Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students
Advocating for the health, safety and welfare of all exchange students
Note from CSFES:
Where crimes are committed they must be reported. The stories must raise public awareness and serve to protect other children. Public awareness through the media is the most powerful tool we have to educate the public.
CSFES is currently in the process of converting the reports which appear on the 'Reports of Abuse' page by the year they were reported.
NEWS 2008
by Leesha McKenny, December 21, 2008 -- The Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/12/20/1229189955721.html
Enid man gets prison term for sexually molesting foreign exchange students
By Cass Rains, Staff Writer, Enidnews.com 12-17-08
Student Exchange Agency:
International Cultural Exchange Services (ICES)
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African-American student stabbed in Russian city
Kansas City Star - MO, USA 12-14-08
by DAVID NOWAK
Associated Press Writer
http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/933861.html
American Field Service (AFS)
Note from CSFES to Ms. Tina Robinson: Please contact CSFES toll-free 866-471-9203 or email Besafe@csfes.org. Thank you!
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Is Former WV Principal A Pedophile And Child Molester?
by Sam Webber & Jack Swint 11-25-08 Westvirginianews@gmail.com
Sometimes A Story Has To Be Told ....
http://westvirginianews.blogspot.com/2008/11/wv-state-police-investigating-former.html http://www.hutchnews.com/Editorials/pumpekoj
Student Exchange Agency:
Academic Year in America (AYA)
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Pump up the vigilance
Additional safeguards needed to protect exchange students
November 7, 2008
Copyright 2008 The Hutchinson News
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Sex case reveals the 'dark side' of student exchange
By Jon Ruhlen - The Hutchinson News - jruhlen@hutchnews.com, November 1, 2008
http://www.hutchnews.com/Todaystop/students2008-11-01T21-12-51
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Teacher is guilty of abuse, jury says
It also rules that Young's position of trust with student warrants
tougher sentence
By Jon Ruhlen - The Hutchison news - jruhlen@hutchnews.com, October 17, 2008
http://www.hutchnews.com/Todaystop/teacherjury
Student Exchange Agency:
Face The World
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Woman allegedly steals $10,000-plus from live-in foreign exchange students
By Trisha Schultz, News Staff Writer, October 11, 2008, Norfolk Daily News
http://www.norfolkdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=104&ArticleID=12753
Student Exchange Agency:
STS Foundation
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Teen, men allege similar abuse by teacher
Youth says former debate coach fondled him; trio cite
molestation many years ago
By Jon Ruhlen - The Hutchinson News - jruhlen@hutchnews.com
October 8, 2008
http://www.hutchnews.com/Localregional/abuseteacher
Student Exchange Agency:
Face the World Foundation
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Problems with host families, leave exchange students searching
By Ray Parker, September 19, 2008, The Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/php-bin/clicktrack/email.php/8338591
Student Exchange Agency:
Center for Cultural Interchanage
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Exchange Students Arrive in Hawkins to Find No School
or Host Families Waiting
By Jeff Bobo, September 9, 2008, Kingsport Times News www.timesnews.net
http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9008069
Student Exchange Agency:
ASSE International
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Foreign students question exchange program
By Carol Crump, September 3, 2008
http://www.casperjournal.net/articles/2008/09/03/news/main090308.txt
Student Exchange Agency:
Aspire Worldwide
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Foreign Students in Limbo Without Host Families, Education
azfamily.com, August 27, 2008
Student Exchange Agency:
ASSE International
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Overcrowding Forces Out Foreign Exchange Students
Reporter Joel Thomas, August 19, 2008 KTVT
http://cbs11tv.com/local/Foreign.Exchange.Students.2.798917.html
Student Exchange Agency:
ASSE International
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Family Fights In Court To Keep Son's Story Online
By Liz Collin, WCCO July 28, 2008
People to People International
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Advocate for city exchange students says order defies free speech
By Randy Ellis, Staff Writer, The Oklahoman, June 26, 2008
Director Danielle Grijalva of Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students
The director of a nonprofit group formed to promote the safety of foreign exchange students vowed Wednesday to defy a North Carolina district court order to remove news articles about the mistreatment of foreign exchange students from the group's Web site.
