Victims of Child Abuse Hotline
Do you know a child who is being abused or molested?
If the crisis is now, please call 9-1-1!
Call the National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453)
Do not listen to any counsel that tells you to be silent. Everyone matters.
All calls are anonymous and toll-free. The hotline is staffed 24 hours daily with professional crisis counselors who utilize a database of thousands of emergency, social service and support resources.
The Childhelp hotline counselors can…
- discuss signs and symptoms of abuse with you.
- help you decide a course of action.
- prepare you as to what to expect when reporting child abuse.
- provide the number of the local reporting agency you should call.
Hotline counselors can look up the local reporting telephone number and give it to you. They can also stay on the phone line and make a 3-way call if you are nervous about doing it alone.
Law enforcement agencies (the police or sheriff’s departments) and child protective services are the ones who decide what will happen when there is child abuse. If a child is in immediate danger, however, counselors can call the local police to go to the child’s location if the hotline caller gives the address and the name of the child or teen who is being abused.
Other Hotlines
If you are in immediate danger call 9-1-1.
- United States Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
Spanish Language: 1-800-942-6908
TDD: 1-800-787-3224 - United States Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
- Youth Crisis Hotline: 1-800-448-4663
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: 1-800-843-5678
TDD: 1-800-826-7653 - United States Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-2433
- Hotline For Parents Considering Abducting Their Children: 1-800-A WAY OUT
- United States Missing Children Hotline: 1-800-235-3535
- United States Elder Abuse Hotline: 1-866-363-4276
- Find a Therapist: 1-800-865-0686
The sad fact of the matter is, organized religion structures itself around giving the clergy a lot of authority. It is no surprise that one finds disproportionate numbers of pedophiles wearing collars (the number may be as high as 18% of all clergy, substantially higher than in the populace as a whole.)
More information can be found here.
Just another reason for you (and me) to distrust organized religion. On top of the many other valid reasons.
This is an important post!
And I love the new decorations around here!
Including the pretty blogger’s headshot…
Jolly Roger. I agree that pedophiles are to be found within organized religion – and I think that authoritarian environments that encourage splitting rather than integration tend to breed all kinds of power pathologies.However, I believe that a true predator will simply utilize any convenient environment to be near kids – working in schools, clothing stores, camps, youth activites of various kinds – whatever it takes to be near children. So while I agree that the mindset of some religious communities may actually encourage sexual predators (if not help create them), I also think that such pedophilic predators can be just about anywhere. For me, the problem with the churches is that the more suspicious and insulated they are from the greater community, the less the congregants are protected from such things. In the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, they had a document listing known pedophiles and abusers. Because they believe that the police and the government are part of “Satan’s Worldly System of Things”, they do not share that information. Moreover, they only discipline such internally on the word of two witnessess. Often, the word of a woman or a child doesn’t register. Victims are told to “wait on Jehovah” to put it right. Predators can thus operate in congregations, or move between congregations, for years. Meanwhile, someone can be disfellowshipped for questioning a teaching, or asking too many questions, or smoking, or having facial hair, or celebrating a “worldly” holiday with extended family, etc. etc. The priorities are very strange.
Mr HK – Awwwww, shucks. Thanks for the compliment. I’m 42 this year, and it’s very nice to be called “pretty.” (grin)