Mo'Nique: Big 'Push' Help Tell Of Her Own Incest

By Brennan Williams, BlackVoices.com

Over the past 10 years, Mo'Nique has become one of the foremost funny-woman in Hollywood.

But the plus-sized comedienne's recent revelation of teenage sex abuse is no laughing matter.

In the October issue of 'Essence,' the Baltimore native reveals that she was sexually abused by her brother at the tender age of seven.

"I was molested by my older brother," she tells writer Audrey Edwards during one of her most candid interviews ever. "And even when I confronted him and told my parents, he said I was lying, and nothing was really done."

'The Parkers' star said that her brother molested her four times over the course of four years, using certain tactics such as candy to lure her into the bathroom.

Her parents, she said, were in disbelief, but she didn't hold them accountable "because me and my brother were both their children, and I just don't know the kind of position they felt they were in."

However, the way her parents handled the situation left her bewildered.


"My father was very upset, but it never got mentioned again," she added. "I'll never forget my mother saying, 'If it's true, it will surface again,' and I remember thinking, 'Why would I lie? Why is there even an if in this?' I was angry with them for so long, because I felt as if they should have seen what was happening."

Mo'Nique's alleged sexual abuse came full circle when playing her latest role as an abusive parent in Lee Daniels'; forthcoming film, 'Push.' Based on the seminal 1996 novel of the same name by Sapphire, the story is a graphic account of a young black woman growing up in a cycle of incest and abuse.

"My brother was a monster to me," she commented. "When Lee [Daniels] would say 'Action,' I became my brother."

Her brother, she said went on to serve 15 years in prison for sexually abusing another girl and never made amends for the abuse.

"He still acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about," she vented in the magazine, which hit newsstands today."So screw hurting your feelings. You need to get your feelings hurt, and you need to get some help."

Mo'Nique, who serves as Guest Editor of the magazine, a special issue dedicated to plus-sized women, admitted to being nervous about telling her painful truth but felt it was her duty.

"It makes me nervous. It's like, Oh, God, what will it do to him when people read this? And then another part of me is like, Goddamn it, it's my obligation to let people know, and to tell women to watch their children."


Mo'Nique is very brave to share her story with the world, and once again parents please listen and pay attention to your kids. The signs of sex abuse are always there.

If you or anyone you know are going through or have gone through this please contact the following organizations online.

rainn.org, nca-online.org,ncvc.org and jfcadvocacy.org.

Oliver O'Grady

Just to let you know our president, president Bush pardoned this bastard.


Oliver O'Grady (born 1946) is a former Irish Roman Catholic priest who has raped, molested and abused many children in California from 1973 onwards. He wrote a letter of confession to parents in 1976 and a copy was given to the Bishop of Stockton at that time.

Early life

Born in Limerick, Ireland, O'Grady was ordained into the priesthood at seminary in Thurles, County Tipperary during the late 1960s. He emigrated to the United States in 1971.^[1] He served as a priest at St. Anne's Catholic Church in Lodi, California from 1971 to 1978. He later served at Church of the Presentation in Stockton, California, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Turlock, California, St. Andrew's Parish San Andreas, California, and St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Hughson, California.^[2] He later claimed to having been himself molested by a priest at the age of 10, and that he was involved in sexual abuse in his own family, both as perpetrator and victim.

Crimes

In 1993 he was convicted on four counts of "lewd and lascivious acts" on two minors, the brothers John and James Howard, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Attorney Jeff Anderson said the Howard brothers were repeatedly molested between 1978 and 1991, from age three to 13. Anderson argued that church officials knew that O'Grady had abused children as early as 1976 and 1984, but had done nothing. In 1998 a civil jury ordered the Catholic Diocese of Stockton to pay US$30 million in damages to the brothers. A judge later reduced the amount to $7 million.^[4] O'Grady was paroled from prison in 2000 after serving seven years, and went to live in Ireland after being deported from the United States.

In a 2005 video taped deposition, O'Grady revealed that he had abused as many as 25 children in and around Northern California.^[5] Recently, there have been lawsuits filed accusing O'Grady of abusing children while even in the seminary in Ireland.

Deliver Us From Evil

O'Grady is the subject of the 2006 Academy Award-nominated documentary, Deliver Us From Evil. In the film, O'Grady states, "I want to promise myself this is going to be the most honest confession of my life." He then details how he preyed on children, and claims that church officials knew about his abuses, but protected him by moving him from parish to parish.^[6][7] When questioned whether his bishop knew that he had abused children in 1976 and before, O'Grady confirmed this was true, and despite that he was made pastor of another parish.

