
The Ghosts of the Orphanage - cwal37
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christinekenneally/orphanage-death-catholic-abuse-nuns-st-josephs
======
pnutjam
Hard to read, but I think we owe a debt to society. We need to make sure these
things don't happen again. This is why charter schools, home schooling, and
other aspects of society need oversight to protect kids from predators.

~~~
candiodari
The problem is that the oversight itself is almost always the cause of the
abuse. In the case of parents, obviously. But of course this was the case in
the past, where the church _and_ the state (the social agency referred in the
article and it's management, which is the government) were the problem.

Any kind of oversight necessarily puts people in power over others' children,
as does the very concept of an institution or orphanage, including of course
schools. It is that power, not which geometric shapes the organizing power
insists get put on the wall that attracts child predators.

Giving people power over children is the problem. Attempts to "make sure these
things don't happen again" so far have massively increased child abuse. The
numbers I checked for the Netherlands are staggering: 1 out of every 3
children in child care gets sexually assaulted in the sense that they report
it to the police. Roughly half of those gets abused by foster parents or
government employees, half by other children (they just put babies with
teenagers, then leave them alone due to lack of manpower or outright
unwillingness of employees). Suicide rates are almost 10x what they are
outside of child care.

And the incredibly sad part is ... once in child care 1 in 3 gets sexually
assaulted, but barely 1 in 10 is put in child care because of allegations
(usually not even a complaint) of sexual abuse. Mostly it's because of ...
hygiene problems.

The problem is that without giving institutions power over children, nothing
happens: children will refuse to leave their parents in all but the most
extreme cases of abuse, until they are at least halfway through their teens.
And the huge problem is that statistics clearly show that that is the right
decision to make for the children: outcomes for children with their parents,
even when abused, are far superior to outcomes in child care. In terms of
education, in terms of living independent as an adult.

Here's some links:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-
sh/norways_hidden_s...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-
sh/norways_hidden_scandal)

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/29/rotherham-
ch...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/29/rotherham-childrens-
services-transformed-since-abuse-scandal)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_child_abuse_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_child_abuse_scandal)

[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/social-services-
centre...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/social-services-centre-
britains-worst-12176585)

[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6112955/telford-politicians-
ch...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6112955/telford-politicians-child-sex-
offenders/)

And, of course, the abuse was accepted and reinforced:

[http://www.childrenscreamingtobeheard.com/fostering-
scandal/](http://www.childrenscreamingtobeheard.com/fostering-scandal/)

Who turned out to be pedophiles in the past 20 years or so ?

* The social services chief for a large British city. Note: AFTER he was convicted of sexually assaulting children Graham Bould was still put in charge of child services, as well as other social services (no worries: I'm sure he behaved himself much better around adults ...)

* an unspecified number of North Wales psychiatric child care workers at 18 different government facilities for child care (and some foster parents), who sexually abused at least 140 children

* The local councilor of that same city. These 2 worked together to, firstly, allow the local vicar to abuse children, and all 3 worked together to threaten abused children into silence.

* The child psychiatrist in charge of the "Child Expert Commission" for the entire country of Norway, who decide whether children get taken from their parents or not

* a dozen French government psychologists, in charge of diagnosing children in psychiatric care

* hundreds of Spanish government doctors, nurses, and also nuns and priests

* US public school employees, hundreds, from janitors to administrators and social workers

* Sebastian Edathy, a very high level German politician, and a senior cabinet minister in the government of Angela Merkel, Agriculture Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, was fired for protecting him and tipping him off

* Dutch Jehova's witnesses employees and members cooperated to commit and hide child sexual abuse, for decades

* Government day care employees in the Netherlands

* Red Cross and Doctors without Borders aid workers (who did it, with the knowledge of the top of the organizations, for over a decade)

* Public school employees in Holland exploited the children entrusted to them on a large scale (specifically these were promising athletes sent to a special school)

* UN peacekeepers sexually abusing indigenous children in Western Sahara, Mali and other places

* Oxfam rescue workers (who were protected by the board of Oxfam)

* The leadership of an islamic school in the UK, and local politicians

Not pedophiles, but at the very least encouraging child abuse:

* A majority of the British parliament (who voted that private companies would be allowed to pay social workers to give them children they "offer up" for adoption (meaning they sell them))

Quote: "A foster agency receives £20.000 for every single child they sell,
adoption agencies £36.000 for every child sold, all with tax payer’s money,
most of the agencies are owned by ex social workers. So, are the agencies
working with the social services?"

(Needless to say "somehow" these sold children have a disturbing habit to end
up in prostitution. I wonder how that happens)

~~~
GW150914
Not a one of these examples is less than chilling, even terrifying, and
provokes a sense of immense outrage. Like examples of rape, murder and child
abuse by total strangers it makes us all feel fearful and powerless, but it
also misses a critical point. Most children are abused or neglected by family
and loved ones, not distant authorities or strangers. Most people are murdered
(including children’ by their nearest and dearest.

