mogul." Feldman said that his friend's substance addiction was "a symptom” of the molestation he experienced.
He's made his name with a controversial show that catches would-be internet sex perverts in televised stings.
But now Chris Hansen has found himself on the receiving end of his own hidden camera tactics, after the married NBC anchor was secretly filmed on an illicit date with a blonde television reporter 20 years his junior.
Hansen, 51, has allegedly been having an affair with Kristyn Caddell, a 30-year-old Florida journalist, for the last four months.
Last weekend he was recorded taking Miss Caddell on a romantic dinner at the exclusive Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, before spending the night at her Palm Beach apartment.
Hansen, who has two young sons, was caught in an undercover sting operation arranged by the National Enquirer.
Discussing a painful past with VH1's Behind the Music, Mary J. Blige opened up about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child and revealed it left her feeling worthless and ashamed.
"When I was five years old I was molested and just, you know. I remember feeling, literally right before it happened, I just could not believe that this person was going to do this to me," Blige, 40, said of the abuse by a family friend.
"That thing followed me all my life," she confided. "The shame of thinking my molestation was my fault - it led me to believe I wasn't worth anything."
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Video shows how sexual predators think
by JILL L. REED
It is disturbing to think about, but when it comes to protecting kids from sexual predators, knowing how those predators think may be an ounce of prevention.
A video made by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services includes frank interviews with predators about how they think, how they get close to children and how, in some cases, they become like members of the family all in an effort to get close to kids with the intent to abuse them.
Produced by New York Network, "Child Sexual Predators: The Familiar Stranger," won a Telly Award for outstanding local, regional, and cable video productions and a Communicator Award for creative excellence for communications professionals.
In the video, four convicted child molesters share what they did and how they did it.
They also talk about how parents can spot the warning signs.
Other parts of the video deal with survivors and how they feel, as well as information from an FBI agent on how easy it is for children (or in this case an agent posing as a 15-year-old girl) to be engaged on the Internet by older men.
Acting DCJS Commissioner Sean M. Byrne told New York's North Country Gazette that "the awards are a great honor, but really recognizes what we have known all along: That this is a very compelling, very informative and very important tool that parents can use to protect their children from the nightmare of sexual abuse."
TLC's reality show “Toddlers & Tiaras” is back for a third season of tears, tantrums, and controversy.
One featured mom, Joey Lynn George – whose seven-year-old daughter Hailey George is a hot property on the pageant circuit – wants to set the record straight over the widespread notion that pageant parents are, by dressing their pre-pubescent daughters in swimsuits, sexually suggestive outfits, and layers of makeup, subjecting their young ones to pedophiles and potential sex offenders.
David Schwimmer says he was inspired to make a film about paedophilia partly because two of his ex-girlfriends were abused as children.
"Trust" tells the story about a teenage girl who is groomed over the internet by an older man posing as a young boy.
He says, "I want to raise awareness about what's going on… I've had two former girlfriends - long-term relationships - both victims of child sex assault and one also later a victim of date rape. "I have several friends that were victims of child sexual abuse. Unfortunately I know a lot of people in my life who have been victimised."
The Friends actor turned director believes the internet has made abuse easier by giving predators direct access to children. He thinks that it poses a significant and growing threat to young people's safety.
He said: "It's a problem. The internet is used more and more by paedophiles.
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Bai Ling - healing
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blames individual officers,
not Chinese government
Actress Bai Ling said she is confronting a dark chapter from her past: sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager at the hands of Chinese army officers. Bai, 44, who was a soldier in a People's Liberation Army performance troupe from age 14 to 17, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that she was "opening a wound that was very secret to myself, that even my parents don't know."
Therapy she received during a U.S. reality TV series helped her understand what she endured in the 1980s and the psychological marks it left on her, Bai said. She was pressed to have sex with her superiors, with one encounter leading to pregnancy and an abortion under an assumed name, Bai said, adding that other women serving with her in Tibet were also forced into sex and regularly plied with alcohol.
Bai stressed that she blames individual officers and not the Chinese government for events that have haunted her life and work.