"Am I defying the court order or am I standing behind my First Amendment right?" asked Danielle Grijalva, director of the California-based Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students.
Among articles the judge wants removed is an article published last year in The Oklahoman that detailed how several foreign exchange students were placed in two Oklahoma City homes headed by convicted felons, including one that was infested with cockroaches, she said.
"The public has a right to read that," Grijalva said.
Grijalva said several child and victims' advocacy groups have rallied to her cause and asked to intervene in the case to help protect the safety of children.
Three foreign exchange groups, Programmes Internationaux d-Echanges, ASSE International Inc., and World Heritage Inc. filed a North Carolina district court lawsuit against Grijalva last year, accusing her of unreasonably interfering with contractual relationships with current and potential foreign exchange students.
Grijalva was accused of contacting foreign exchange students, their natural families, their host families and school personnel and conveying false information about the foreign exchange organizations and the jeopardy to which students were being exposed.
Grijalva said she e-mailed the father of a French foreign exchange student at the student's
Judge William B. Reingold issued a preliminary injunction May 30 ordering Grijalva to:
— Not contact any ASSE or World Heritage students, their natural or host families, or school officials.
— Not disseminate any false or misleading information about ASSE or World Heritage.
— Not publish information about ASSE or World Heritage-sponsored foreign exchange students on her Web site, www.csfes.org.
Grijalva said more than 1,000 individuals have stepped forward to report abuse of foreign exchange students since 2004, and that doesn't count numerous reports of abuse that have appeared in newspapers.
For the protection of foreign exchange students, Grijalva said her organization thinks full fingerprint criminal background checks should be required of all host parents, students should not be placed in homes of convicted felons and students should not be allowed to come to the United States until fully screened host families have been located for them.
Student Exchange Agencies:
ASSE International, Inc. (ASSE)
World Heritage, Inc. (World Heritage)
Programmes Internationaux D'Echanges (PIE France)
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Exchange student testifies
Former host father’s actions ruined experience in U.S., she says
AFS
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June 5, 2008
Teen paints picture of abuse by teacher
Exchange student gives his version of events in hearing for Richard Young.
By John Green - The Hutchinson News - jgreen@hutchnews.com
A foreign exchange student who alleges he was sexually molested by a former Buhler High School teacher testified Wednesday that the abuse began within two days of his arrival.
The testimony came during a preliminary hearing Wednesday for the teacher and former debate coach, Richard Young, 68, who is charged with three counts of indecent liberties with a child and one count of indecent solicitation of a child.
The start of the hearing was delayed about two hours while District Judge Joe McCarville considered arguments on whether a hearing on a state motion to admit evidence of prior crimes should be open to the public - and then conducted
the hearing behind closed doors.
McCarville announced at the start of the preliminary hearing that he'd made a preliminary finding the evidence would be allowed, but that the issue would be argued further after testimony was under way.
The 16-year-old male student described incidents on two days in early August, within "a few days" of each other, but said no other inappropriate behavior occurred before he was advised he had to leave the state in late September.
The teen said he paid $14,000 to come to the U.S. through a company that arranged exchanges and, though he wanted to be located on the East Coast, was told he'd be coming to Kansas.
Before his arrival, he testified, he was given Young's phone number and e-mail address and they talked three or four times. He said in the later conversations Young "was obsessed with the sexual interests by teenagers."
He said during a conversation about sports, Young asked the teen to e-mail a photograph of himself unclothed, "to see my body, to see how much I was fit." The teen complied by sending a photo he took in his bathroom mirror of himself
partially clothed.
On the drive to Buhler from the Wichita airport on Aug. 1, the teen testified, Young again turned the conversation to teen sex and discussed masturbation. After arriving, at the end of the evening, Young offered the teen tissue and lotion
and suggested he could use them to masturbate.
