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Thursday, December 8, 2016

The child sex trade is booming in this Kenyan port city

10:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Inside a tiny houseÂ outside the city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya, 11-year-old Sabina sits on a bed, one of her breasts exposed, a 2-year-old on her back.

With an effortless click, the girl shoots a jet of saliva through the gap between her two front teeth. It lands on the floor. Then she begins to talk as she shifts the toddler from her back to her bosom.

â€œThe father of this child is a German tourist,â€ she said. â€œHe impregnated me and left the country after his vacation. I was forced to drop out of school and take care of the child.â€

Sabina is one among many children in this coastal region who have become mothers at too young an age. She and other girls, as well as underage boys, have left school to cater to men and women who pay them for sex.

And the market is booming: Child sex tourism has remained rampant in Mombasa, a port city, despite a spate of terror attacks in the past three years that have scared away package vacationers, crippling a vital tourism sector that contributes about 10 percent to Kenyaâ€™s gross domestic product.

European travelers especially have continued to fuel the trade. Many come to the city in search of girls aged between 12 and 18. The industry has made Kenya one of the world's hubs for child sex tourism, researchers say.

â€œWe always believe that white men have money, so when they come here we hope that they will get us out of poverty,â€ said Sabina. â€œThey give us a lot of money and sleep with us. We use the money to pay rent for our parents and buy food.â€

Trace Kenya, a local nonprofitÂ group that works with the United Nations to battle child trafficking, estimates there could be as many as 100,000 child sex workers in Mombasa. The trade extends up and down the coast to the seaside resort towns of Malindi and Diani, according to the NGO.

In a 2010 report â€" the most recent available â€" UNICEF released numbers on child trafficking in Kenya that revealed that almost a third of girls age 12 and younger in the Mombasa region were involved in prostitution. European men comprise half of the clients, the report said.

Sex tourism has been blamed in Kenya for increasing rates of school dropouts, poverty and illiteracy as school-age children skip class in pursuit of easy money. At the same time, poverty is the main driver behind child sex tourism, say experts. Some parents even urge their children to become involved.

Emily, a 16-year-old orphan, said she was forced into the business due to poverty and peer pressure. Her aunt encouraged her to engage in sex with white men to help pay family expenses. Emily is now infected with HIV.

â€œI have slept with different men, especially whites from Germany, Italy and the USA,â€ she said. â€œI regret it but I had no option [at] that time. I started the business at age 10, when a friend connected me to an Italian tourist who had visited the country for three months. I had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep.â€

Teenage boys and 20-something Kenyan men known as "beach boys" also hook up with older white women, usually Western tourists who have flown here specifically for sexual encounters.

Against a backdrop of dazzlingly white sand and the aquamarine sea at Jomo Kenyatta Public Beach, foreign women sip cocktails under bamboo shades. Young men approach them with compliments designed to break the ice.

â€œThis is our work,â€ said Alex Mwalumba, a beach boy who said heâ€™s 29 but looks much younger. â€œItâ€™s very simple to lure a white woman. First, know the language she speaks. Secondly, tell her she is the most beautiful woman you have ever seen. For the first time in years, she truly believes she is desirable.â€

Mwalumba had few regrets.

â€œThe money will begin to flow,â€ he said, referring to payments once a temporary relationship has begun. â€œSome [beach boys] have used the opportunity to build good houses and start businesses.â€

But he warned that business sometimes can be risky.

â€œSome tourists end up either being robbed or murdered by beach boys in pursuit for money,â€ he noted. â€œBeach boys are not after love. They are after money. They sometime trick tourists to go to the room and rob them.â€

Paul Adhoch, who heads child rights organization Trace Kenya, said prostitution has led to an increase in unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers in Mombasa. It has also broken up families in the city, he said.

Trace Kenya is working to rescue girls from the sex trade and to end the practice in the Mombasa region. The NGO has rescued more than 10,000 children in the last seven years, putting them in shelters and making other arrangements for them to earn a living.

â€œWe have rescued many children involved in sex tourism or those who were potentially likely to fall into it, more girls â€" for young men the number has been lower,â€ he said. â€œThe police have done little to fight the vice. They have given tourists impunity despite having evidence against them.â€

But Regional Police Chief Nelson Marwa says the government has done a lot to battle the practice, including warning tourists and parents against being involved in the business.

â€œWe have put in place laws that will deal with such acts,â€ Marwa said. â€œAlready we have arrested and charged parents, children and some tourists. We will also close all hotels that allow young girls and old tourists to check in together, and their licenses will be canceled.â€

The real problem, Adhoch believes, is culture.

