A 2,500-page report documenting more than 330 thousand cases of sexual abuse was released by a commission headed by France’s Jean-Marc Sauve on October 5, 2021. The document also counted 3 thousand priests and clergy members, including other church servants involved in the coordinated coverup. Victims and advocates believe that the report is long overdue but welcomes it warmly.
Esther Callejas, a 24-year old mother of two from Arizona, fatally shot her two children in the morning of September 27, 2021. Phoenix police Sgt. Ann Justus said in a statement that Callejas shot her children because she wanted them “to go to heaven.”
On Thursday, September 16, Federal prosecutors announced that the Michigan-based physician, Dr. Jumana Nagarwala is not alone in performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on minors. The prosecutors added that Dr. Nagarwala is part of an underground network of physicians and individuals in a close-knit community of Indian Muslims.
In 1965, Jean Fields, aged 15 at that time, married a man in his 20’s. She went on to have three children by the time she was 21. Fields, along with Judy Wiegand of Kentucky, are one of the few people invited by lobbyists in North Carolina to help convince the state’s congress to address the increasing cases of underage marriage. The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and Unchained at Last are among the groups that have pressured the state’s legislators to fix the gruesome age of consent for marriage.
A 46-year old mother from Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, was sentenced to 18 months in jail for child endangerment after claiming God would protect her child. The mother, whose name was withheld by the Toowoomba District Court, was charged with gross negligence in 2019 and was sentenced on July 15, 2021. The jury took just over an hour to reach a verdict.
On July 15, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (US) signed an executive order that effectively bans the practice of conversion therapy to minors. A win for the LGBTQIA+ community in the state, and yet a divisive move in the politically mixed state. Many on the religious right-wing have expressed their outrage on the executive order with bad-faith arguments that go beyond the first amendment.
On July 15, Rev. Michael Cote, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich, announced that the diocese filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The announcement was made amidst the string of lawsuits related to alleged sexual abuse at the Academy at Mount Saint John School.