When a policeman becomes a predator

Sleepovers took a sinister turn as a close friend betrayed a family's trust, writes Kate Benson.

IT WAS late one Friday afternoon last year when Michelle Adams* took a call on her mobile that would change her life.

Two Australian Federal Police officers wanted to see her urgently. Meet them at 6pm at the domestic terminal at Sydney Airport. No arguments. Bring your husband.

"I felt very, very sick. I had been burning a ballet DVD for my daughter's upcoming dance exams and I thought Big Brother had caught me."

But Adams's life was about to become a dance of a much darker kind. Photos and videos of her 10-year-old daughter, Megan, had been found on international child pornography websites, traded between pedophiles in the United States and discussed in chatrooms.

The nine photos, spread out by the officers, showed Megan, a happy, exuberant year 5 student, washing the car in a bikini, bouncing on a trampoline in her school uniform, and playing at the beach.

The photos had been cropped to focus on her crotch and chest, but Adams recognised the swimming costume and a freckle on Megan's upper thigh.

All of the pictures, plus videos of Megan undressing and showering, had been posted on the internet by one of Adams's most trusted friends, a police officer with a wife and young daughter, who played regularly with Megan.

The general duties constable had been arrested a fortnight earlier and granted bail, Adams was told.

He was charged with three counts of using the internet to transmit child pornography, after police found at his home 4900 photos and 204 videos of children as young as two simulating or performing sexual acts.

A bag of women's clothes, which he used in some of his sexual fantasies, was found in his locker at the police station, the court heard.

The child protection unit at the Sydney Children's Hospital, at Randwick, where Adams and her family were counselled, sees more than 760 children a year, some sexually abused, others neglected, beaten or poisoned.

Only two cases have involved internet pornography, but staff fear this number will rise.

"People have to be vigilant

about the photos they post on sites like MySpace and Facebook because the reality is that offenders will often use innocent photos and manipulate them in ways to get sexual gratification," says a social worker, Bernadette Walsh.

Many parents were also unaware that perpetrators were often family members or friends, well known to the child, she said.

"We caution children about stranger danger all the time and yet the vast majority of offenders are people within the family or known to the family and we don't give children the skills to talk about that."

The co-head of the child protection unit at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, Robyn Lamb, said staff had seen a surge in the number of children who were victims of internet pornography, including a recent case where a mother posted sexualised photos of her children on American child porn sites.

"We get quite a few cases where children have been coerced in chatrooms by people who they thought were of a similar age. These [perpetrators] are very clever - they know how to pick the vulnerable ones and gain their trust."

She said her unit had about 1200 referrals a year, and about half were victims of sexual abuse.

In the Adams case, the police officer had been trading explicit images of prepubescent girls for years, but had recently told an undercover FBI agent in a chatroom he had been planning to drug and rape Megan, but lost his nerve at the last moment. He had asked the agent if the act would have given him "a buzz".

"I remember driving home and feeling very numb. [My husband] David and I did not speak a word to each other," Adams says.

"I had seen [the officer] in that fortnight after he was arrested. We'd had coffee and he'd been quiet but he didn't mention anything was wrong. His wife had even been asking to have Megan for a play and a sleepover.

"I used to think what a great husband and father he was. Any time he came to dinner at our place he always made a sweet, and he used to do the cleaning and his own ironing and look after [his daughter] Charlotte all the time, and certainly do some fun things with her. They always invited Megan," Adams says.

"There were times when Megan didn't want to go and play with her and I'd say, 'Don't be mean. She's an only child and she's just looking for a good friend.' "

Adams's eyes fill with tears as she recalls this. "My head is spinning when I think about that."

She now knows that the officer was grooming Megan, buying her gifts and treats, and ingratiating himself with Adams, by regularly asking her out for coffee and involving himself in her family's activities.

The bubbly primary school student has never spoken of being molested by him, and seems oblivious to the sexual agenda of his photo collection, but Adams is still gripped with fear that she may have been assaulted without her knowledge.

"We were very nervous about what may have been done to her but I didn't want to frighten her by asking. She knew nothing about sex and I was worried that he may have told her he had a gun and he'd use it on her or us if she told anyone. It could have terrified her if I probed too much," Adams says.

