Foreign News
Child sex abuse victim begs Elon Musk to remove links to her images
A victim of child sexual abuse has begged Elon Musk to stop links offering images of her abuse being posted on his social media platform X.
“Hearing that my abuse – and the abuse of so many others – is still being circulated and commodified here is infuriating,” says “Zora” (not her real name) who lives in the United States and was first abused more than 20 years ago.
“Every time someone sells or shares child abuse material, they directly fuel the original, horrific abuse.”
X says it has “zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material” and tackling those who exploit children remains “a top priority”.
The BBC found images of Zora while investigating the global trade of child sex abuse material, estimated to be worth billions of dollars by Childlight, the Global Child Safety Institute.
The material was among a cache of thousands of similar photos and videos being offered for sale on an X account. We got in contact with the trader through the messaging app Telegram, and this led us to a bank account linked to a person in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Zora was first abused by a family member. A collection of images of her abuse have become infamous among paedophiles who collect and trade such content. Many other victims face the same situation, as images of abuse continue to circulate today.
Zora is angered the trade continues to this day.
“My body is not a commodity. It never has been, and it never will be,” she says. “Those who distribute this material are not passive bystanders, they are complicit perpetrators.”
Images of Zora’s abuse were originally only available on the so-called dark web, but she now has to live with the reality that links are being openly promoted on X.
Social media platforms are trying to rid their platforms of illegal material, but the scale of the problem is enormous.
Last year the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), received more than 20 million mandatory reports from tech companies about incidents of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) – illegal images and videos on their platforms.
NCMEC attempts to identify victims and perpetrators, the organisation then contacts law enforcement.
We approached “hacktivist” group Anonymous, whose members are trying to combat the trade in child abuse images on X. One of them told us the situation was as bad as ever.
They tipped us off about a single account on X. It used a photo of the head and shoulders of a real child as its avatar. There was nothing obscene about it.
But the words and emojis in the account’s bio made it clear the owner was selling child sexual abuse material and there was a link to an account on the messaging app Telegram.
The trader appeared to be based in Indonesia and was offering “VIP packages”, collections of images and video files of abuse for sale to paedophiles around the world.
The Anonymous activist had been working to report this trader’s multiple accounts on X, so they could be removed by the platform’s moderation systems. But each time one account was removed, he told us, another new one would replace it.
The trader appeared to have been overseeing more than 100 almost-identical accounts. The activist told us that when he had contacted the trader directly using Telegram, the trader had replied saying he had thousands of videos and images for sale.
“I have baby. Kids young 7-12”, he wrote in messages to the activist seen by the BBC. He also explained that some of the content showed child rape.
We got in touch with the trader ourselves.
He provided links to samples of material, which we did not open or view. Instead, we contacted experts from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (CCCP) in Winnipeg – who work alongside law enforcement and are legally permitted to view such content.
“The Telegram account was, for lack of a better term, a taster pack – essentially a collage of the material he had available of all the different victims,” explained Lloyd Richardson, the CCCP’s director of technology. “When we looked at all the different images in the collages, I would say there were thousands.”
Among the files were images of Zora.
Her abuser in the US was prosecuted and imprisoned many years ago, but not before footage of the abuse had already been shared and sold across the world.
Zora told us: “I have tried over the years to overcome my past and not let it determine my future, but perpetrators and stalkers still find a way to view this filth.”
As she grew older, stalkers uncovered Zora’s identity, contacting and threatening her online. She says she feels “bullied over a crime that robbed me of my childhood”.
Finding the trader
To identify the trader selling photos of Zora, we posed as a buyer.
The trader sent us his bank information and an online payment account, both had the same name listed as the account holder.
The Anonymous activist had discovered this name was also linked to two money transfers and another bank account.
We tracked down a man with the same name as that listed on the accounts, to an address on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
A producer working in the city for the BBC World Service went to visit the address and confronted a man on the premises who, when presented with the evidence, said he was shocked.
“I don’t know anything about this,” he said.
The man confirmed one of the bank accounts was his and stated it was created for a single mortgage-related transaction. He said he had not used the account since and that he would contact his bank to find out what had happened. He denied knowledge of the other bank account or the money transfers.
We cannot know for certain if, and to what extent, he may be involved and as a result we are not naming him.
The way Zora’s images were being marketed is a method used by hundreds of traders across the world, our investigation found.
Posts on X use different hashtags familiar to paedophiles. Images that appear on the platform are often taken from known child abuse images but can be cropped so they are not obscene.
Elon Musk said removing child sexual abuse material was his “top priority” when he took over X, then known as Twitter, in 2022.