â€œThere is a culture among parents and children that when you get yourself a white man, then you have gotten yourself out of poverty,â€ said Adhoch. â€œTourists always take this advantage and will come here deliberately for that.â€

But Sabina, who is still struggling to come to terms with her HIV-positive status, wants the government to do more to help girls in the local sex industry.

â€œThe government should curb the practice by arresting tourists whose aim is to engage in sex with children and dump them afterward,â€ she said. â€œThey are creating more poverty for young people here like me.â€

Editor's note: The last names of children interviewed for this story have been withheld to protect their identities. Tonny Onyulo reported from Mombasa, Kenya.

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Metropolitan police to investigate sexual abuse claims at London clubs | Football

12:30 PM Bilal Muazin No comments

Britainâ€™s largest police force has launched an investigation into sex abuse claims involving London football clubs.

The Metropolitan police said a team of specialist officers from its sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command would probe allegations of â€œnon-recentâ€ crimes â€" but refused to say which clubs it was investigating.

â€œWe take all the allegations we receive very seriously and they will be dealt with sensitively,â€ said DCS Ivan Balhatchet, who is part of the Metâ€™s sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command. â€œAnyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse, whatever the circumstances, or has any relevant information should contact their local police or the NSPCC.â€

Football sex abuse scandal: how the story unfolded

The Met are the 22nd police force to investigate historical claims of sexual abuse in football, joining: Devon and Cornwall, Warwickshire, Avon and Somerset, Essex, Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Dorset, Staffordshire, Greater Manchester, North Wales, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Cheshire, West Midlands, South Wales, Dyfed-Powys, Scotland Yard, Police Scotland, Northumbria Police, Derbyshire Constabulary and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

More than 20 former footballers â€" including ex-youth players, trainees and professionals â€" have also come forward with allegations of abuse since former Crewe defender Andy Woodward waived his right to anonymity to say he was a victim of sexual abuse in an interview with the Guardian.

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Metropolitan police to investigate sex abuse claims at London clubs | Football

5:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Britainâ€™s largest police force has launched an investigation into sex abuse claims involving London football clubs.

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Teacher allegedly had sex with student who called her 'wifey'

1:57 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

A Dallas substitute teacher has been arrested and charged for allegedly having sex with a high school student last year, according to a local report.

Fallon Hunt was arrested Tuesday and charged with improper relationship between educators and students after a parent reported to police in October that she was exchanging text messages and having sex with her son, an arrest warrant obtained by WFAA-TV showed.

Hunt is currently booked at Dallas County jail and her bail was set at $20,000.

When police questioned the 28-year-old, they found pictures of the Justin Kimball High School student stored in her cell phone.

Texas school teacher accused of sexual relations with student

The victim â€" whose identity was not revealed â€" told police that Hunt may have been involved in sexual relationships with other students.

Fallon Hunt, who worked at Justin Kimball High School, was arrested Tuesday for having a sexual relationship with at least one high school student last year.

(Dallas County Sheriff's Office)

That student also admitted to having sex with Hunt multiple times between April and May 2015 â€" the month he graduated.

Text messages between the student and Hunt revealed that he called her â€œwifeyâ€ and â€œmy baby,â€ the warrant stated.

Other potential relationships between Hunt and other students are under investigation, police said.

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Saturday, December 10, 2016

There Are No Child Sex Slaves at My Local Pizza Parlor

5:00 PM Bilal Muazin No comments

U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc...MUST READ! https://t.co/O0bVJT3QDr

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Thursday, December 8, 2016

Football sex abuse: Met Police launches investigation

5:00 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Image copyright Thinkstock

The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into allegations of historical sexual abuse in football at clubs in London.

A dedicated team of officers from the Met's sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command will work alongside Operation Hydrant.

Hundreds of people have reported abuse to UK police so far, the National Police Chief's Council said.

The Met is not discussing the number of allegations or the clubs involved.

Det Ch Supt Ivan Balhatchet from the Met said the force takes allegations seriously and they "will be dealt with sensitively".

"Anyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse, whatever the circumstances, or has any relevant information, should contact their local police or the NSPCC," he added.

Football clubs across the UK have been implicated in a growing number of child sex abuse allegations.

Child sex abuse claims - story so far

The Met's announcement comes as the Football Association has been criticised for "dismissing" concerns about sexual abuse in football when they emerged in the 1990s.

