Doctor, church youth director among suspects arrested in trafficking, online child sex sting | WBNS-10TV Columbus, Ohio | Columbus News, Weather & Sports

More than 100 people have been arrested in a massive human trafficking and internet sex sting.

The operation focused on three central Ohio counties: Franklin, Fairfield, and Delaware. Among those charged include a doctor and church youth director.
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Also arrested was 26-year-old Christian Gibson, a youth director in training at Redeemer’s at Courtright Church, who has since been removed from his position.

He is charged with two felonies — attempted unlawful conduct with a minor and importuning. He is accused of traveling to meet a 15-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity.

According to an online sermon and social media, Gibson is married and works with The Bridge Student Ministries at the church.

Doctor, church youth director among suspects arrested in trafficking, online child sex sting | WBNS-10TV Columbus, Ohio | Columbus News, Weather & Sports

Child marriage bill stalls as groups fight for parents' rights

A bill to make 18 the legal age for marriage in Kentucky has stalled in a Senate committee amid concerns about the rights of parents to allow children to wed at a younger age, according to several lawmakers.

Known as the "child bride" bill, Senate Bill 48 was pulled off the agenda just hours before a scheduled vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the second time in two weeks.

"SO disappointed! My SB 48 (outlaw child marriage) won’t be called for a vote," sponsor  Julie Raque Adams, a Louisville Republican, said in a Tweet early Thursday. "It is disgusting that lobbying organizations would embrace kids marrying adults. We see evidence of parents who are addicted, abusive, neglectful pushing their children into predatory arms. Appalling."

Eileen Recktenwald, the executive director of the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs, was more outspoken. 

 "This is legalized rape of children," she said. "We cannot allow that to continue in Kentucky, and I cannot believe we are even debating this is the year 2018 in the United States."

Child marriage bill stalls as groups fight for parents' rights

Child Marriage Is A-OK, Say 50 Missouri Lawmakers | News Blog

Last night, members of the Missouri House faced a vote on a bill that would bar marriage for state residents fourteen or younger. Fifty of them voted no.

Granted, the bill passed, 95-50, but the surge of opposition is noteworthy, since the bill is geared to reform a state law that's been criticized for making Missouri a haven for sex trafficking. It's a law that permits younger teens to enter into marriage, regardless of their age gap with their betrothed, so long as someone (parents, judges) say it's OK.

Under current law, for instance, a fifteen-year-old can marry a 30-year-old as long as they obtain permission from a parent. And those even younger than fifteen can legally marry with the approval of a judge.

The bill in question, sponsored by Representative Jean Evans (R-Manchester), would take parents out of the equation: minors between the ages of fifteen and seventeen would need a judge's approval to marry. Seventeen-year-olds would need a parent's consent. And, in a first for the state, Evans' bill would outright ban the practice of issuing marriage licenses to children fourteen or younger.

The measure would ban marriages involving one partner younger than seventeen and the other older than 21, and in the case of any marriage involving a child under eighteen, Evans' bill would also require a court "determine that there is no evidence of coercion or abuse of either person entering the marriage." (It's worth remembering that, in all other cases in Missouri, a person 21 or older can be charged with statutory rape for having sex with a minor under the age of 17.)

Child Marriage Is A-OK, Say 50 Missouri Lawmakers | News Blog

Man says HIV sex crime suspect tattooed his victims | FOX31 Denver

They don’t realize they’re victims. They think he’s there to help them and they get whatever they want and they don’t have to work or get jobs or participate in normal society
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What I would like to know: how many of these so-called runaways are LGBTQ kids, kick out of family homes because of religion?

An Aurora man accused of housing up to a dozen male runaways in exchange for sex supposedly branded his victims with a special tattoo.

Sean Crumpler, 48, faces a dozen counts related to sex trafficking, including one count of a sexual offense with notice of HIV.

In an exclusive interview with FOX31 Denver, a 23-year-old man, whose identity is being protected and who briefly dated one of Crumpler’s younger housemates, said the 20-year-old had a tattoo on his arm with the word “Sean” and a picture of a bird that matches an engraved bird on a stone entrance way near Crumpler’s neighborhood.

The 23-year-old provided a photo of the 20-year-old’s tattoo to FOX31 and said, “He told me that it was because they were supposed to get it, and because it kept away all the other 'sugar daddies' when they are out partying or at the club.”

Man says HIV sex crime suspect tattooed his victims | FOX31 Denver

Saudi diplomat accused of using two Nepalese women as sex-slaves - The Hindu

India could be trapped in a major diplomatic scandal after a senior diplomat belonging to the Saudi Embassy was accused, along with his wife, of keeping two Nepalese women as sex slaves in Gurgaon. 

According to the FIR filed by the police in Gurgaon, the two women had been lured to India with a false promise of jobs, and then sold to the diplomat, who is the First Secretary at the embassy. 

According to the statements of the victims, aged 30 and 50, they were held captive by the First Secretary’s family for over three months, and were taken to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a few days as well. During the entire period, the women said, they were repeatedly raped and forced to perform “unnatural sex” for the diplomat and other Saudi nationals, often at knife-point. 

An official who was aware of the women’s account of their captivity called the details “horrifying.” 

The Saudi embassy, dismissing the charges as “completely false” and “contrary to facts in our possession”, said it would wait for the Indian government to clarify on the matter as per diplomatic norms, IANS reported

Saudi diplomat accused of using two Nepalese women as sex-slaves - The Hindu

Italian priests EXORCISE prostitute Nigerian migrant girls to break voodoo spell | Daily Mail Online

A Catholic priest stands over the forlorn figure of a young Nigerian girl, murmuring prayers and sprinkling holy water as she sobs.

