Mark Russell; 24/5/09; (2 Items)
Child-tafficking gangs were moving pregnant women from country to country, then waiting for them to give birth before selling their babies, Australia’s chief federal magistrate said yesterday. John Pascoe said the infants were being sold mainly for illegal adoption but also for sexual exploitation, slavery and begging. He said demand for babies who only knew their adoptive parents was high. “More importantly, the children have no official identity or proven nationality and, therefore, an identity can be easily forged to suit the purpose for which they are intended,” Mr Pascoe said in Singapore, addressing a conference on the trafficking in unborn children. “This includes the ability to forge paperwork for adopting parents who could easily be deemed the child’s biological parents. “Alternatively, as the children are born outside of any formal health clinics, there may be no need for any paperwork at all. “There would be no official documentation to indicate the baby was not the child of the adoptive parents or indeed that it even exists.”
See: http://www.smh.com.au/national/babytrafficking-horror-exposed-20090523-bivz.html
Sex-abuse priest took secrets to grave
Dylan Welch; 24/5/09
Today a woman will stand in a Catholic church in regional NSW and watch her niece being baptised. Normally an occasion for joy and faith, the experience will be much different for Sarah (not her real name). Along with two of her older sisters, she was sexually abused for eight years, from the age of four, by the now-dead priest Denis McAlinden. “I feel strange putting a little girl on the altar to become a member of the church when you’ve seen what the church has done to its members,” said the woman, now in her 20s.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/national/sexabuse-priest-took-secrets-to-grave-20090523-biw5.html
Tags: Asia, Australia, Children, Christianity, Sex Trade, Trade