At one point in his testimony, the teen asked his parents, who'd flown in from South Korea, to leave the courtroom. They did not return for the rest of the day's testimony.
According to the teen, in one incident Young asked the boy to allow him to touch him. He repeatedly said no, but eventually "he persuaded me," the teen testified. At that point they both took off their pants and lay on the bed.
The teen refused additional sexual requests from Young that evening, he testified, at which time Young left the room for 10 or 15 minutes. When Young returned, the teen testified that he acted like he had fallen asleep.
During the second incident, the teen testified, Young reached inside his clothing.
"I didn't know what was happening," the teen testified. "I didn't know if it was wrong or right."
Over the next six weeks, the teen testified, he became more and more depressed.
"I started to feel trapped," he said. "I started to fear and distrust people. At the time I was denying the fact the depression was coming from what happened."
At one point, the boy testified, he started uncontrollably crying. He called Young, who was out to dinner with his "host brother," another 21-year-old student from Hong Kong living with Young during the school year. Young advised him to
take a sleeping pill and the following week suggested he see a mental health counselor.
The following weekend, he got a call from the sponsoring agency who advised him he must leave Young's house. He left Kansas on Sept. 23.
His father arranged for him to stay with a friend in Philadelphia. There, the teen testified, he was advised he would have to return home within two weeks. That's when he called his father and revealed what had happened. His father told him to "get an adviser." That attorney then contacted police.
The hearing is scheduled to resume at 8 a.m. today.
Student Exchange Agency:
Face The World Foundation
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FAYETTEVILLE : Agency dumps coordinators of foreign teens
BY ROBERT J. SMITH, Northwest Arkansas' News Source, June 3, 2008
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/227602/
"State Department investigators learned that EF Foundation failed to ensure that Education First Foundation of Foreign Study on Monday fired a Fayetteville couple in charge of finding host families for foreign exchange students arriving in Arkansas. EF Foundation's decision to fire Gerald and Sherry Drummond came hours after Fayetteville High School said that it will no longer accept foreign students brought to Arkansas by the Cambridge, Mass.-based company. "They called us this morning and told us with the decision of Fayetteville High School that they were going to ask us to not work with them anymore," Gerald Drummond said Monday. "I go with what they ask. " We're just ordinary nobodies, but I enjoy life and I enjoy meeting people. We get things written about us like we're trying to take advantage of exchange students instead of it being a positive thing." "They've spent days handling living situations, and that's supposed to be taken care of before they get here," Wilbourn said. The school district's ban of EF Foundation students comes five months after the U. S. State Department began investigating EF Foundation's Arkansas operation. The Drummonds accepted their first foreign exchange student as a host family eight years ago and eventually became the company's Arkansas coordinators. State Department investigators learned that EF Foundation failed to ensure that foreign exchange students had appropriate host families and homes before they arrived in the U. S. The foundation also allowed some students to live in the Drummond home, a violation of federal regulations that forbid company representatives from serving as a student's host family, State Department officials said. The findings in the State Department's investigation, which involved six students at Fayetteville High School and one each at Fayetteville Christian School and Missouri Boulevard Baptist School, have not been made public. Counselors and school administrators in Fayetteville interviewed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in December said foreign students associated with EF Foundation felt isolated, scared and appeared to be malnourished. Those characterizations are unfair, Gerald Drummond said Monday. He said there are students who lived in his home who remain in contact with him. Over the eight years, 14 foreign exchange students lived with the Drummonds, he said. "I'm just sad to see it come to a crashing end," he said. "We're not the terrible people the world thinks we are." EF Foundation spokesman Ellen Manz wouldn't say why the Drummonds were let go. A replacement hasn't been selected. The company knew the Fayetteville school was considering banning EF Foundation students from enrolling, Manz said. "Although this is a disappointing decision, it will not have a material impact on our program either in Arkansas or nationwide," Manz writes in an e-mail. "We will certainly visit Fayetteville High School in the fall to discuss their experiences with EF, and see if we can give them the confidence in our program to consider accepting our students in 2009-10." Heather Slinkard, a Bella Vista woman who is area manager for a foreign exchange student company called Peace 4 Kids Inc., said EF Foundation's troubles in Arkansas hurt the overall image of foreign exchange programs. "They did give us all a black eye, but more than that, they hurt students," Slinkard said. State Sen. Sue Madison, DFayetteville, who wants the state to more closely monitor the placement of foreign exchange students at high schools, said she was pleased to hear the company fired the Drummonds. "I'm happy to see EF take some firm action," Madison said. "Maybe they'll get somebody good."
