Advocate of abstinence-only sex education gets high HHS post

The Associated Press

A prominent leader of the abstinence-only sex education movement has been appointed to a senior position at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, joining several other social conservative activists in the leadership ranks at HHS.

Valerie Huber, named this week as chief of staff for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, had served since 2007 as leader of the National Abstinence Education Association, which recently renamed itself as Ascend. She previously served as abstinence education coordinator for the state of Ohio, overseeing abstinence programs serving over 100,000 students annually.

Over the years, Huber established herself as one of the leading advocates of programs that stress the benefits of sexual abstinence, as opposed to comprehensive programs that include instruction about usage of specific contraceptive methods.

    16b2be8a-444d-55a3-9288-74ceddae0a052017-04-11T12:40:10Znews/nationalReport: Homeland Security fields 1,000 sex abuse complaintsSAN DIEGO — An advocacy group says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog fielded more than 1,000 complaints of sexual assault or sexual abuse from people in custody in a little more than two years.

    Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement is the latest group in recent years to document allegations of abuse at immigration detention centers, based on information obtained from public records requests. It comes as President Donald Trump prepares to expand detention capacity in a drive to deport more people.

    The numbers obtained by the group and released Tuesday don’t provide details on individual cases or a full accounting of how the complaints were addressed, but they suggest complaints are common. The department had no immediate comment.

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