abuse

Cornerstone Cottage opened in 2016, in Post Falls, Idaho. The facility looks like a residential home, but is one of many in the “troubled teen industry,”…

Thirty-three states, including Washington, Idaho and Oregon, exempt clergy from laws requiring professionals such as teachers and doctors to report information about alleged child abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged, an Associated Press review has found.

The Boy Scouts of America has reached an $850 million settlement with more than 60,000 men who sued the iconic institution over alleged sexual abuse by adults in scouting over several decades.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in Washington foster youth spending more nights in hotel rooms while overall reports of child abuse and neglect have declined precipitously. Those are among the pandemic-related findings of an annual report from the state’s Office of the Family and Children's Ombuds (OFCO) released Monday.

An investigation by KQED shows that Jesús Antonio Castañeda Serna, a former Catholic priest in the Diocese of Yakima, had been accused before and has moved from the Catholic Church to the Anglican Church and then to another religious group without undergoing complete background checks — or any at all.

The Boy Scouts of America's own records show that more than 12,000 children have been sexually assaulted while participating in the organization's programs. The documents came to light through court testimony given by a researcher whom the Scouts had hired to do an internal review. The records reveal allegations against thousands of Scout leaders — allegations that date from the 1940s.

Many people forced into labor or the sex trade seek medical help at some point, and health care workers are being trained to identify them and to offer assistance.