Medical practitioners, psychologists, chiropractors and osteopaths comprise 22% of registered health practitioners in Australia, yet almost three-quarters of sexual misconduct complaints made to health regulators involved these professions, a world-first study has found.
Published in The Guardian
Often neglected, male-directed sexual violence (SV) has recently gained recognition as a significant issue. However, documentation of male SV patients, assaults and characteristics of presentation for care remains poor. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) systematically documented these in all victims admitted to eleven SV clinics in seven African countries between 2011 and 2017, providing a unique opportunity to describe SV patterns in male cases compared to females, according to age categories and contexts, thereby improving their access to SV care.
A commitment from government to include groups who work with victims and perpetrators of family violence in any plan to end family violence was the aim of a march to Parliament.
Tauawhi Men’s Centre co-ordinator Tim Marshall, SafeMan SafeFamily (SMSF) founder Vic Tamati and Male Survivors Aotearoa (MSA) national advocate Ken Clearwater led a hikoi on to parliament grounds on Thursday to ask the Government to commit to creating a cross-party strategy to end family violence.
Published in Gisborn Herald
Male survivors of sexual abuse are trekking from North Canterbury to Parliament on horseback to send a message to politicians about the need for better protection for children.
Ken Clearwater, the national advocate for peer support group Male Survivors Aotearoa, was one of nine riders to start the nine-day journey to Wellington on Monday.
On arrival at Parliament on August 6, they plan to ask as many politicians as they can to commit to giving a voice to victims.
Published in Stuff
Warning: Some details of the alleged offending may be confronting.
A 23-year-old Sydney man has been charged by federal police in Australia with sexually exploiting a young New Zealand girl he groomed through social media.
Published in Radio NZ
The National Council of Women of New Zealand has published results from the second survey of gender attitudes in Aotearoa New Zealand.
From New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse website
14 July 2020
The purpose of language is to help us to get a better grip on reality; the more words there are in our vocabulary, the higher the chance we have of being able to describe what we want, what ails us, what is driving us mad – and then in turn, to summon the help we may badly need.
Published in The School of Life
Critics of double-bunking in prisons say a sex attack at Otago Corrections Facility is symptomatic of a much larger problem.
Published in Otago Daily Times
1 NEWS has been investigating claims made against the Catholic church in Fiji for the last year. Source: 1 NEWS
By Barbara Dreaver
Published in TVNZ
12 July 2020
The former Scout leader James Morris has caused untold damage to the children he sexually abused over a period of 40 years.
Morris, also known as Ian Charles Phipps, is now waiting to receive his fourth jail sentence and this time it could be forever.
Stuff can now reveal that Morris has a string of convictions for child sexual abuse and was sentenced to preventive detention in 1997.
Published in Stuff
The cardinal maintains he didn’t know about the Victorian town’s notorious paedophile priests, a claim the royal commission found ‘implausible’.
Published in The Guardian
The number of sex abuse allegations against Catholic clergy members more than quadrupled in 2019 compared to the previous five years, U.S. church officials reported in an annual audit (PDF) released this week.
Published in The Hill
Background: A growing gap has emerged between people with mental illness and health care professionals, which in recent years has been successfully closed through the adoption of peer support services (PSSs). Peer support in mental health has been variously defined in the literature and is simply known as the help and support that people with lived experience of mental illness or a learning disability can give to one another. Although PSSs date back to several centuries, it is only in the last few decades that these services have formally evolved, grown, and become an integral part of the health care system. Debates around peer support in mental health have been raised frequently in the literature. Although many authors have emphasized the utmost importance of incorporating peer support into the health care system to instill hope; to improve engagement, quality of life, self-confidence, and integrity; and to reduce the burden on the health care system, other studies suggest that there are neutral effects from integrating PSSs into health care systems, with a probable waste of resources.
By Reham A Hameed Shalaby*, MD; Vincent I O Agyapong*, MD, PhD
May 2020
A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts in Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.
By Yevgeniy Pastukhov Semchenkov
May 2020
A Catholic Marist Brother told a girl he sexually assaulted to push rotten tomatoes into her face because she was so “ugly”.
The victim no longer lives in New Zealand, but the toxic memories of Kevin Healy’s offending are a constant reminder of betrayal, fear and anger.
The 81 year old, previously known as ”Brother Gordon”, was sentenced to nine months of home detention when he appeared in the Napier District Court on June 5, after pleading guilty to four charges of indecency between a man and boys aged 12 and 13, and one of indecency with a girl aged under 12.
The offending occurred between 1976 and 1977 when Healy was a member of the Marist Brothers and an active school teacher in Wairarapa.
Published in Stuff
IPS Statement of Support
Intentional Peer Support stands with all marginalized peoples, especially those of color experiencing harm at the hands of police and those with system and institutional power. We stand shoulder to shoulder with fellow organizations who condemn and are outspoken in their fight against white supremacy in the U.S. and throughout the world. This disregard of basic human rights is ubiquitous, malicious, and must be challenged at every turn. The death of George Floyd – at the hands of police – is yet another graphic reminder of the systemic racism and violence that is increasingly pervasive and incompatible with basic human rights and the values we uphold.
Published in Intentional Peer Support