Megan was never medically assessed for sexual assault because the examination must be done within 72 hours of the encounter and the results are notoriously unreliable, but Department of Community Services officers assured Adams her daughter did not exhibit any behavioural signs indicative of molestation, such as repeatedly touching her genitals or acting in a flirtatious manner.

"Megan told me that he gave her a Panadol once for no reason. I think he was testing the waters. He had some extraordinarily strong painkillers at his house and I think he was seeing if Megan could trust him enough to take a pill from him, and if she could swallow a pill," Adams says.

"I did take one last phone call from his wife. I was feeling very angry so I was not a very nice person towards her. [I asked her if she had] any idea what he was up to and her answer was no but that about five years earlier she had caught him with a disc of pornography and he promised her he would never do it again."

The police officer was sentenced to three years and three months in jail, to be served in protection at Grafton. He may be out on parole in August 2010, but Adams's face crumbles when she contemplates his release.

"I don't know what we'll do. Part of me wants to write a letter to all his neighbours telling them what he's done but that's because I'm still angry. Really, I think my goal now is to focus on my family. We need to look after ourselves and heal. The person I feel most sorry for is Charlotte. She is a lovely kid, a really nice little girl, and I feel for her because she's just an innocent person in a very mixed-up family."

* Names have been changed.

Uganda: Child Sexual Abuse Eating Our Future Away

By: Anslem Wandega

The media recently reported various cases of child sexual abuse in Uganda. This social upheaval continues to rank high amongst other forms of child abuse in our country today.

In traditional African society, defilement was rarely heard of. It may, however, have been happening but the society at large had created a system where children were protected through many avenues, ranging from stringent taboos centered on relationships and living arrangements.

Anybody who touched a child inappropriately or even made an attempt to sleep with that child was not only considered an imbecile, but was severely punished by the society. Such a "societal predator" was better seen dead than alive by society members.

These days, things have changed! Our society's most trusted individuals-parents, relatives, church leaders, friends, teachers, etc have turned to wreak havoc on children. In faith-based institutions, some men of god have not escaped Satan's temptations as they have turned to vulnerable children for sexual gratification.

Schools which used to be safe havens for children have turned into places where teachers admire their pupils, proceed to establish sexual relationships with them only to be discovered when the girls get pregnant.

The dot com era has also brought with it pornography. Urban and peri-urban youths and adults after enjoying seeing pornographic materials in the mushrooming video dens and internet cafes resort to sexual abuse of children.

Some parents fear to report child sexual abuse in cases where alleged offenders or their relatives are richer or are in positions of higher authority. Others fear the cost involved in facilitating the police to arrest the alleged offenders and in meeting related medical exam fees. Many others fear "bringing shame" to their families when their close relatives are found to have defiled their children.

Sexually abused children are at a risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Pregnant teenagers who abort and do not receive proper treatment and support in time to save them from the complications of an aborted pregnancy die.

These children also suffer long term psychological trauma, which manifests in form of pelvic pains, headaches, asthma and gynecological problems. Some in the long run, even fail to make the best sexual and reproductive health decisions for themselves, and are often unable as adults to negotiate safe sex, or enjoy intimacy relationships. Many others accept victimization as an inevitable aspect of being female whereas others fail to trust even their husbands viewing them as potential defilers.

This should end or else children will continue to suffer and regard sexual abuse as normal and continue to be abused.

We urgently need a strong law against pornography so as to shield children from pornography-induced sexual abuse. The government should then earmark substantial financial and other resources to enforce it as well as other laws against child sexual abuse.

There is a need to build the capacity of non-governmental and governmental institutions to offer child-friendly services to enable child-victims of sexual abuse to return to normalcy. Other programs to uplift the social and economic standards of vulnerable families and encourage reportage of child sexual abuse with ease should be developed and executed.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) in one of his most popular pieces wrote that the only opportunity for evil to prevail is when good people sit back and watch. Time to save our society from becoming extinct is now.

Mr Wandega is a development worker in Addis Ababa , Ethiopi

Bronx man indicted in sexual abuse against child

A Bronx man has been indicted in Sullivan County on charges he sexually abused a child for months. Hector Cerna, 19, faces charges of first-degree sexual conduct against a child and first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. The victim was under the age of 11 and the abuse started around November 2006 and continued until March 2007, court papers said.

research shows that child molesters rarely serve `serious time'

By Richard P. Morin

Child molestation, like other capital offenses such as murder, carries a maximum sentence of life behind bars. But few people in Rhode Island charged with sexual crimes against children serve significant amounts of jail time, according to Ross Cheit, professor of political science and public policy.

