Child abuse

Non-government organisation (NGO) Save the Children in Papua New Guinea (SCiPNG) has done a report on child abuse, highlighting the different child protection systems in PNG.

The report has reviewed all of the research that has been done on the different forms of child abuse.

Country Director for SCiPNG, Jennifer El-sibai, said there is a need for child protection services to be accessible to children in the rural areas, in order to address the issue.

Neil Albert Futcher, 69, is accused of sexually abusing six boys as young as 11 between 1974 and the early 1980s when he was a teacher at Trinity, and later in his role as a swimming coach.

He has pleaded not guilty to all 22 offences, including eight counts of buggery and 12 counts of indecent assault on a male.

In his opening address, crown prosecutor Giles Tabuteau told the District Court jury Futcher organised holiday trips during which he allegedly fondled and raped boys, and that incidents of abuse also allegedly occurred at his Drummoyne apartment.

"We heard about the boy from a concerned man who came into the police station and said there was a small child carrying a stuffed animal in a busy section of Franklin," Franklin Police Officer Steve Dunham said of the incident August 7.

When officers went to the area, Dunham spotted the boy in front of a pharmacy and got out of his car to speak with him. The boy was really nervous at first, Dunham told CNN.

"I think he thought he would get in trouble," he said. "He told me he was hungry and was trying to get money for food."

Mohammad Karim, said to be aged around 60, was held in central Ghor province as he claimed her parents gave him the six-year-old girl as a "religious offering", officials said.

But officials cited the family of the girl — believed to be in shock — as saying that she was abducted from western Herat province, bordering Iran.

"This girl does not speak, but repeats only one thing: 'I am afraid of this man'," said head of the women affairs department in Ghor, Masoom Anwari.

The report highlighted the mistreatment of teenage prisoners, while alleging there has been a "culture of cover-up" within the Corrections system.

John Elferink, the minister responsible for young detainees in the Northern Territory, has been sacked in the wake of the damning ABC Four Corners report into the mistreatment of teenage prisoners.

It is part of a chilling catalogue of vision released for the first time showing the repeated stripping, assault and mistreatment of the boy, who was one of six children tear-gassed at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin in 2014.

The boy in the chair is Dylan Voller, who was a detainee at the Youth Detention Centre in Alice Springs at the time.

Dr Babatunde Osotimehin told the BBC that the custom was a human rights abuse and needed to end immediately.

More than 200 million women and girls around the world have undergone the procedure, where parts of the female genitals are removed.

The UN estimates a further three million are at risk of being mutilated.

Dr Osotimehin said: "There is absolutely no reason to cut anybody, and it seemed to us that it is part of the gender imbalance that has always existed in these communities which are based on patriarchy. I think it's child abuse."

The man cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl, who was aged between 11 and 13 when the abuse happened.

The District Court in Perth was told the 42-year-old man met six men through online advertisements and offered the girl to them for sex while he watched or participated.

Some of the abuse was recorded and in one video the girl was heard to say "please stop".

The court heard that in another instance, when the girl protested about being abused, her father chastised her and told her to "start".