A dedicated football abuse hotline set up by the NSPCC received more than 860 calls since it was set up about two weeks ago.

The phone line is available 24 hours a day on 0800 023 2642.

Police forces investigating allegations:

North Wales
North Yorkshire
Dorset
Staffordshire
Greater Manchester
Cambridgeshire
Hampshire
Cheshire
Northumbria
Metropolitan
Police Scotland
Avon and Somerset
Essex
Norfolk
Derbyshire
Warwickshire
Devon and Cornwall
South Wales
Dyfed-Powys
PSNI

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Metropolitan police to investigate sexual abuse claims at London clubs | Football

3:30 PM Bilal Muazin No comments

The Metropolitan police has launched an investigation into historical sexual abuse claims involving London football clubs, becoming the 21st force across the country to have begun similar inquiries into teams in their areas.

Britainâ€™s largest police force said specialist officers would look into allegations of â€œnon-recentâ€ crimes, but refused to say which clubs it was investigating.

â€œWe take all the allegations we receive very seriously and they will be dealt with sensitively,â€ said DCS Ivan Balhatchet of the Metâ€™s sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command. â€œAnyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse, whatever the circumstances, or has any relevant information should contact their local police or the NSPCC.â€

Football sex abuse scandal: how the story unfolded

According to police, more than 350 potential victims have come forward since the former Crewe defender Andy Woodward waived his right to anonymity to reveal in an interview with the Guardian that he had been a Âvictim of sexual abuse

Gary Johnson, the former player who was paid Â£50,000 by Chelsea not to go public with allegations that he was abused by their former chief scout Eddie Heath, has said that a personal apology from the clubâ€™s board, delivered in person on Wednesday, was â€œtoo little, too lateâ€.

Johnson was a member of Chelseaâ€™s first team from 1978 to 1981 after joining the club as an 11-year-old in 1970. The 57-year-old spoke out recently to say he was groomed from the age of 13 by Heath, who was chief scout from 1968 to 1979 and is now dead. Chelseaâ€™s insurers paid Â£50,000 in compensation, without liability, in return for a confidentiality clause.

Johnson told the BBC that the Â£50,000 he received was â€œnot enough for the pain and suffering Iâ€™ve hadâ€, adding: â€œIt [the abuse] took away my childhood â€" I can never get that back.â€

In Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon resisted calls for the inquiry into historical child sexual abuse in Scotland to be widened to include football clubs, after the Scottish Labour leader, Kezia ÂDugdale, pressed her during first ministerâ€™s Âquestions about revelations of abuse in Scottish clubs.

The first minister said: â€œMy view is we should allow that inquiry to get on with its job and we should allow the police to get on with their job of investigating allegations of abuse in football.â€

Earlier, a former chief Âexecutive of the Scottish Football Association called for a separate inquiry as the revelÂations across the UK continued to mount. Gordon Smith told BBC Radioâ€™s Good Morning Scotland that an investigation into how clubs and national bodies had responded to allegations was needed.

â€œThere should be an inquiry, an inquiry into anybody who knew anything about this sort of thing,â€ he said. â€œIf this was happening at a club, what action did they take? Weâ€™re now finding out some of the cases down in England where the club tried to hush the situation, even paid a player money to not say anything about it.â€

The SFA has said it is part of a task force set up to coordinate complaints and information relating to child sexual abuse within football and that it is passing on all information it receives to Police Scotland.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Premiership club Patrick Thistle have admitted firing one of their employees in 1992 over abuse claims. The club disclosed that a former physiotherapist, named as John Hart, who died in 1995, was dismissed after the allegations came to light more than 20 years ago.

In a statement, the club denied any cover-up, stating: â€œThe current board and management knew nothing of this until an internal investigation uncovered it in the last few days. As a result, the club informed the SFA and Police Scotland.â€

This follows revelations concerning a former youth coach for Celtic, Hibernian and Falkirk football clubs, who was on Wednesday charged with a child sex offence and has been remanded in custody.

Jim McCafferty, who worked in football across the central belt of Scotland and in Ireland from the 1980s, was arrested in Belfast on Tuesday after presenting himself at a police station. He was charged with engaging in sexual activity with a child aged 13-16 between December 2011 and December 2014.

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Pizzagate gunman refuses to dismiss online conspiracy theory claims about child sex ring

1:00 PM Bilal Muazin No comments

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 of Salisbury, N.C., surrenders to police Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016, in Washington. Welch, who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place, fired an assault rifle inside the restaurant on Sunday injuring no one, police and news reports said. (Sathi Soma via AP) Â (Sathi Soma)

The man accused of firing an assault rifle inside a Washington pizza shop refused to completely dismiss the online conspiracy theory accusing the eatery of running a child sex ring that brought him there in the first place -- although he said he regretted how he handled the situation.