It’s important to make those distant authorities which somkften get things
wrong be accountable, yet at the same time we have to avoid the bottomless pit
of something like Stranger Danger. The examples you cite are sensational, but
they’re not typical. The typical case is the child being raped by a family
member or family friend, the wife being murdered by the husband, or the friend
being murderers by a friend. For every extreme and chilling case of someone
far away in a position of power abusing thst power, there are hundreds of much
quieter yet no less damaging cases of the same thing being done close to home.

~~~
candiodari
> Most children are abused or neglected by family and loved ones,

Why do you say "abused or neglected". They are not the same at all. And
interfering in a case of neglect clearly leads to abuse within the child care
system ...

At the very least child care will inflict massive psychological trauma on any
child it interacts with. No child, no matter how neglected, will react
positively to being torn from their parents. Being violently torn from their
parents, then locked up into an unfamiliar environment that has predators ...
that's just indescribably traumatic. And that's the _best_ case for those
services interfering ... That's assuming no actual abuse follows, which is
clearly rather too likely.

The measure should of course be that that massive trauma is significantly less
than the damage that the parents do if left in control. I would argue that in
the case of neglect, that is essentially never the case. Even in the case of
abuse, I would argue that it's rarely the case, and that the child should be
the one taking the decision, and that child should be provided with the
authority to undo that decision at will and without explanation. Children are
perfectly capable of figuring out which is the better situation for
themselves, a right systematically denied them in every child service.

And if you argue differently, can you really claim to be acting in the
interests of the child ?

This is a best case scenario:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR8cZuXPiYU&t=137s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR8cZuXPiYU&t=137s)

Note: you might wonder what sort of abuse the mother subjected the child to
... well, she did not force the child to see his father despite a court order.
For that, the judge took the child away from both his parents, and despite not
getting adopted will not get to see either of his parents again until he is an
adult ... Needless to say, the government defended this action, it is
"justified". Why ? The agents followed the law and the judge did indeed have
this option available to her (judge was female). Can you explain to me again
why you are defending these people ?

Also in the example above, can you please let me know your opinion: because of
this action, did the odds of the child getting abused increase or decrease
because of the child services intervention, because any sane person knows
perfectly well that those odds just went up massively.

And yes, child services taking children almost never happens because of actual
abuse. Hygiene (as judged by teachers), and parental separation are the main
causes (and by that we mean 80%+) of child services interfering with young
children. Later it becomes theft (as in the child stealing something)

> The examples you cite are sensational, but they’re not typical.

No they're not. They're truly banal. If you read up on them you will quickly
realize that the only reason those are examples at all is because of
systematic fuckups on the part of the perpetrators, and even then that was
usually not enough. Mostly there is also interference by someone in power to
get any progress at all in the case. And notably: almost never does the
government give the children back even when it was a goverment institution
getting caught abusing the children. So there is zero willingness on the part
of the government to act in the interest of the child, even when caught red
handed abusing the child.

These are the people you're defending.

Clearly the 33% figure points out that abuse is far more likely in the child
services case, than in an environment where nothing is done (children just
left with parents). I guess it is, however, 17% short of "typical".

And, of course, despite this massive child abuse committed by social services,
it has not actually helped. In theory they do this to prevent what happened in
the 90s. And ... of course ... in that it is a total and complete failure, a
few examples:

[https://www.hoogeveenschecourant.nl/nieuws/hoogeveen/531051/...](https://www.hoogeveenschecourant.nl/nieuws/hoogeveen/531051/drentse-
youtuber-ontmaskert-pedofiel-in-hoogeveen-incl-undercover-video.html)

[https://www.omroepgelderland.nl/nieuws/2303872/Klopjacht-
op-...](https://www.omroepgelderland.nl/nieuws/2303872/Klopjacht-op-pedofiel-
onrust-in-buurt)

[https://www.rtvdrenthe.nl/nieuws/125426/Cel-geeist-tegen-
ped...](https://www.rtvdrenthe.nl/nieuws/125426/Cel-geeist-tegen-pedo-Toen-
hij-was-opgepakt-was-het-veilig-in-Meppel)

[https://wnl.tv/2017/12/06/pedo-huisarts-opgepakt-om-
ontucht-...](https://wnl.tv/2017/12/06/pedo-huisarts-opgepakt-om-ontucht-
minderjarige-meisjes-en-filmen-patienten/)

> much quieter yet no less damaging cases of the same thing being done close
> to home

I think reading the links will also quickly elucidate that every government,
from the UK, to the Dutch, the US and the Norwegian government acted to
protect the abuses, through legal _and_ illegal means. So those cases are
exceptional only in that they were big enough and that the victims actually
managed to get heard. But if a small group of child care employees managed to
systematically abuse 140 children for years, like in the UK case, how many
cases are there of 1 child care employee abusing a child where the government
succeeds in silencing the whole issue ? Hundreds ? Thousands ? That, to me,
seems like an extremely low and conservative estimate. How many cases of
children being left to themselves and then, when they become teenagers in such
a forced prison situation, abusing each other ? I don't even want to guess.

You claim the scale of abuse by people in positions of power is small. And yet
... this is clearly not true:

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/18/adoption-
has...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/18/adoption-has-become-
runaway-train-social-workers-cannot-stop)

It is not hard to find sources talking about the scale of the abuse. Just for
the Britain alone, we're talking from 1000 to 20000 children per year. If you
call that small scale, I will call you crazy.

Per year.

We can all see what the incentives are here. If these people truly acted to
protect children, they would almost never actually act, and require truly
extreme circumstances before they take a child away. In other words: these
organizations would not have any meaningful work to do. Taking and abusing
children is a self-reinforcing loop for these organizations: without that,
they would shrink and eventually cease to exist. Their incentives are very
clear: make the problem worse, and worse, and worse.

Now let's assume for a second that over time, these organizations actually do
what's good for them, regardless of any early intentions. Then we would find
no end of complaints and stories of the cruelty of these organizations online
...

Oh wait ...

That's exactly what we see. I'm sure it's nothing but a coincidence !