LONDON -- Actor David Schwimmer was left devastated when he found two of his former girlfriends had been sexually abused as children.
The former Friends star directs new film Trust, about a mother and father discover their teenage daughter has been raped by a paedophile she befriended online.
Schwimmer has now opened up about his own experience dealing with abuse, telling Britain's Seven, "I've had two girlfriends who were victims of child sexual abuse. That sensitised me to the issue in a way that I hadn't been before.
"You want to find them (the attacker). In my girlfriend's case the abuser was a family member who was still around and I couldn't get my head around that. I told her that I had to know if I was ever in the same room as him because I wouldn't be responsible for my actions."
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CNN's Don Lemon - "Transparent"
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“People are going to say: ‘Oh, he was molested as a kid and now he is coming out.' I get it,” he said.
Don Lemon, the weekend prime-time anchor for CNN, was on the air on Sunday night this month when the news broke that President Obama would address the nation at the unusual hour of 10:30 p.m.
By the time the news network was confirming the reports of the death of Osama bin Laden, however, Mr. Lemon had been replaced by CNN's chief anchor, Wolf Blitzer.
“I kind of got big-footed,” Mr. Lemon said, with a knowing laugh.
Now 45, though he looks much younger, Mr. Lemon understands the television news business from long experience, gathered through jobs at such local stations as WCAU in Philadelphia, WMAQ in Chicago and WNYW in New York.
So he has no illusions about what he is getting himself into with the book he has written about his career — and life. In “Transparent,” Mr. Lemon has a lot to say about reporting for television and about journalism in general. But he knows enough about news to recognize what will get this book noticed.
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New Video: Stop Sex Trafficking Where It Starts
Family Research Council
by Carrie Russell
March 22, 2011
How can we stop sex trafficking where it starts?
Pat Trueman, CEO of Morality in Media and Founder of PornHarms.com, joins Tony Perkins, President of FRC, to talk about what leads to Sex Trafficking, and how we can take steps to confront the problem at its origin.
We're very grateful to the Oprah Winfrey Show for having recently done two back-to-back episodes with 200 men who were abused in childhood. We covered the story extensively on our NAACC / LACP web site. Here's a reprint:
One of Oprah's guests, Dr. Howard Fradkin, offered a lot of insight into the issue. Later on the NAASCA web site I'll present his "Related Resources" which includes information on his own "Male Survivor" group, which is dedicated to preventing, healing and eliminating all forms of sexual victimization of boys and men through online support, Weekends of Recovery, education, advocacy and activism. According to Dr. Fradkin, men have an especially difficult time coming to terms with being abused as a child.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS -- Selena, 13, was sold for sex on backpage.com -- Advocacy groups have accused the website of facilitating the trafficking of underage girls -- but neither backpage.com nor its owner would comment on the accusations
EDITOR'S NOTE: Hundreds of thousands of girls under the age of 18 are sold as sex slaves in the U.S. In a yearlong investigation, CNN's Amber Lyon reveals the devastating realities of the business of underage sex. Don't miss CNN Presents "Selling the Girl Next Door" this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CNN.
Selena was arrested by undercover police on the Vegas strip on prostitution charges. But although she exchanged sex for money, in the eyes of the law, she's a victim, by virtue of her age and the circumstances under which she was sold: by a pimp on the website backpage.com, a pimp who used drugs to entice her, and took everything she earned.
"It made me feel so nasty, I always just want a shower and get it off. I was like, oh, it's so disgusting," she said. "And it never made me feel pretty, not one time, not one time."
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John Walsh
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"America's Most
Wanted"
After traveling the world learning what he could about human trafficking, John Walsh was astonished to discover that America is the country with the worst problem. In a special edition of his "America's Most Wanted," Walsh stood in front of the Capitol Building to say that 100,000 people were trafficked in our country last year.
On his show, which we featured on the NAACC / LACP web site, he told the story of Natasha, who was abducted at 19 and turned over to a pimp who coerced her into prostitution by threatening to hurt her parents and sibling. She later escaped but despite her family's support and understanding of her ordeal, Natasha eventually went into the pornographic film industry.