Favour*, a 19-year-old, is constantly scratching, her skin is red raw in places. She believes there is a nest of insects living inside her body- and that they will kill her.

The priest is attempting to break a powerful voodoo spell that binds her to her ‘madam’ in Trieste, near the border with Slovenia, for the next five to eight years.

Favour, one of thousands of Nigerian women trafficked to Europe to become sex slaves every year, has been told she owes her female pimp €80,000 for her journey. This will take around 4,000 clients each paying as little as €10 or €20 to pay off.

Although the chains tying her to her madam are only psychological, they are extremely powerful.

In their desperation to break the hold over the girls, many of which are sent on the migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean, the Italians have even resorted to get Catholic priests to perform exorcisms on them.

For many of us in the secular community, when we think of religious indoctrination we only see the big three - Judaism, Christianity, Islam.  But as I have been chronicling of late, the harm of religion is not just happening within the Abrahamic religions.

Although one may look at the following story as bizarre and WTF, an interesting point was brought forth,

As Francesca de Masi, a sociologist with the Be Free organisation that works with the trafficked women, explains: ‘Telling them that voodoo isn’t real is presumptuous… it doesn’t take into consideration the context they come from. 

‘And it’s counterproductive. It makes them close up and become incommunicative. Whether they believe or not, there are so many reasons to be afraid. The risk that something terrible happens to their family is real.’

From that the response is understandable, although a secular response would be preferable

Counter-magic in the form of a reverse voodoo with Catholic priests performing a kind of exorcism is more convincing, according to Rosanna Paradiso, founder of the Tampep association in Turin that helps girls free themselves and return home.

‘It’s difficult because the jiujiu has such a strong grip. And the women have been told not to trust police or anyone in Europe. But we have called priests to do counter jiujiu. Occasionally it has been proven to work. I saw one girl who had taken to her bed months before, waiting to die, just got out of bed. She was cured.’

Italian priests EXORCISE prostitute Nigerian migrant girls to break voodoo spell | Daily Mail Online

Busted: Gang that used voodoo to exploit women - The Local

As with a previous article out of the UK, concerning Lizzy Idahosa and her use of a Juju ceremony associated with Voodoo, it seems that Nigerian women in Spain have also fallen victim to the cruel technique of controlling women and children through fear.

Officers rescued four victims and arrested six members of the organization that used juju voodoo rituals to sexually exploit women, according to a police report.

Traffickers reportedly promised the women from Nigerian jobs in Spain, only to force them into prostitution once they brought them to places such as Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and Palma de Mallorca in the Balearics.

The traffickers had put the women through a juju voodoo ritual that used the victims' finger nails or public hair and involved animal sacrifice in front of idols in a temple in order to "guarantee that the women complied with everything they demanded, under threat of death to them and their families".

What is disconcerting, this practice is also occurring in places like Italy as well as the UK Man ‘used witchcraft to traffic children’ for prostitution.

Busted: Gang that used voodoo to exploit women - The Local

UPDATE::BBC News - 'Juju' sex trafficker Lizzy Idahosa jailed for eight years

As he sentenced Idahosa, Judge Tom Crowther QC told her: "You were the prime mover in this scheme.

"You targeted vulnerable young women and kept them in a kind of hell.

"You forced them to pay an arbitrary debt with their bodies day in day out. And you made significant sums from them."

He added: "They lived under mortal terror of breaking these promises."

In total, Idahosa was given sentences of eight years, five years, seven years and two and a half years for her crimes - all to run concurrently.

Omoruyi was sentenced to two years and 18 months, also to run concurrently.

Judge Crowther said both defendants will serve half their jail sentences.

BBC News - 'Juju' sex trafficker Lizzy Idahosa jailed for eight years

BBC News - Lizzy Idahosa guilty of 'juju' sex trafficking at Cardiff Crown Court

This is what happens when religious beliefs are exploited, when fear is used as a means of manipulation and control.

Lizzy Idahosa, 24, arranged for the women to be put through a ritualistic "juju" ceremony in Nigeria to make them afraid of disobeying her.

Her partner Jackson Omoruyi was found guilty of money laundering offences.

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During the trial, the jury heard the women worked in brothels to repay Idahosa £50,000 for travel from Nigeria and false documents.

The victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the juju ritual - sometimes known as voodoo or magic - left them fearing illness, madness, infertility and death.

They had sex with up to seven or eight men a day and were moved around a number of brothels in Croydon, Stevenage, Brighton, Swansea and Cardiff.

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Investigators said it was the first time they had been involved in a case where juju had been used to control victims - although they had previously heard about it happening.
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"These poor unfortunate women were vulnerable and were led to believe through juju their lives were controlled and they were frightened because something could happen to them," said Mr Chapman.

"People may see them out in public but they're being controlled. But using witchcraft is a very powerful means of controlling a person."
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"These two defendants were involved in an elaborate deception, taking advantage of cultural and financial issues in order to gain a devastating hold over their vulnerable victims. Once the victims had entered the UK, they were exploited and abused in the most brutal manner," she added.

BBC News - Lizzy Idahosa guilty of 'juju' sex trafficking at Cardiff Crown Court

See also:

Juju's 'control is powerful' - expert Siddharth Kara

The trial at cardiff Crown Court heard the "juju" ritual - sometimes known as voodoo or magic - left them fearing illness, madness, infertility and death.

Trafficking expert Siddharth Kara teaches human trafficking and modern slavery at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in the USA.

He travelled to Nigeria to trace the roots of juju in trafficking and has met priests who conduct juju ceremony. He says [juju] exerts a kind of control that is much more potent than chains or locking someone up.

"It's control of the spirit which is far more powerful and insidious," he says.