~~~
GW150914
That’s a massive wall of text filled with claims, many of which seem sketchy
at best (1000-20000 children per year in Britain is a huge range for example,
the latter number being twenty times the former) and I don’t have the time to
sort through most of it. One thing did leap out at me however.

 _And yes, child services taking children almost never happens because of
actual abuse. Hygiene (as judged by teachers), and parental separation are the
main causes (and by that we mean 80%+) of child services interfering with
young children. Later it becomes theft (as in the child stealing something)_

That’s a suspiciously round %, and I’d love a citation for it. I think it
would be helpful to get a sense of where you’re getting your numbers while
avoiding the pages of opinion and invective.

~~~
pnutjam
True, I know US authorities are loath to take children away, it takes alot to
lose your parental rights. Usually they are surrendered by the parent.

I think the poster above you is a sensationalist, but those sort of things,
and the things happening in the article are based on one simple fact: We don't
value children.

We will spend money to lock up a juvenile (or adult) before we give resources
to poor parents or poor children. We get bad enough results when parents are
struggling financially and mentally to provide for their own children. Usually
there is some soft of biological imperative compelling them. When you take a
stranger and put them under the same sort of pressure while expecting them to
care for children of others, who may already have significant behavioral
problems, you are asking too much.

This is obviously going to attract the wrong sort of people, and the right
sort of people will be influenced by them and frustrated in their own right.

It sounds like this school was a world unto itself. Kids did not participate
in activities away from it. This is exactly the sort of thing that brings out
the worst in people. I know this offends homeschoolers, but every child should
have some outside authority they trust. Those authorities should be a mix of
religious and secular.

~~~
candiodari
> This is obviously going to attract the wrong sort of people, and the right
> sort of people will be influenced by them and frustrated in their own right.

This is a very important thing to internalize: whatever your arrangement. Any
position that's given power over others, or over children, or over mental
patients will attract exactly the sort of people that are the worst possible
case to have such power.

Power over others ? Bullies, torturers, rapists.

Power over children ? Paedophiles.

Power over mental patients ? Bullies, torturers, rapists.

So any child care system, mental health system and prison system needs to be
designed so that even with a group of paedophiles taking all the decisions
(which WILL be the case, as demonstrated above) the system does not lead to
abuse.

