13-Year-Old Girl Latest Victim of “Corrective” Rape

In South Africa, a 13-year-old girl is the latest victim of “corrective” rape. “Corrective” rape involves the raping of lesbians in order to “cure” them of their sexual orientation. The goveornment condemns this crime, but I wonder whether they will genuinely act upon it. It is obviously at least as serious a crime as other [...]

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Dutch Psychiatric Patients Likely to Be Victims of Violence

Ten to 24 percent of Dutch people with a psychiatric diagnosis have been victims of verbal, physical or sexual assault in the past year. This is more than the percentage of violence victims in the general population. Dutch researchers published these results in the journal Mgv. I do not have access to this journal, so [...]

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GOP Knows Best Whether You Were Raped

Over at Feministe, there is an excellent post summarizing the anti-reproductive rights proposals made in H.R. 3, the so-called No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Most strikingly, the Republican Party, who obviosuly sponsors this bill, seeks to redefine rape for the purposes of abortion access. Only victims of “forcible” rape will be able to obtain [...]

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Repressed Memories in the Dutch Court System

There are two countries where the emergence of repressed memories of sexual abuse is common: the United States and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the controversy around whether one can repress memories at all and whether they are to be trusted, led to strict regulations for people seeking court action in cases of repressed memories. [...]

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Autistic Teen in Critical Condition after Being Stabbed by Mother

Will this be another “life lost to autism”? Anitra Nankins, 36, is in custody after having tortured her son Miles, 13, who is autistic. Miles is still alive, but in a critical condition. The focus in the short media piece is on the neighbors’ surprise at this crime. Anitra Hankins once served on the state [...]

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Depressed Mom Kills Autistic Son, Self

In Howard County, Maryland, a mother killed her autistic son and herself last June. Harold Doherty of Facing Autism in New Brunswick has some commentary. From the media report, it can be deduced that this was not an ableist “mercy killing”, but a murder-suicide in the context of the mother’s depression and other adverse circumstances. [...]

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CNN: Stress Excuses Murdering of Autistics

CNN last Friday tried to raise awareness of the high stress experienced by parents of autistic children. Unfortunately, they chose a bad reason for their awareness raising: in Texas, a mother had just killed her two autistic children a few days earlier, telling the 911 operator that she’d strangled them because they were autistic. “I [...]

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Autism, Celibacy, and Christian Weston Chandler

Via a post over at Autism’s Gadfly, I got to hear of someone called Christian Weston Chandler. Chandler is an autistic person who apparently is frustrated by his being a virgin at age 28. Apparently for this reason, he goes around harassing women, dressing offensively, and making homophobic, racist and sexist comments. Over at It’s [...]

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Solitary Confinement in Juvenile Prisons

Via @sesmithwrites on Twitter comes a horrible story of solitary confinement in juvenile prisons. The story provides some testimonies from girls who were put into solitary confinement for silly reasons, and in at least one case subjected to sexual abuse while secluded. The girls locked up in juvenile prisons have usually not committed major crimes, [...]

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Father to Plead Guilty to Shaking Baby

This is horrible. A father shook his baby at least 50 times in the first three months of his life, thereby causing what will likely be lifelong disabilities from so-called Shaken Baby Syndrome. Go figure, there’s even a specific name for the damage caused by a very specific, horrible kind of abuse. That is sad, [...]

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