foreign exchange students had appropriate host families and homes before they
arrived in the U. S. The foundation also allowed some students to live in the
Drummond home, a violation of federal regulations that forbid company
representatives from serving as a student's host family, State Department officials said."
Complete story:
Alan Wilbourn, the Fayetteville School District spokesman, said high school counselors spent too much time resolving difficulties encountered by EF Foundation students. That led to the decision to stop working with the company, he said.
Copyright (c) 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
Student Exchange Agency:
Education First Foundation of Foreign Study (EF)
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Lincoln Man Accused of Binding, Gagging Teen Boys
A Lancaster County man is in police custody for binding, gagging, blindfolding
and hanging teenaged boys from the rafters of a detached garage.
"Kaplan is a UNL employee, youth soccer coach and has been a host family for foreign exchange students."
Updated 05-19-08 at 8:27 am
http://www.kptm.com/global/story.asp?s=8322308
Copyright 2008 KPTM
Student Exchange Agency:
ERDT/SHARE! High School Exchange Program
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Attempts to 'Sue' Child Advocates Mouth Shut
May 7, 2008
http://www.childadvocacy.com/news/7287/
Student Exchange Agencies:
ASSE International, Inc. (ASSE)
World Heritage, Inc. (World Heritage)
Programmes Internationaux D'Echanges (PIE France)
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Want to Be a Foreign Exchange Student?
First Do Some Homework
VOANews.com
30 March 2008
* Link to follow
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Posted on Tue, Mar. 25, 2008
Lee's Summit schools set up fund to help injured foreign exchange student
By MIKE SHERRY
The Kansas City Star
The Lee's Summit School District has established a fund to help cover expenses incurred by the family of a Norwegian exchange student seriously injured in a recent car accident.
Guru Magnussen, 17, a student at lee's Summit North High School, remains in a coma at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, according to Principal David Ulrich.
The family mainly needs help with transportation costs, Ulrich said, including airfare for an uncle and three siblings who came over after the accident.
Magnussen was one of three students in a Honda that collided with a full-size picku around 7:20 a.m. on Feb. 27.
According to police, the honda drifted onto the rightr shoulder. The driver overcorrected into oncoming traffic, and overcorrected again before the car went into a slide.
Maagnussen's family has not responded to interview requests. The host family has not been identified.
Research Medical Center has no record of Magnussen being at the hospital, a spokeswoman said Tuesday, but she said patient information can sometimes be blacked out for privacy or other reasons.
The fund for the family has been set through the Lee's Summit Educational Foundation. Interested donors should make out a check to the foundation, with "Helping Hands for Guro" written in the memo section.
Checks should be sent to the district at 301 N.E. Tudor Road, Lee's Summit, MO 64086.
Ulrich said there has been an "amazing outpouring" of interest in helping the family.
Before the fund was established, he said, "I had to keep putting people off, to be honest."
Student Exchange Agency:
Council for Educational Travel, USA (CETUSA)
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Foreign Students Say They Were Stranded
March 19, 2008
Student Exchange Agency: ASSE International, Inc. (ASSE)
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Teacher videotaped woman's feet in '99
Man charged with improper behavior with teenage student
Agency: AFS
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Exchange student's host father charged
Substitute teacher accused of improper conduct
By JACQUELINE SEIBEL
jseibel@journalsentinel.comPosted: Feb. 27, 2008
The
girl, 17, who told investigators that her host father made her
uncomfortable, was removed from the home in December, according to a
criminal complaint.
