Child abuse

The NCD Metropolitan Superintendent, Perou N’Dranou says that there were a number of sexual offences reported during the Christmas and Boxing Day period.

Superintendent N’Dranou said there have been continuous reports of sexual abuse of minors and futher called on parents to keep a close eye on their children, especially girls.

“I urge parents to continue to look after their children properly to suppress and prevent attacks on young children.”

He adds that such cases are becoming prevalent for young people in NCD.

Pawih has been introduced as the second contestant to enter the Miss Pacific Islands Pageant (MPIP) 2017.

This step by Pawih is not only something new for her, but the bravest she has ever taken.

Taking on the title, Pawih announced that she aims to use the platform to empower survivors of child abuse, just like herself.

Dr Ashok Chauhan told the BBC the termination would be carried out "anytime now".

The girl became pregnant about five months ago. She alleges rape by her stepfather, who has been arrested.

Indian law does not allow terminations after 20 weeks unless doctors confirm the woman's life is in danger.

The decision to allow the child to abort was taken after a local court told doctors at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in the town of Rohtak that it would accept their recommendation.

The Waigani Committal Court on Tuesday dismissed a case involving a man from the Madang province who allegedly sexually touched a minor while he was under the influence of alcohol.

His identity is withheld due to the age of the victim.

The alleged incident took place at a street market where the man met the four year old girl and her uncle at Hohola in Port Moresby on the evening of August 6 last year.

She was one of thousands of children taken to Indonesia during its brutal 30-year occupation of East Timor. Decades later she found her family and now works to reunite others. The BBC's Rebecca Henschke tells her story.

She remembers clearly the day an Indonesian soldier visited her family in their village in Viqueque.

It was a Sunday after church, the time of day when Christian soldiers tried to get close to the ordinary residents of Catholic-majority East Timor.

The Playpen site was located on the Tor network which is used to anonymise web-browsing activity.

The FBI found a way around this to reveal the users' real IP addresses and led to 200 prosecutions.

But it refused to reveal to the court how it managed the feat.

The site was located on the Tor network which many people use to browse the web anonymously. It conceals their location and identity by routing their connections through a chain of different computers and encrypting data in the process.

Marcelle O'Brien was sent to a home in Pinjarra, western Australia, run by the Fairbridge Society, at the age of four.

The then-Queen, wife of George VI, later intervened to ask whether she could return to the UK to be adopted.

But Fairbridge said it would not be in her "best interests", the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse heard.

Mrs O'Brien said she suffered "mental cruelty" and "sadistic" treatment at the home where she was forced to do "slave labour".

She was molested by her school's deputy principal and caned, the hearing was told.

The move followed the publication of a Senate report that claimedBackpage.com had "knowingly concealed evidence of criminality" by editing ads featuring words associated with child abuse.

But the site says its freedom of speech rights have been violated.

And it claims the ads had helped police track down missing children.

This is one of the challenges faced in Lae by front line child protection service provider Femili PNG.

Femili PNG operations manager Denga Illave said the delay in the submission of files and witness statement from respective stakeholders to the court is mainly due to lack of logistics.

Illave reported that at the moment in Lae, there are only two sexual offense squad offices responding to both child abuse cases and the general sexual abuse cases in Morobe Province.

This was revealed by Save the Children PNG (SCiPNG) following a recent research carried out throughout the country.

The team went out to different areas of NCD, Bougainville, Lae, Goroka and East Sepik and spoke to child protection officers, the children, parents and community leaders to collect a wide range of data.

The data collected will be presented in a report which will be launched next month in Port Moresby.