Social media platforms in general, not just X, could do much more to prevent criminals posting repeatedly in this way, says Lloyd Richardson from the CCCP.
“It’s great that we can send a takedown notice [to social media platforms], and they remove the account, but that’s the bare minimum.”
The problem is that users can come back onto the platforms in a few days with a new account, he says.
X told us it has “zero tolerance” for child sexual exploitation. “We continually invest in advanced detection to enable us to take swift action against content and accounts that violate our rules,” said a spokesperson.
The platform told us it works “closely with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and supports law enforcement efforts to prosecute these heinous crimes”.
Telegram said: “All channels are moderated, and more than 565,000 groups and channels related to the spread of CSAM have been banned so far in 2025.”
The platform said it has more than a thousand moderators working on the issue.
“Telegram proactively monitors public content across the platform and removes objectionable material before it can reach users or be reported,” a spokesperson said.
When we told Zora her photos were being traded using X, she had this message for the platform’s owner, Elon Musk: “Our abuse is being shared, traded, and sold on the app you own. If you would act without hesitation to protect your own children, I beg you to do the same for the rest of us. The time to act is now.”
[BBC]
Nearly three weeks after an Indian family of four were found dead in their home, investigators tell the BBC they are no closer to knowing what actually happened.
The Dokadia family – Abdullah, his wife Nasreen and their two daughters Ayesha and Zainab – were found dead at their home on 25 April in Mumbai’s Pydhonie area.
When the news broke, Indian media quickly dubbed the case “watermelon deaths”, after the last thing the family had eaten before their deaths.
The deaths received incessant media coverage in India, with lots of headlines advising caution while eating what is one of India’s most popular summer fruits.
Reports claimed the fruit was either adulterated or had been poisoned and that the couple and their teenaged daughters died because they consumed it late at night. This even led to a crash in watermelon prices in Mumbai’s fruit markets after demand plummeted.
There was also a lot of speculation over whether the deaths were accidental or intentional.
Last week, police in Mumbai said forensic tests had shown it was zinc phosphide – an extremely toxic chemical commonly used to kill rats – that killed the Dokadias. They said it was found in their organs and the remnants of the fruit.
But despite the revelation, the case is far from being solved and there are many unanswered questions.
On Wednesday, sources in the Mumbai police told the BBC that there is still no clarity on the motive or how the poison entered the watermelon.
“We are still collecting evidence and looking at all angles for motives,” a senior police officer said. “We have not ruled out homicide, accidental death or suicide.”
The Dokadias lived on the first floor of an old building in south Mumbai’s Pydhonie area.
In their first comments after the deaths, police said that night the family had hosted some relatives for dinner where they had eaten biriyani – a rice dish cooked with meat and fragrant spices.
The guests left at 22:30 and a few hours later the Dokadias ate watermelon. Soon after, they became ill.
“They all began suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea. They were taken to a nearby hospital and later transferred to JJ Hospital. However, all four individuals unfortunately died,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Pravin Mundhe told the media.
On hearing about their distress, neighbours, including Dr Zaid Qureshi who lives on the fourth floor of the building, rushed to help the family.
“I noticed that the youngest of the four individuals was experiencing difficulty breathing. I administered CPR. However, as her condition did not improve, she was taken to a nearby hospital. She passed away,” Dr Qureshi told BBC Marathi.
“The other three individuals were transferred from a local hospital to JJ Hospital,” he said, adding that they also died. Their post-mortem reports are still awaited.
Police said they seized all the food items, including rinds of the watermelon, to check for adulteration. As the last item the family had eaten before becoming ill, the attention was focused on the fruit.
Last week’s report from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Mumbai shifted the focus from watermelon to zinc phosphide.
The chemical was “detected in the deceased individuals’ viscera samples – specifically in the liver, kidney, and spleen – as well as in samples of stomach contents, bile and abdominal fat”, FSL director Dr Vijay Thakare told BBC Marathi. “Zinc phosphide was also detected in the watermelon sample.”
Mundhe, who is investigating the case, also confirmed that the chemical was “detected in the watermelon samples collected during the investigation, although it was not found in any other food samples sent for analysis”.
The building in which the Dokadias lived has a rodent problem, according to a report in the Indian Express newspaper. It says that many families use repellents, poison cakes and glue pads to get rid of these pests.
Some of the poison used to kill rats contains zinc phosphide which is “an extremely toxic chemical compound”, says Mumbai-based doctor Bhushan Rokade.
“Once ingested or upon contact with moisture, this chemical generates phosphine gas which inhibits the body’s cells from utilising oxygen and has severe repercussions on multiple organs.