An electronic analysis by Cheit of the outcomes for those charged with child molestation from 1985-1993 revealed that 70 percent of those found guilty did not serve jail time. "Most people think that if found guilty of a felony sex offense against a child you'll serve serious time, but that is rarely the case," said Cheit.

Past studies of people convicted of sexual crimes against children have shown that the average jail sentence is five to six years, a conclusion that Cheit says "is absolutely not true." Cheit contends that those studies are not comprehensive and therefore do not provide an accurate picture of punishment rates for those convicted of child molestation. For Cheit's analysis, "we said let's take a look at every person in a given year" who was charged with child molestation. "Other studies have only picked the worst cases," he noted.

In addition, past studies have been flawed, Cheit says, because they did not distinguish whether the individual was charged with multiple offenses. "The heaviest sentences went to those who had additional charges," he said. "In Rhode Island it appears that only first-degree child molestation cases [in which penetration occurs] are taken seriously."

Many child molestation cases are hidden from the public with the help, ironically, of the law. Rhode Island law requires all records involving cases of child molestation to be sealed. The law is intended to preserve victims' privacy, but it also has led to protection of criminals.

Cheit surveyed newspaper coverage of people charged with child molestation in Rhode Island. The study revealed that only a small percentage of people accused ever had their names published. Fewer articles detailed actual cases. "Most articles are about arrest and arraignment. Very few are about actual outcomes," Cheit said.

Because the laws are designed to protect the privacy of those involved in the cases, the media depend upon the police and state's attorney general's office for information. The attorney general's office seeks publicity for long-term punishments it secures for offenders, Cheit says. "They aren't going to call up and say, `We had two more probations today.' So what you get is coverage that leads people to believe that [defendants] who are convicted of child molestation are getting long sentences."

Cheit is not only challenging widely accepted beliefs about punishment for child abusers; he also is turning an analytical eye toward the reportage of sexual crimes against children in the United States.

"Some people cite numbers that indicate two-thirds of the sexual abuse cases are unfounded or two-thirds are false accusations," he said. Actually, two-thirds of the cases are unsubstantiated, "which means social workers thought the actual abuse happened, but don't think not enough proof," Cheit said.

A child's first complaint of child molestation often remains unsubstantiated, Cheit said, but later complaints are often substantiated. Therefore, if a social worker substantiates a child's third complaint, the public record of data would show two reports of unsubstantiated abuse, then a report of substantiated abuse. "I could say one claim is substantiated and you could say two-thirds are unsubstantiated," said Cheit. "So unless you count by child and not by charge, you are going to miss the problem entirely."

In addition, most studies of child abuse do not separate the charge by type: sexual, physical or neglect. "Most neglect cases go unsubstantiated, so this creates a false image that most sexual abuse accusations are false," he said. "But if you separate sexual abuse cases from all other forms of child abuse, two-thirds of the cases are substantiated."

Although most cases of child molestation have not received widespread media attention, the issue of repressed memory and child abuse has. And Cheit, having remembered his own abuse by a camp counselor only later in his adult life, believes too much emphasis has been placed on memory issues when discussing child abuse.

Cheit said he would like to see a change in state laws that provide a statute of limitation on the prosecution of cases of child sexual abuse. "I have found some instances where murder cases were brought to trial 44 years after the fact. ... Additionally, there are a number of states that have no statutes of limitation on such crimes as arson and misuse of public funds. All are capital offenses. Why should crimes committed against children have a statute of limitations?"

Some states do allow for criminal charges to be brought when an individual first remembers the crime. "But for most people it is not an issue of memory, but cognition and comprehension," said Cheit. "To take legal action [by age 18] is somewhat unrealistic. In many cases the person who has been violated is probably still living at home and financially dependent on the person who may have committed the crime. So let's be realistic. I think the first realistic opportunity this person has to bring charges is after they've left the home and college."

Cheit hopes that by bringing his research and his own experience with child abuse to the attention of the nation, sexual crimes against children can be dealt with more effectively.

"I'm willing to talk about things that are very unpleasant," he said. "But it needs to be discussed because much of what is being contributed comes from people who are concerned with false accusations. Meanwhile children continue to be abused and many criminals get away with it without serving any jail time."