"It took me years to really find who I was," she said. "When you feel like you're worth nothing, you're going to treat your body and yourself like you are worth nothing, and while you're healing you're making a lot of mistakes because you're trying to find out who you are."
As she says, it took her years to recover, but now she spends her time helping others understand the issue.
Nancy Grace, a prosecutor, reporter and crime victim herself, is helping keep many of the issues surrounding child abuse and abduction in the limelight. In addition to her ongoing nightly show on CNN's Headline News (HLN, Monday - Sunday, 8pm ET), her new series, "Nancy Grace - America's Missing," which airs LIVE at 9pm, will feature stories on current and cold cases.
As Ms. Grace says, "Don't just rely on law enforcement. They're just as overloaded as everybody else in this world. They're just as swamped. You get out there, you make the difference. And, frankly, what's more important than that is what you do up front when it comes to letting your children play outside or letting your children play unsupervised. Avoid a missing child incident before it happens."
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Amber Alerts are now 15 years old
and the technology is still growing
AMBER Alerts will soon become available on Facebook. Users of the social media platform will be able to sign up for AMBER Alerts in their state/region, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
The effort comes on the 15th anniversary of the abduction of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman of Arlington, Texas. A neighbor heard her scream and saw a man pull her off her bike, throw her into the front seat of his pickup truck and drive away. Local radio and television stations covered the story, but her body later was found in a drainage ditch four miles away. Amber Hagerman's kidnapping and murder still remain unsolved, but the incident launched the creation of the national notification system that bears her name.
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Sara Kruzan will get
a second chance
EDITORIAL - What do you think? Outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger granted commutation to a young woman who has fought to turn her life around from its almost unbelievably bad beginning.
Sara Kruzan had been abused physically and sexually for most of her young life before she was gang raped, then pushed into a life of prostitution at age 13 by the neighborhood pimp. When she was 16, she robbed and killed the man, a crime for which she was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Sixteen years later, Kruzan has earned an associate's degree through the local community college, has participated in many of the prison's rehabilitation programs and has shown a level of growth and maturity that makes her a promising candidate for rejoining society.
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All victims of crime have the right
and responsibility to survive.
Our non profit, the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, has a new collaboration with "Crime Survivors," an organization based in Irvine, CA.
Founded by Patricia Wenskunas, who also serves as CEO, Crime Survivors was launched following her personal experience in 2002 with being a victim of assault with a deadly weapon, and with the frustration she felt as her case made its way through the justice system.
The non profit is most closely associated with its work in Southern California, but Patricia will be joining us on our radio show "Community Matters" as a Special Guest, where we'll focus on the aspects of survival that relate to issues of dealing with child sex abuse and associated crimes and injustices.
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The CyberTipline receives reports 24 hours a day seven days a week.
This week the one millionth report of child sexual exploitation will be received by the CyberTipline.
The CyberTipline, the nation's reporting mechanism for suspected sexual exploitation of children, will receive its one millionth report this week. The CyberTipline is operated by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) which processes the reports of suspected sex crimes against children, some as young as two weeks old. The CyberTipline was created by Congress in 1998.
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FBI school program is
keeping kids safe online
Recent studies show that one in seven youngsters has experienced unwanted sexual solicitations online. One in three has been exposed to unwanted sexual material online. One in 11 has been harassed or bullied online.
And as we all know, these are only some of the dangers that our kids face while surfing the Internet. How can we simultaneously protect them from these threats and enable them to take advantage of the positive things the web has to offer?
In addition to investigating online crimes targeting children, the FBI works to educate kids and their parents about the Internet, sometimes sending cyber agents to visit schools as well as posting useful resources on our public website. We also offer our Safe Online Surfing program to schools to help students understand how to recognize, report, and avoid online dangers.
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President Obama proclaimed January as
Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. On December 22, 2010, President Barack Obama issued a Presidential Proclamation declaring January:
While the employees of DHS and members of the Blue Campaign work hard throughout the year to fight human trafficking, this month is an apt time to take note of what we have done and what we plan to do moving forward.
Amber Alerts are now 15 years old