“Symptoms include vomiting, a sensation of tightness in the chest, shortness of breath and going into shock. Even in very minute quantities, it can prove fatal,” Dr Rokade explained.
On Wednesday, a senior police official told the BBC they were still puzzled by how the rat poison ended up in the fruit.
“We have questioned 40-50 people, including relatives, friends, family, neighbours and Dokadia’s work colleagues. We have formed multiple teams that are working to solve the case.
“We will keep working until we find the answers,” he said.
[BBC]
Hundreds of people descended on a girls’ boarding school in the Indonesian village of Tlogosari, Central Java on 2 May, shouting chants and waving banners.
“Women are not sexual objects” read one. Another said, simply, “The Predator”.
The mob was there to accost and hurl insults at 58-year-old Kiai Ashari, the caretaker of the Ndholo Kusumo Islamic boarding school, as he was escorted away by police. He is suspected of sexually abusing dozens of female students – most of them orphans from poor families – over the course of several years.
The case has provoked outrage in Indonesia, and highlights a systemic issue of sexual abuse in Islamic boarding schools across the country.
While multiple witnesses who spoke out against Ashari have since withdrawn their testimonies, one victim has now filed an official complaint – and suggested that as many as 50 others fell prey to the caretaker’s sexual violence.
“The number of victims is 30 to 50 children based on the victim’s statement,” the victim’s attorney, Ali Yusron, told the BBC. “I handled one victim, but the legal process tells of many victims.
“One person reveals everything.”
Police said on 4 May that Ashari, who investigators named as a suspect on 28 April, had not yet been detained – but insisted that he would not flee. He proved them wrong later that day, fleeing Pati for the cities of Bogor, Jakarta and Solo before being caught by police on the night of 6 May at a mosque in Wonogiri, Central Java.
Pati police chief Jaka Wahyudi told reporters on 7 May that the victim was allegedly abused 10 times at different locations between February 2020 and January 2024.
The suspect is accused of entering the victim’s room under the pretext of asking for a massage, before telling the victim to remove their clothing and committing indecent acts including “touching, squeezing and kissing”.
After the incident occurred a tenth time the victim told their father, and a police report was filed.
This is not the first time Ashari has faced allegations of sexual abuse against his students. The caretaker, who also founded the Ndholo Kusumo school, is thought to have a history of abuse dating back to 2022.
“The victims are female students, mostly MTs students,” Ali says. “Three years in a row, they change at will.”
In 2024, Pati Police’s Women and Children’s Services Unit (PPA) received reports of alleged sexual crimes targeting minors in their teens.
Some of those charges were later dropped.
Pati police chief Jaka told the BBC that authorities investigated the 2024 case and interviewed witnesses, but ran into “obstacles along the way” – including four victims who withdrew their statements.
“The victim and the victim’s parents expressed their intention to resolve the matter amicably,” he explained.
“Therefore, several witnesses withdrew their testimony at the time, citing concerns about their children’s future.”
The case against Ashari resurfaced last month when, after two years, police finally named him as a suspect.
Authorities are still investigating the number of victims, Jaka said. But the allegations also point to a systemic trend of abuse in Indonesia’s Islamic boarding schools.
Ashari is said to have instilled misleading doctrines in his female students, several of whom said he claimed to be a saint with powers beyond human comprehension and, in other cases, the descendant of a prophet who should be honoured.
Imam Nahe’i, a member of the PBNU Anti-Sexual Violence Unit (SAKA) who is also a former commissioner of the National Commission on Violence Against Women, tells the BBC that cases of sexual violence in Islamic boarding schools usually follow a similar pattern.
Caretakers in these schools often teach things that “smell of shamanism or mysticism”, as opposed to “anything rational”, he says.
“Then there are also those who claim to be guardians,” he adds. “If you don’t obey them, you’ll go to hell.”
More explicitly, Imam Nahe’i says Islamic boarding schools often normalise, tolerate, and even allow actions such as touching, hugging and kissing students – which, he says, could lead to a tolerance of sexual violence.
He cites a case at a school in Sumenep, which “happened quite a long time ago, since 2017, until it was finally uncovered recently”.
“This means that all this time there has been some tolerance from those around them.”
Imam Nahe’i, who teaches at a large Islamic boarding school, says that when he asked he found his fellow teachers “didn’t understand what sexual violence was”.
“They said sexual violence is defined as penetration,” he explains. “If it hasn’t reached that point, it’s not considered sexual violence – it’s just a kind of sin.”
A broader issue relates to a lack of government supervision.
While Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs issued legislation in 2022 concerning the handling of sexual violence in educational contexts, Islamic boarding schools – which are typically founded by individuals rather than government institutions – are harder to regulate and often slip through the cracks.