According
to the criminal complaint, Wallenslager asked the girl if she ever had
sex and whether she would feel weird taking her clothes off in front of
her boyfriend. He told her that it would be OK if he saw her naked
because he saw a previous female AFS student naked, the complaint says.
She told investigators that she had to be careful changing
clothes because he would just walk into her bedroom. He would hold and
stroke her hand and tell her that he loved her, she said.
The
Waukesha man asked her what she would do if her host father ever raped
her, the complaint says. He told the girl that he could lock her in the
basement and withhold food as a way of controlling her. He frightened
her in October when he briefly locked the girl in a closet, the
complaint says.
Wallenslager began rubbing her feet within a week of arriving and she did not know how to stop him, the complaint says.
There
were times that she would enter her bedroom and he would be standing
there in the dark, the complaint says. He would tell her that he was
waiting for her and that he would rub her back until she fell asleep.
The girl said he would rub her back underneath her clothing, the
complaint says.
Wallenslager told investigators that he
was trying to relieve the girl's stress and feeling of homesickness and
that he asked her about any sexual relations she was having because he
was concerned of the spread of AIDS. He also denied rubbing the girl's
feet or back for sexual gratification, the complaint says.
Bothwell said that although Wallenslager
was working for the district as a substitute at the beginning of the
year, he is no longer employed by the school system. He said he did not
know if Wallenslager's departure from the district was related to the
allegations.
As a substitute teacher, Wallenslager would
have had to pass an online screening survey to gauge his talent at
teaching kids, completed an application with references and undergone a
criminal background check, Bothwell said. Although unsure how long
Wallenslager worked for the Waukesha district, Bothwell said he knew it
had been for more than a year.
Wallenslager has had a valid substitute teaching permit issued by the Department of Public Instruction since July 2000.
Amy Hetzner of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Agency: AFS
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U.S. Exchange Student Starved by Egyptian Host Family Loses 50 Pounds
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
AP
Jan. 2008: Jonathan McCullum, of Hallowell, Maine, is shown after he returned from staying with a family in Alexandria, Egypt, 50 pounds lighter.Jan. 2008: Jonathan McCullum, of Hallowell, Maine, is shown after he returned from staying with a family in Alexandria, Egypt, 50 pounds lighter.
HALLOWELL, Maine — Jonathan McCullum was in perfect health at 155 pounds when he left last summer to spend the school year as an exchange student in Egypt.
But when he returned home to Maine just four months later, the 5-foot-9 teenager weighed a mere 97 pounds and was so weak that he struggled to carry his baggage or climb a flight of stairs. Doctors said he was at risk for a heart attack.
McCullum says he was denied sufficient food while staying with a family of Coptic Christians, who fast for more than 200 days a year, a regimen unmatched by other Christians.
But he does not view the experience as a culture clash. Rather, he said, it reflected mean and stingy treatment by his host family, whose broken English made it difficult to communicate.
"The weight loss concerned me, but I wanted to stick out the whole year," he said in an interview at his family's home outside Augusta.
Friends and teachers at his English-speaking school in Egypt urged him to change his host family, but he stayed put after being told the other home was in a dangerous neighborhood of Alexandria.
After returning to the U.S., he was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. The 17-year-old has regained about 20 pounds, but his parents say he's not the same boy he was when he left under the auspices of AFS Intercultural Programs.
"He was outgoing, a straight-A student, very athletic. Now, he's less spontaneous and more subdued," said his mother, Elizabeth McCullum, who was shocked when she met her son at the airport on Jan. 9 and saw he had lost one-third his weight.
Jonathan McCullum's parents said the exchange program should have warned them that students placed with Coptic families would be subject to dietary restrictions.