Is it the same in the US ? You bet [1]. What do US child abuse/child
protection services do when caught molesting children ? They cover it up and
protect the guilty. From that wikipedia page:

"Several lawsuits were brought in 2008 against the Florida Department of
Children & Families (DCF), accusing it of mishandling reports that Thomas
Ferrara, 79, a foster parent, was molesting young girls.[36][37] The suits
claimed that even though there were records of sexual misconduct allegations
against Ferrara in 1992, 1996, and 1999, the DCF continued to place foster
children with Ferrara and his then-wife until 2000.[36]"

"In July 2002, the federal court granted plaintiffs’ experts access to 500
children’s case files, allowing plaintiffs to collect information concerning
harm to children in foster care through a case record review.[42] These files
revealed numerous cases in which foster children were abused, and DYFS failed
to take proper action. On June 9, 2004, the child welfare panel appointed by
the parties approved the NJ State’s Reform Plan."

(note: no action was taken to punish the guilty. There was simply a request
for a "reform plan", no mention is made for any checks to a reform plan)

"The foster parent, John Jackson, was licensed by the state, despite the fact
that he abused his own wife and son, overdosed on drugs and was arrested for
drunken driving. In 2006, Jackson was convicted in Santa Clara County of nine
counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child by force, violence, duress,
menace and fear, and seven counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child under
14, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.[32] The
sex acts that he forced the children in his foster care to perform sent him to
prison for 220 years. Later in 2010, Giarretto Institute, the private foster
family agency responsible for licensing and monitoring Jackson's foster home
and others, was also found to be negligent and liable for 75 percent of the
abuse that was inflicted on the victim, and Jackson himself was liable for the
rest.[32]"

"In 2009, Oregon Department of Human Services agreed to pay $2 million into a
fund for the future care of twins who were allegedly abused by their foster
parents; this was the largest such settlement in the agency's history.[34]
According to the civil rights suit filed on request of the twins' adoptive
mother in December 2007 in U.S. Federal Court, the children were kept in
makeshift cages—cribs covered with chicken wire secured by duct tape—in a
darkened bedroom known as "the dungeon." The brother and sister often went
without food, water or human touch. The boy, who had a shunt put into his head
at birth to drain fluid, did not receive medical attention, so when police
rescued the twins he was nearly comatose. The same foster family previously
took into their care hundreds of other children over nearly four decades.[35]
DHS said the foster parents deceived child welfare workers during the checkup
visits.[34]"

Apparently checkup visits in Oregon miss the fact that children are kept in
cages.

Needless to say, all of the above cases make it very, VERY clear that only the
minutest tip of the iceberg was actually caught. Serial paedophile works for
Florida CPS, gets 400 children ... and abuses a single one ? Riiight. Let's
realistically assume he violated half of them. That would mean about 0.5% of
child abuse in child protective services in the US is actually caught.

In all cases, child rapists working for CPS in at least 4 states were each
given hundreds of children, dozens per year. At least 78% of those, according
to [2], were never sexually abused by their parents, and a further 11% were
only abused in the sense that there was inadequate supervision, or their
parents got drunk). Given that the above cases alone would reasonably be ~800
children that were abused, we can assume that 89% of those, or 716 were abused
_because child protective services protected them_. That's for a period of
about 8 years, and only the very tip of the iceberg, cases famous enough to be
very widely reported. How many cases are like that ? 1% ? 10% ?

10% would mean that of all children child protective services takes in
(~500000) about 15% get sexually abused, versus 0.08% of children in the
general US society (0.009 * 0.09, according to the wikipedia page), or CLOSE
TO 18518% MORE THAN WOULD BE ABUSED WITHOUT CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES

1% would mean that of all children child protective services takes in, about
1.5% get sexually abused, or about 20x more than if child protective services
did not exist.

You know, the amount of children that child protective services gave to these
convicted paedophiles in these very public cases (in half the cases WHEN THEY
KNEW THOSE WERE CONVICTED PAEDOPHILES) is about equal to the total number of
children sexually abused in the United States. So if the above cases are all
there is, that would mean that at least half of the children sexually abused
in the US get abused because Child protective services exists.

Which of course, creates a bigger need for more child protection. Where else
could a paedophile go where the damage they do gets them more children ?

That's the result of creating an organization that's such a ridiculously
tempting target for paedophiles.

And given that you're right, Europe does a lot more interfering, which would
mean that in Europe the situation should be worse, not better.

Thanks for pointing me to the US. Much more numbers available. Sad, very,
very, very sad numbers.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_care_in_the_United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_care_in_the_United_States#Abuse_and_negligence)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse#United_States)

