Horrifying testimonies seek to lift shroud of silence around ritual sex abuse claims

[IwantToRetire]

Police have opened an investigation into multiple allegations of organized ritual sexual abuse after accusers relayed harrowing testimony of torture, rape and other horrors to lawmakers late last month.

The July 27 hearing included testimony from alleged victims, now adults, regarding abuse they had experienced as children, primarily in the ultra-Orthodox and national-religious communities in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Haifa, Safed and elsewhere.

Accusers recounted tales of gruesome sexual abuse they experienced as children, usually by groups of people, involving ritualistic, religious rhetoric and iconography. The abuse took place in schools, synagogues, private homes, warehouses, cemeteries and forests, they alleged.

“The police received material about this a year ago, and said they would investigate, but they didn’t,” said Orit Sulitzeanu, the executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, who has been working with victims of organized ritual sexual abuse for over a year to bring their claims to light.

Extracts from quite a long article at https://www.timesofisrael.com/horrifying-testimonies-seek-to-lift-shroud-of-silence-around-ritual-sex-abuse-claims/

Please note some details of abuse in this article maybe hard for some to read.

ScrollingLeaves, it's v kind of you to link but isn't that article quite graphic? Do you have to paste the whole thing on this thread?

Is there no share token option so it doesn't need to be posted on the thread?

Here's the link to Decca's article on sibling abuse, if anyone wants to read.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/revealed-the-hidden-crime-of-sibling-sexual-abuse-z05cf0l8r&ved=2ahUKEwixz-rWvLiPAxUPTkEAHQbyA9oQFnoECCgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2ST5PMKY-_BBqqyM-9rLez

“It’s a Phenomenon in Our Community, a Phenomenon That Is Silenced”: Child Sexual Abuse and the Circles of Silence in the Jewish National Religious Community in Israel
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/1/26

Child abuse linked to faith or belief
https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/caa/child-abuse/faith-based-abuse

I am very sorry @AliasGrace47 I did not have a share token. It is graphic so I understand I should have given a warning at least. It is about the same Knesset meeting as the OP Times of Israel. Both are well regarded for news reports but I take your point and apologise.

@AliasGrace47 I have asked for my post showing the article about ritual sexual abuse as discussed in the Knesset to be deleted. Thanks for flagging the problem.

Not sure that it was any more graphic than the Times of Israel report that I used for the OP as it isn't behind a paywall. But then posters often dont read the link in an OP just respond to the limited aspects of a few lines.

The Haaretz article is at https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-04/ty-article/.premium/survivors-testify-to-knesset-about-childhood-sexual-abuse-network-in-religious-ceremonies/00000197-3bca-da41-a9f7-3fceaa010000 and can also be read in full at https://archive.is/NTJlO

Can always post with a trigger warning.

Thank you @IwantToRetire .

Thank but it is behind a paywall @AliasGrace47 . Do you have the title
please? Perhaps it can be found in an archive.

Sorry! Yes, I remember it was recommended on here and an archivec link was given. Let me find it

Here it is.

archive.ph/RjuYi

Decca Aitkenhead was moved to write the article by this BBC Radio 4 program about sibling sexual abuse. Shocked me that it is apparently the most common but also least reported form.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00187rz&ved=2ahUKEwi8vpLi9LqPAxUPTkEAHQbyA9oQFnoECCYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1GMAS6kPgInqg2OifkVfpG

There was also a TED talk recently by a survivor, Jane Epstein.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.jane-epstein.com/tedx&ved=2ahUKEwjSgo3g9bqPAxVVU0EAHX8NHfIQFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2PyzlArqWadx-6lcELfSBH

Crimes against women and children are often ignored within closed communities and when it is brought to light often there is a reluctance to deal with it. In that situation it leaves children and women even more vulnerable because they know nothing will be done and no doubt financial dependence plays a part.

It’s often very difficult for anyone in a closed community to really talk about/report this. Eviction from your community, shunning, accusations of betrayal and disloyalty are probably inevitable. You are probably brainwashed into thinking that by raising your head above the parapet you are the one bringing shame on your community and exposing your religion to criticism, not the abusers. Pelicot was absolutely right, shame must be transferred back to the abusers.

I am really worried about the reports of children born of incest in bradford because it’s happening here, we could deal with it if someone actually decided to. There is clear evidence of girls and women being abused in genetic data we have collected and no-ones going to do shit about it because they don’t want to face accusations of prejudice. In a decent society this would have been flagged and women and girls contacted and offered support and prosecution for their abusers (fathers and brothers).

We really need to drop the hesitation around race and religion when we are dealing with crimes against girls and women, people forget that minority women and children are just as likely to be victims as people outside their demographics. Turning a blind eye because a victim is Muslim or Jewish or whatever is not ok. Either you stand with girls and women or you don’t. Being selective to avoid accusations of discrimination is just cowardice.

Thats interesting, it’s basically the same sort of thing we saw in the church and I think would be said in my own minority religious group. The excuse of not stigmatising the victim so sweep it under the carpet. All the shame felt by the victim and not the perpetrators.

Thank you @AliasGrace47

I agree but would anyone know if the girl does not tell anyone?

Or do you mean arrest those perpetrators who have come to light through these bio-banks?

As a separate point, a lot of inadvertent sibling/father/uncle incest sex/ dna matches may come about from sperm donations in the U.K. in the 1980s. These were done with no proper safeguards. The U.K., especially the London area, is small enough for this to easily lead to unfortunate connections.

The ones that came to light due to DNA data. The information is right there.

There was a report about a woman who’s father had fathered 3 of her children and she was only able to tell her husband when she was on her deathbed. I don’t know what kind of shame and threats she was living under most of her life to have hidden his crimes. Her husband did entirely the right thing and immediately reported it to the police. She would have been raped well into adulthood by her own father. Who else are we ignoring? It’s horrifying to me this happens here in the UK and we sit on it. As an ethnic minority myself I see it as throwing minority women and girls under the bus so that no-one feels awkward.

Incest and abuse of under age girls is not restricted to any class or ethnic minority group. It occurs across all groups, it is also organised by groups of mainly, but not exclusively, men from all walks of life. While ever it is possible to view abuse as being something that happens "over there " done by "them " then the rest of us are complicit, imo

it is awful to think this is really happening so much.

Do you think it does happen more in ethnic minorities in the U.K. than with the general population?

I think it would not be just ethnic minorities.

“But I quickly discovered that researchers wouldn’t return emails or calls. When I got through to one geneticist, he said: “I can’t go there.” It was like hitting a succession of ever-higher brick walls. I then came across evidence that scientists examining the UK Biobank had found that levels of incest (father-daughter, siblings etc) were significantly higher in the British Pakistani community than the wider population. This was a disturbing finding, possibly indicating abuse of a shocking kind. But the paper was never published, disappearing into what I can only describe as an Orwellian memory hole. When I approached the researchers, they were not prepared to talk on the record. One said that he feared he might not be able to bring up his children if he whispered the truth and lost his job as a result. It was like something out of Kafka.”

Thats a quote from the Matthew Syed article I mentioned earlier.

Of course it happens across communities because human beings are shocking but clearly a specific problem was identified and then ignored. Because the cost is bourne by children and women so who cares.

Syed is half Pakistani himself. Were they going to accuse anyone of racism who mentions this???

User, do you have a link to the Syed article?

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/silence-on-cousin-marriage-is-the-unspeakable-face-of-liberalism-870z5rpmf