Danielle Grijalva continues the difficult work of protecting foreign exchange students

Photo: Danielle Grijalva, CSFES Director
(See all Danielle Grijalva posts.)

Danielle Grijalva Post #1

When you're a young person in an unfamiliar country, you don't have the connections and protections you had at home. Apparently, pedophiles in the US have taken note of this fact.

West Virginia News
by Sam Webber & Jack Swint
February 9, 2009

...What started out as a story about one former high school principal's involvement in pedophile & rapist behavior, has now joined the ranks into a national scandal involving the exploitation, sexual assaults and gross misconduct inside the Foreign Exchange Student program.

In a multi million dollar industry that generates from $9,000 to $22,000 per student per year, some really bad people are intentionally destroying a really good program that was once held beyond reproach.

According to Danielle Grijalva, founder of the "Committee For Safety Of Foreign Exchange Students", there were approximately 180 foreign exchange students in WV in June of 2008. And, 6 of our children are abroad. These students are invited guests to this state.

Out of those, at least 3 were hosted by a WV native known to exploit teens... even his own younger brother.



UPDATE:
West Virginia News published a new story on this issue on Feb. 13, 2009: "...A National Pedophile Network Exploiting Foreign Exchange Students?? What the WV Board of Education and State Officials don't want you to know."





Advocates seek changes to industry to protect children from predators
By DENIS DEVINE - Staff Writer
April 25, 2005
North County Times

"When we looked at 7,000 applicants, we didn't think it would uncover 700 people that have criminal histories," said Jim Samuels, a senior official at the National Center. More than half of the criminal records they found--including sex crimes--had not shown up on Web-based searches, he said. Nine percent had records that indicated the applicants should not work with children...





You would think that Ms. Grijalva would get unqualified support from everyone, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, many organizations would rather hide problems than solve them. One such organization tried to silence Ms. Grijalva.