Several relatives of the girl contacted JFS and informed them that the mother's boyfriend had abused the girl “for a period of time.” JFS ordered the girl's mother not to allow any adult males around the child while they determined the newborn's paternity. But during a surprise visit on January 4, investigators found the 43-year-old woman's boy friend, Michael Chaffer, in her home. Chaffer was charged with obstruction of official business.

JFS immediately removed the girl and the infant from the home. The 11 year-old was placed in the care relatives. Her baby was placed in foster care. The child is allowed to visit baby at least twice a week. Her mother is only allowed to see her if social workers can supervise the visits. The pre-teen's mom is not allowed to see her grandchild.

Chaffer faces criminal charges for impregnating and sexually abusing a child under the age of 13. Already a convicted felon, if he is convicted of the abuse charge Chaffer could be sentenced to life in prison. The 11-year-old's mother is under investigation for allowing her daughter to be abused. Prosecutors allege she failed to care for her daughter by allowing Chaffer near her.

A Spelman College student left her 2-year-old son from a previous relationship and her 3-month-old son whom he fathered in the care of her 21-year-old boyfriend, Desmond Walker, in the extended stay motel in DeKalb County, Georgia, where they lived. A few hours later, a housekeeper found the at least partially nude child on a bed. The bathroom, bathroom floor and mattress in the room where the child was found have been described as “covered in blood” and “a bloodbath.”

The toddler was taken to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Police would not specify the boy's cause of death, stating only that the boy died as a result of “serious injuries.” The boy's body had signs of physical and sexual abuse.

Erin Justice accused her stepfather Laurence Lovejoy of raping her. Three weeks later, the 16-year-old from Aurora, Illinois, was found dead in her bathtub. Lovejoy was convicted of poisoning, beating, stabbing and drowning Justice, and sentenced to death.

In Stella, Missouri, 9-year-old Rowan Ford of was raped, strangled and buried in a sinkhole by her 25-year-old stepfather, David Spears, and his friend Chris Collings. Both men confessed to the crime. The girl's mother, Colleen Spears, 32, had left her in the care of her stepfather while she worked her evening shift at Wal-Mart.

While only the sickest and most evil of women would knowingly and willingly place their children in harm's way, each year millions of women place their innocent children in harm's way by making poor-and in some cases outrageously irresponsible-relationship choices that expose their children to predators, maniacs and monsters. Many of these women are lonely, weary and affection-starved individuals who just want someone to love and care for them… and their children.

The majority of them probably have no clue that entrusting their boyfriends, lovers and husbands with their most precious gifts, their children, is tantamount to placing their children at risk for physical, emotional, psychological or sexual abuse, or perhaps even death. But some women ignore the obvious warning signs of a potential abuser: inability to manage anger, drug and/or alcohol addiction, abusive behavior towards them and/or their children, hostility towards their children and criminal backgrounds. In some cases, such as that of the mother of the 11-year-old Cincinnati girl, mothers fail to keep their significant others away from the children even when it is clear that giving them access to their children is not in their children's best interests.

Women must make their children their primary consideration when choosing potential mates. If there is any reason whatsoever to suspect that a man might pose a potential risk to their children, women must put their children first and walk away from the relationship. Not doing so could and should place women at risk of losing their children to child welfare authorities. Tragically, it could also cost their children their health, well-being and innocence, and maybe even their lives.

On March 29, 1979, Singleton was convicted of his crimes against Vincent and sentenced to a mere 14 years in prison. Singleton was paroled on April 25, 1987, after serving just over half of his sentence. He moved to Tampa, Florida, where he stabbed Roxanne Hayes, a 31-year-old prostitute and mother of three, to death in his home. He was sentenced to death for that crime on April 14, 1998.

In October 1984, 15-year-old Cheryl Bess was on her way to school when she was abducted by the maintenance man at her apartment building. Jack Oscar King, a repeat sex offender on parole for the rape and attempted murder of a 9-year-old girl, took Cheryl to the desert where he attempted to rape her, doused her face and arm with acid and left her to die. The attack left Cheryl blind, deaf in one ear and permanently disfigured.

Five year old Mari Luz Cortés walked the short distance from her home in the El Torrejón district of Huelva City in Spain on January 13, 2008, to a sweet kiosk to buy crisps. Mari Luz never returned. Her body was found 54 days later, on March 7, floating in the Ría de Huelva estuary. Santiago del Valle, a convicted pedophile, has confessed to killing Mari Luz. Although the confessed killer had been convicted of sexual crimes against children twice-including a conviction for sexually abusing his own five-year-old daughter- and sentenced to a total of 4 years and 9 months in prison for those crimes, he managed to avoid serving one day behind bars. In addition, del Valle was given a distancing order for attempting to arrange a sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl over the Internet.

Shannon Matthews, a 9-year-old British girl, disappeared on her way home from school on February 19, 2008. She was found alive 24 days later hidden in a drawer in the base of a divan bed when police raided the home of Michael “Mick” Donovan, an uncle of her stepfather. Donovan, also known as Paul Drake, has been charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment. According to published reports, Donovan kidnapped his own two daughters, barricaded himself in a house with them and threatened to kill them. He was barred from seeing his ten and twelve year old daughters after teachers found graphic sex notes he had placed in their lunchboxes.

Clearly, society's failure to properly deal with the problem of sex offenders and kidnappers is placing children all over the world at risk. The despicable and heinous nature of the crimes committed by King and Singleton should have guaranteed that they would be put away for the life…the first time they committed their unspeakable crimes. They should never have been allowed an opportunity to claim another victim. Why would the criminal justice system have taken a chance that another child could be maimed, disfigured or blinded by these monsters? How is it possible that del Valle was able to avoid serving prison time? Why wasn't Mick Donovan dealt with more severely for kidnapping and making sexual advances towards his own children?

There are no good reasons for these occurrences. But if we want our world to be a safe place for our children to live and grow and thrive, we need to find ways to make sure that incidents like these never take place again. We can do this by: creating sentences for offenders that reflect the severity of their crimes and their potential for committing future offenses; placing child sex offenders under long term monitoring by law enforcement; performing court-ordered castrations on dangerous sexual offenders that are likely to commit further crimes; and ordering mandatory life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for individuals that commit sex crimes against children more than once.

Only when we as a society realize that the rights of children and law-abiding citizens should supersede the rights of dangerous criminals, and enforce our laws accordingly, will we truly be able to create a social environment wherein pedophiles and perverts can no longer declare open season on innocents.