This makes it difficult to report and protect against sexual violence in Islamic boarding schools. As Imam Nahe’i puts it, the legislation “cannot control” them.
“In order for Islamic boarding schools to have clear regulations and a task force, I think the Ministry of Religion really needs to push for this,” he says.
“In addition, supervision from the Ministry of Religion and the community regarding these newly emerging Islamic boarding schools must be stricter.”
The Ndholo Kusumo boarding school reportedly had a permit since 2021, and was home to at least 252 students.
In the wake of these latest allegations, the school has been closed down and students have been sent home.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs has revoked the school’s license permanently, and said that students’ educations would continue through online learning options or transfers to other institutions – especially for orphaned students.
The Director of Islamic Boarding Schools at the Ministry of Religion, Basnang Said, explained that the closure of the boarding school was to ensure that authorities could prioritise the investigation while maintaining order and protecting children.
New student admissions will be suspended until all issues are resolved and there is certainty that the childcare system, child protection, and institutional governance meet standards.
If Ndholo Kusumo is found to not meet those standards, it will be permanently deactivated.
The Ministry of Religion has further recommended that educators or caretakers at Islamic boarding schools who are suspected of sexually abusing students should be dismissed and kicked out of their residences on the Islamic boarding school grounds.
Islamic boarding schools across Indonesia are being asked to appoint new teaching staff with the capacity, moral integrity, and readiness to fully care for students 24 hours a day.
[BBC]
The Philippine Senate was locked down with military personnel seen entering the building where a senator wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had sought refuge.
Rounds of gunfire were heard but officials have not revealed who fired the shots. They said there were no casualties.
Senator Ronald Dela Rosa said earlier he belived his arrest was imminent and urged Filipinos to prevent it. He is safe and with security personnel, officials said.
He is accused by the ICC of killing dozens of people when he was police chief during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, in which thousands of alleged dealers were shot and killed. Duterte has been held at The Hague since March 2025.
TV footage showed police commandos in fatigues entering the Senate building in Manila early on Wednesday evening, with anti-riot policemen with shields and helmets surrounding the perimeter.
Protesters outside the Senate demanded Dela Rosa’s detention, calling for him to be sent to stand trial with Duterte.
His lawyers have appealed to the Supreme Court to block his extradition.
The senate building has been locked down since the shots, and senators are holed up inside.
The government has denied trying to arrest Dela Rosa, and says it is still investigating who opened fire.
Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said the president had given “strict instructions” to secure the senators.
Dela Rosa is “safe” and with security personnel, he added.
“We are not here to arrest Senator Dela Rosa,” he said. “In fact, we are here to protect him. Let that be clear. I made that clear to his family.”
No one has been arrested for the shooting, Remulla said.
Senate speaker Alan Peter Cayetano asked the public to send “any videos that could help with the investigation”.
The senate is currently controlled by allies of Duterte, whose daughter Sara is the vice president.
An alliance between the Duterte family and that of current President Bongbong Marcos collapsed two years ago, setting off a bitter feud between them.
On Monday the lower house of congress voted to start impeachment of the vice president, but the senate has the power to block it.
Duterte has refused to recognise the ICC proceedings, arguing that during his presidency in 2019 the Philippines had pulled out of the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding agreement.
But last month, judges in the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber rejected that argument on the grounds that the alleged crimes had happened between 2011 and 2019 – while the Philippines was still a member of the ICC – paving the way for Duterte to stand trial.
[BBC]
Britain’s Health Secretary Streeting resigns as pressure on Starmer grows
National SME Strategy Framework 2026 is critical because it brings policy consistency and stability to the sector – PM
Giant new dinosaur identified from fossils in Thailand
Cuba says CIA chief visited Havana as energy crisis worsens
Showers about 150mm are likely at some places in the Western, Sabaragamuwa and North-western provinces and showers above 100mm are likely at some places in Galle and Matara districts
Tilak Varma, Shardul Thakur hand Punjab Kings fifth successive defeat
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
News5 days agoLanka Port City officials to meet investors in Dubai
-
News2 days agoEx-SriLankan CEO’s death: Controversy surrounds execution of bail bond
-
News6 days agoSLPP expresses concern over death of former SriLankan CEO
-
News6 days agoPolice inform Fort Magistrate’s Court of finding ex-CEO of SriLankan dead under suspicious circumstances
-
Features3 days agoWhen University systems fail:Supreme Court’s landmark intervention in sexual harassment case
-
Features3 days ago
High Stakes in Pursuing corruption cases
-
Midweek Review2 days agoA victory that can never be forgotten
-
News6 days agoPresident of Vietnam and delegation departs Sri Lanka