Tag - child-abuse

 
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July 09, 2025
 

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CHILD ABUSE

Police in Australia said Tuesday they had arrested and charged in May a 26-year-old child care worker from the state of Victoria with offenses relating child sex abuse involving eight victims between the ages of five months and two years.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Jul 2, 2025
Australia vows tougher child care laws after worker charged with sex offenses
Australia's Education Minister Jason Clare has asked his department to urgently draft new laws on child care centers.
The Japanese version of the U.K.’s Disclosure and Barring Service aims to ensure a safe learning environment for children by facilitating checks for records of sexual offenses for those working in jobs involving contact with children such as education or child care.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 1, 2025
Japan expands scope of background checks amid child safety concerns
The expanded guidelines will apply not only to schools and kindergartens, but also to community spaces such as children’s cafeterias and talent agencies.
Junko Mihara, minister for children-related policies, said at the start of the meeting that "the government will work as one to advance efforts" to tackle sex crimes against children.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 26, 2025
Japan holds first preparatory panel meeting on sex crime background checks
Junko Mihara, minister for children-related policies, said that "the government will work as one to advance efforts" to tackle sex crimes against children.
Students' opinions are being sought on a planned system for checking whether teachers have sexual crime records.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 18, 2025
Government to seek students' opinions for sexual abuse prevention
Around 12 students will be selected by lottery from volunteers to participate in the upcoming session.
The National Police Agency headquarters in Tokyo
JAPAN
Jun 5, 2025
Child abuse cases hit record high in Japan in 2024
The number of victims rose by 285 from the previous year to 2,700.
Pope Francis prays in front of a candle lit to remember victims of abuse by the church, inside St Mary's Pro Cathedral during his visit to Dublin, Ireland on August 25, 2018.
WORLD / Society
Apr 28, 2025
Abuse victims say they saw progress under Pope Francis, just not enough
For abuse survivors, Francis' legacy on the issue is a mixed one of powerful words and at times underwhelming deeds.
AI-generated content — including those made using pictures of real people, which are known as “deepfakes” — is not explicitly covered under Japan's current legal framework, nor are human-drawn illustrations that depict child abuse.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Apr 27, 2025
Japan struggles with gray zone of AI deepfakes exploiting children
AI-generated content is not explicitly covered under the country's legal framework, nor are human-drawn illustrations that depict child abuse.
Virginia Giuffre speaks to reporters in New York in August 2019. Giuffre, a former victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, died on Friday at her farm in Western Australia. She was 41.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 26, 2025
Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre takes own life in Australia, family says
"It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia," the family said in a statement.
A 35-year-old mother was found guilty of attempted coercion by repeatedly sending mobile messages to her daughter not to eat while being hospitalized.
JAPAN
Apr 21, 2025
Japanese mother partially acquitted over abuse of daughter
Kasumi Nawata, 35, was found guilty of attempted coercion and sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years.
A revised child welfare bill passed the Upper House plenary session on Friday as cases of child abuse rise.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 18, 2025
New bill blocks visitations for parents suspected of child abuse
The revision to the child welfare law is intended to protect children in cases where contact with their parents could cause emotional or physical harm.
The number of child abuse cases handled by child consultation centers in Japan hit a record high in fiscal 2023, with psychological abuse cases accounting for 60% of the total.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2025
Child abuse in Japan hits record 226,000 cases in fiscal 2023
The number of psychological abuse cases grew by 6,834 to 134,948, or some 60% of the total.
The logo of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, better known as the Unification Church, is seen at the entrance of its Japan branch headquarters in Tokyo in October 2023.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Mar 15, 2025
Unification Church faces dissolution in Japan
The dissolution would remove the church's tax-exempt status while branding the organization a harmful entity.
The online safety regulator for Australia fined messaging app Telegram for its delay in answering questions regarding preventing the spread of child abuse and violent extremist material on its platform.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 24, 2025
Australia fines Telegram for delay to answers on child abuse and terrorism
The messaging platform has been under growing scrutiny around the world.
