If it isn't enough that the priests at the Vatican are raping and abusing children, Italy's politicians have joined in. Italy, the country that prides itself on its sense of 'family' and love for children, has its own pedogate.

Good friend of Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Rodolfo Fiesoli, ran a child sex ring and labour camp from Forteto, near Florence. Children were sexually abused and used in backbreaking labour. They were beaten and forced to have sex with even their foster parents. Homosexuality was encouraged and heterosexuality was opposed. Child slaves were adopted through the Juvenile Court until 2009, when the first complaints started to surface. Fiesoli was first charged in 1985 with maltreatment and lewd conduct. In 2000, the European Court of Human Rights sentenced him and his partner to pay a fine of 200 million lire (about 135.000 USD) for moral damages suffered by the two children of a couple of immigrants in Belgium. But the adoptions continued, even though doubts were being raised, and despite the protests of the inhabitants of Dicomano (nearby village), irritated by the forced removal of two little girls from their families. The result was an order not to shop for children at Dicomano.

M.G., born in 1985 and taken to Il Forteto at the age of 5: " I used to bring breakfast to Rodolfo Fiesoli (Founder of the community, called "The Prophet") and then... hands in his underwear, kisses on the neck, even in front of my foster mother. She was actually the one that used to take me to him. She used to say: "Just let youself go! Rodolfo does it to everyone, it's normal!"

M.C., assigned to Il Forteto in 1983 at the age of 8 talks about when his foster parent adopted a little girl with down syndrome: "She was younger than me. I slept in the bunk bed above her, and in the evening when he (the foster parent) came to say goodnight I heard strange noises. One evening I looked down and say he had lifted the sheets and was masturbating her."

"Beatings, slaps, hair pulling..." says one of the victims: "Once I missed school for three days because they beaten me so much... I had marks here on my neck, and on the fourth day E. put makeup on me." S.P. remembers: "the son of a judge, who was disabled, used to eat a mix of hay that is used to feed ruminants. Rodolfo gave him portions of corn silage, he ate it, puked and was the forced to eat his own vomit."

Locals are fed up because authorities have failed to do anything. Local and national politicians would often visit Forteto and a list of those who have visitied has been obtained. Fiesoli offered votes in the elections and jobs to the Left wing party of Vicchio, whose mayor and social administrators have failed to act. The abuses are most likely continuing as the 23 people under inquiry are still living there and haven't been thrown into jail yet.

This article includes a link to a TedX talk held at Florence by Matteo Renzi and Rodolfo Fiesoli.

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