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Hollywood's dirty secret: Sex abuse?

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Hollywood's dirty secret: Sex abuse?

Child sex abuse accusations have ripped through the athletic departments of two top universities … but is the scandal spreading to Hollywood?

Anne Henry, co-founder of bizparentz.org, thinks Hollywood in particular, has a real problem that no one has talked about.

“They covered it up for a long time and it`s just now coming to light,” she said. “Maybe in the last four years, I`d say we had quite a lot of convictions, so it`s starting to looking like a trend … the oddity about all this that most people don`t understand is that in the entertainment industry. There are no background checks. There are no fingerprints with kids working with children.”

Former child star and sex abuse survivor Todd Bridges says pedophilia has always been around.

"It`s becoming larger than ever now because the Internet has changed the whole game of it I think,” he said. “It has given pedophiles the opportunity to do things more than they have been able to see kids more."

William S. Pollack, Ph.D., director of the Centers for Men and Young Men, says parents need have to talk to their children about this issue.

“You can`t put it in the closet,” he said. “You have to look at the signs and be honest and open, and not grill them, but just finally say ‘I`m worried. We`ve got to talk about what`s going on.’”

Bridges added that he tells his son, “‘listen, no grown adult is supposed to touch you down there.’ And he says, ‘Why’? I say, ‘because it`s not right. If he does that, he is going to do awful things to you’ … the problem is that we`re letting our children just go off with people we don`t know, and then I think we`re coming to shame with the parent when they find out what happens – they`re so devastated that they let their kid be attacked like that way that their shame grows even bigger.”

Bridges also noted that that there are less women that are pedophiles than there are men.

“Therefore, I think that if we stick more women out there and put them in those positions, a lot of this will be prevented. By nature, women are protective, and they can see these things faster than we can see it.”

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