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, told the New York Times in a Wednesday videoconference that the online articles he read about Comet Ping Pong pizzeria â€" which linked the supposed ring to Hillary Clinton â€" left him with the â€œimpression something nefarious was happeningâ€ and he wanted to â€œreally able to look into it.â€

Court documents showed that Welch entered the eatery and fired an AR-15 rifle several times inside the restaurant but later exited with his hands up. He surrendered to police when he found no signs of children being held as sex slaves.

"I just wanted to do some good and went about it the wrong way," he told the newspaper.

While Welch acknowledged that his â€œintelâ€ on the restaurant was not 100 percent, he refused to dismiss that what he had read online was untrue, conceding only that there were no children "inside that dwelling."Â

He also rejected the term â€œfake newsâ€ believing that it diminishes stories shared outside the mainstream media.

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Welch told the newspaper he started driving to Washington from his Salisbury, N.C., home intending only to give the restaurant a "closer look." But while on the way, he said he felt his "heart breaking over the thought of innocent people suffering."

Welch would not say why he brought an AR-15 into the pizza shop and fired it, the newspaper reported.

On Thursday, a judge delayed a preliminary hearing for Welch. His public defender requested the delay, saying she needed more time to investigate the case. He will be back in court Tuesday.

Welch appears to have lived an aimless life that became turbulent in the weeks before he was drawn to the nation's capital by a fake news story.

Friends and family say he is a well-meaning father of two girls who wanted to be a firefighter. But he also unnerved some with his religious fervor and sometimes had trouble detaching himself from the internet.

In the weeks before his Washington arrest, there were other signs of turbulence. In late October, Welch struck a teenage pedestrian with his car in his hometown, requiring the boy to be airlifted to a hospital, according to a police report that said he wasn't immediately charged. More recently, days before he drove to Washington, he was dropped from the rolls of a volunteer fire department.

In past years, he was convicted of drunken driving and minor drug charges.

But the one constant, friends and family say, was his love for his two young daughters.

"He's a father and a very loving man, very concerned about children," said his aunt Tajuana Tadlock, adding: "He's not a vigilante, by no check of the words."

Tadlock said Welch's parents haven't been able to talk to him to ask what he was thinking, and the family's only information comes from the news and the public defender.

In recent years, Welch often mentioned his Christian faith. Interspersed with Facebook posts about his daughters are the registered Republican's musings on the Bible and religion.

Danielle Tillman of Raleigh said she met Welch a few months ago and has known his current girlfriend for years. She recalls Welch made her uncomfortable while talking at length about religion. At one point, he grabbed her hand and prayed, asking for "the demons to come out of me," she said.

Welch's family has roots in the Salisbury area, where his father and grandfather served in local government, according to the Salisbury Post. Friends say he attended West Rowan High School. A woman at the family's property declined to answer questions this week.

Around age 18, Welch pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug possession charges in neighboring Cabarrus County, according to online records of the January 2007 offense.

Welch enrolled at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, but court records say he didn't graduate.

On a break from college in 2009, Welch was interviewed by the Salisbury Post after he made it halfway through a hike of the 500-mile Colorado Trail. He told the newspaper the hike helped him overcome an addiction to the internet.

"It's a good feeling, going solo," he told the newspaper. "There's something spiritual about it."

In April 2013, Welch was charged with impaired driving with a blood-alcohol content of .09, court records show. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to probation and community service and underwent alcohol counseling.

Rowan County records show that after a short marriage, his wife filed for divorce in November 2014. The thin file doesn't say why they split up. The divorce complaint was dismissed in 2015 after neither attended a scheduled hearing. Documents related to his arrest say they remain separated, and his two children live with him.

Welch twice served briefly as a volunteer firefighter, and his aunt said he was recently taking classes needed to get a paying job as a firefighter.

Locke Fire Chief Rusty Alexander said Welch barely showed up at the fire station after joining in 2012, and lasted about six months.

"He tried it, and basically it wasn't for him," Alexander said.

In May 2016, Welch became a volunteer firefighter in the town of Spencer, Chief Gray Grubb said. Grubb said Welch stopped attending training sessions and didn't answer alarms, so he was removed from the active roster Nov. 30.

"When we interviewed him, he seemed like a good guy," Grubb said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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