Yokohama District Court Judge Takahira Yoshii said Thursday that educative and protective measures are appropriate for a 16-year-old boy charged with the murder of his parents in the city of Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, last year.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 20, 2025
Boy referred to family court over murder of his parents near Tokyo
The presiding judge ruled that educative and protective measures are appropriate for the 16-year-old boy.
The Osaka District Court sentenced former hospital employee Tomoya Yanagimoto, 28, to life in prison on Tuesday for raping and injuring 10 girls between the ages of 8 and 12 over a six-year period from March 2016.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 19, 2025
Osaka court jails former hospital employee for life for raping 10 girls
Tomoya Yanagimoto, 28, raped and injured the girls — who were 8 to 12 years of age — between March 2016 and May 2022.
The current government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resisted calls for a national inquiry focused on the grooming gangs in Rotherham, and says it will conduct a series of local probes.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 4, 2025
'Life's ruined' in U.K. town broken by grooming gangs
Rotherham, once a producer of some of the world's finest steel, is now the epicenter of a major U.K. scandal that has left the town angry, ashamed and needing answers.
U.K. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper appears on the BBC's "Sunday Morning" political television show with journalist Laura Kuenssberg.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 3, 2025
U.K. to become first country to criminalize AI child abuse tools
The government will make it illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to generate sexualized images of children, punishable by up to five years in prison.
The arrest warrant alleges that in the early hours of Sep. 5 last year, the suspects conspired to wrap the child’s mouth, arms and legs with tape before placing him inside a cardboard box at their apartment.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 22, 2025
Mother and grandfather arrested for alleged abuse of 3-year-old boy
The boy is currently hospitalized in a coma. While he has no visible external injuries, police are investigating whether the pair subjected him to repeated abuse.
Suspect Kenichi Hosoya, who was rearrested, enters Asakusa Police Station on Friday in Tokyo's Taito Ward. The handcuffs and waist ties are blurred for privacy reasons.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 17, 2025
Tokyo couple re-arrested in ¥26 million insurance fraud murder case
The couple had already been arrested four times last year for allegedly murdering four family members.
TikTok has discovered that their TikTok Live feature has facilitated money laundering, allowed users to sell drugs and fund terrorism, according to a new lawsuit, which also accuses the social media company's livestream feature of exploiting and "grooming” minors to perform sexual content.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 6, 2025
TikTok’s live video feature ‘groomed’ minors, Utah AG claims
Tiktok has emphasized its commitment to enforcing its policies and said it shut down more than 45 million streams last year.
Foreign nationals' presence in Japan emerges as key issue in Upper House poll
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers a campaign speech next to a Liberal Democratic Party candidate for the Upper House (top center left) in Yokohama on Sunday.
Trump announces new tariff rate on Japan — and extension of deadline to Aug. 1
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds a trade letter sent by the White House to Japan during a news conference at the White House in Washington on Monday.
China’s housing crisis is worse than it seems
Residential buildings under construction in Shanghai in July 2022. The Chinese government risks long-term decline by repeating Japan’s policy mistakes in handling its real estate and demographic crises.
Japan braces for more quakes as authorities dismiss doomsday hype
Evacuees from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecuture, arrive at Kagoshima Port on Friday.
Japan stands its ground after Trump letter delivers 25% U.S. tariff shock
U.S. President Donald Trump (left) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at Morristown Airport, New Jersey, on Sunday. Trump on Monday sent letters to 12 countries notifying them of new "reciprocal" tariff rates effective Aug. 1.
From the Abes to the Ohtanis: How siblings shape athletic development
Olympic judoka Uta Abe (second from left) and Hifumi Abe (second from right) with their brother Yuichiro (center) and their parents. “I’m always consciously trying to be a good older brother,” Yuichiro said.
Foreign nationals' presence in Japan emerges as key issue in Upper House poll
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers a campaign speech next to a Liberal Democratic Party candidate for the Upper House (top center left) in Yokohama on Sunday.
Scams involving police impersonation surge
A video by the National Police Agency warns about fake scams.
Lawson to let visitors use larger parking lots as paid car campsites
A Lawson convenience store in Yachiyo, Chiba Prefecture. A new service from the company comes amid the rise in inbound tourists, making hotels and inns harder to book and more expensive.
The future is bright inside the visionary mind of architect Sou Fujimoto
The exhibition of Fujimoto’s architecture surveys his career to date, as well as looks ahead as shown in his proposal of a future floating city designed in collaboration with data scientist Hiroaki Miyata.

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