Marlene Baker, communications director at AFS headquarters in New York, declined to discuss McCullum's experience. She referred calls to the program's lawyer in Portland, Patricia Peard, who said she could not comment on McCullum's case because of the potential for a lawsuit.
McCullum said his host family gave him only meager amounts of food, and his condition worsened during the last seven weeks, when the family observed a fast limiting the amount of animal protein he was given.
The host family was a couple with two younger boys and a daughter who was in the U.S. on an AFS exchange. McCullum said the parents gave him the smallest food portions, hid treats in their bedroom and complained that the cost of his upkeep was more than they spent for their daughter when she was home.
The host father, Shaker Hanna, rejected McCullum's story as "a lie," suggesting that he made it up because his parents were hoping to recover some of the money they paid for his stay as compensation.
"The truth is, the boy we hosted for nearly six months was eating for an hour and a half at every meal. The amount of food he ate at each meal was equal to six people," Hanna said. He added that the boy was active, constantly exercising and playing sports.
Hanna, an engineer, said his family went out of its way to prepare special foods, including fish and chicken, for McCullum during the fast periods.
McCullum disputes that. The family served meat early in his stay, he said, but that ended during the fast period.
He said he never got breakfast and his first food of the day usually was a small piece of bread with cucumbers and cheese that he would take to school for lunch. There was a late-afternoon dinner consisting of beans, vegetables and sometimes fish, and a snack of bread later in the evening.
McCullum sometimes bought food, but at one point was reduced to stealing it from a supermarket. He was caught, but the store accepted the small amount of money he had and let him go.
Still, McCullum did not complain to his parents. His father suspects he may have fallen victim to Stockholm syndrome, in which people start to feel a sense of loyalty to those who victimize them.
McCullum's parents first sensed that something was amiss shortly before Christmas, when they got e-mails from their son and one of his teachers about seeking a new host family. They also saw a picture of him on Facebook indicating he had lost a lot of weight.
In early January, the teacher sent another e-mail saying McCullum was "in bad shape" and "really, really NEEDS to go home."
The McCullums said AFS provided false assurances that he had seen a doctor and was in excellent health.
AFS, a nonprofit formerly known as American Field Service, is one of the largest and oldest organizers of student exchanges. Since its founding as an ambulance corps during World War I, the agency has arranged exchanges for 325,000 American and foreign students from more than 50 countries.
The McCullums said AFS discourages parents from telephoning or e-mailing their kids abroad, believing the distraction would run counter to the program's goal of immersing them in local culture.
"They told us to have as little contact as possible, and we bought into it," Elizabeth McCullum said. She said she had confidence in AFS, regarding it as "the gold standard" of exchange programs, but now is aware that things can go terribly wrong.
The Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the exchange programs are rampant with instances of abuse and neglect.
"This is not an isolated incident. I'm aghast but I'm not shocked," the committee's director, Danielle Grijalva of Oceanside, Calif., said after hearing McCullum's story.
The McCullums are considering a lawsuit. David McCullum expressed concern about the long-term physical and psychological effects on his son. "Someone needs to be held accountable, and I would like someone to say, 'I'm sorry."'
Jonathan McCullum is recovering and recently went snowboarding with friends. He plans to return to school in the fall, rejoin the soccer team and eventually study to be a doctor.
Despite the ordeal, he has not soured on foreign travel: He wants to visit Zimbabwe this summer as part of a volunteer program to build homes and trails.
Student Exchange Agency: AFS
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Exchange student's host father charged
Substitute teacher accused of improper conduct
February 27, 2008
By Jacqueline Seibel, of the Journal Sentinel
Student Exchange Agency: AFS
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Family of MW teen who died in Japan files lawsuit
By Eric Serrano, Editor, Sun Patriot NewspapersFebruary 1, 2008
Click for full story
People to People International
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From Korea to Delano with Tiger spirit
January 28, 2008, By Jen Bakken, Delano Herald Journal
http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2008/stories/jb.html
Student Exchange Agency:
Council for Educational Travel, USA (CETUSA)
