Your show continues to disappoint.... Isn't there a statute of limitations on how long a story is relevant / pertinent / interesting? And, can you really say that Rock Center "uncovered" this case? Pretty sure it would have already been covered in the news... um, 8 years ago. More like "drudged up" than "uncovered."

This is such a travesty. No child should ever have to endure what these boys went through. Having said that, I don't think that you can judge or blame ALL exchange programs by what happened in this particular case and with this particular program, as I can promise you that not all exchange programs are run like ERDT. There was definitely a lack of host family screening on ERDT's part and they need to take some blame for that. Did the students have representatives or liaisons that they could speak with? Unfortunately, I am guessing not. I was an exchange student myself in high school with AFS and had a phenomenal experience. AFS does an excellent job of screening the students prior to their coming to the U.S. as well as the host families here prior to allowing them to host a student. Each family/student is assigned a liaison to help them with any problems they have, big or small, so potential problems are alleviated. Over the years my husband and I have volunteered, liaisoned, and hosted 13 students with AFS and all of these students have become members of our family. The benefits of intercultural student exchanges are tremendous and can be life changing and defining. You as a parent you need to research the programs and make sure that the program you send your child on is an ethical one and one that puts your child first and doesn't look at them just as a way to boost their hosting placement numbers. You are their best advocate, remember that.

This is a disgrace. What reputable public service agency responsible for the placement and welfare of teenagers, citizen or foreign visitor, is going to place that kid with obvious trailer trash? Come on. Guillaumle's parents did not pay $10,000 to have their son live in hovel with persons most American parents wouldn't even allow their sons to visit. And if the agencies running these programs don't take the responsibility of ridding their host family list of bottom feeders of the worst order, they should be shut down by court order and forbidden to engage in the exchange student or foreign student program in any way. Those outfits were operating like pimps, feeding trusting, unsuspecting youngsters to sex offenders. And don't try to tell anyone that they didn't know or suspect what was going on. There are always signs of trouble where trouble exists. They didn't want to see and didn't want to know so long as the money kept rolling in. As a parent I am horrified and as an American, I am furious that these agencies have shirked their responsibility to the welfare of these invited visitors to our shores and allowed them to be sexually violated, then worked to cover up and silence the injured youths complaints. Talk about giving the country a bad name, these outfits couldn't do a better job damaging America's reputation at home and abroad if they tried.

Tell 'em what we think on Facebook: facebook: erdtshare

This is very sad that this happens. I wonder if the same thing happens in reverse...our students being abused by their host families? Maybe they will cover this in a few minutes.

Once again this story is proof the studies are correct:

Research shows that almost half (49%) of youth under age six and 42% of children ages 6 to 11 were sexually assaulted by a family member. (Justice Policy Institute, Pg 15)

A study reviewing sex crimes as reported to police revealed that:

93% of child sexual abuse victims knew their abusers

34.2% were family members

58.7 % were acquaintances

Only 7% of the perpetrators of child victims were strangers

40% of sexual assaults take place in the victim's own home

20% take place in the home of a friend, neighbor or relative

(Lynn University, Pg 6)

Please educate your kids about safety. KlassKids has some good information. The Sex Offender Registries and residency restrictions did nothing to help these students as these "un-prosecuted" sexual offenders were not already included. I hope that one of the mandatory criteria for any foreign exchange student program now includes a "safety plan" to enable them to handle these situations.

Vicki Henry

Women Against Registry dot com

The two young men that were interviewed for this segment went to the high school I worked at part time. This behavior was reported and reported and reported and the agency refused to investigate. We had other great host parents in our community that did a great job with the exchange students but because of this almost all of them discontinued the program due to lack of confidence in the agency. Sad situation.

Unfortunately this is all too common here and abroad. This further highlights the need for cross industry collaboration on federal guidelines and minimum standards of the youth travel, student exchange and study abroad industry; an easy-access crisis response mechanism that instantly connects young travelers with their families, emergency contacts, consular, timely police or FBI protection, appropriate medical care and legal representation before being expatriated; and a federally mandated, user-friendly database of ethics, tragedies, casualties and illnesses on youth travel, cultural exchange and study abroad programs so parents can make informed decisions about the safety of a youth travel, foreign exchange or study abroad programs.

ClearCause Foundation is working hard to keep students safe when overseas. Their site (www.clearcausefoundation.org) offers a lot of great information about choosing a program, preparing yourself and staying safe when abroad.

I'm also curious as to what the overall purpose of this story is. I'm hoping some people will see the story and decide to become a host family or volunteer with an exchange program. Over 29,000 students came last year. Almost all of them will be placed in a single hosting situation - only one exchange student in the home. That means that twenty-some thousand host families are needed. (By the way, single people can host regardless of whether or not they have kids of their own -- I can name a half-dozen single people that I personally know and who have hosted and been fabulous host parents.) In the end, the exchange programs have to rely on the goodness of people's hearts to host. (Host families are not paid.)

I am issuing a personal plea to everyone reading this to consider helping by hosting or being a volunteer with an exchange program. I have do both and consider it to the greatest thing I do. There are many resources on the web to find out more information. Hosting is not the "right" thing for every family, but many times people think they can't host because of reasons that really don't matter.

Remember that exchange programs are only as good as the people that host and work for them. In the end, it's really about the kids - what kind of experience do you want them to have and what impression of the USA do you want them to have?

The overall purpose of this story is to make people aware that there are serious problems in exchange programs, both here and abroad. As a former volunteer with AFS, former host Mom, and the mother of a student who went abroad with AFS last year, and former exchange student with AFS, I can tell you that the lofty goals that I once believed AFS had seem to have been replaced with goals of money, and very little care for their students. They just push push push for areas to take a certain quota of students whether or not the team of VOLUNTEERS have the time to place and care for these students wisely. Shortcuts happen, and in the end, it isn't the best for these students whether or not something criminal happens to them or not. Because in the end, there is no way that these volunteers can do everything that needs to be done to take care of these students, and shortcuts that should not happen, happen.

A volunteer once did a home visit and did not approve the family because of their personal behavior and the very limited space in the home. Another volunteer overrode her decision although she had never ever been to the home and a student was sent to this family. When I called someone at the office,I was told that since the president of our local team said the family was okay, there was nothing she could do about it. The student was sent to this family, and it turned out that the Dad was hitting the other children in the family on a regular basis. This student was not given a liaison for several months after she arrived, and the volunteer that she tried to talk to about her problem kind of shamed her and did not even let her get started talking about her problems. Ultimately she contacted me, and ultimately she was removed from the home....but the fact is, she never should have been sent there. She never should have been without a liaison. The volunteer should have allowed her to talk about what was bothering her. Although AFS paid staff asked me to remove her from the home when they heard about the Dad hitting the sisters in the face, when I told the local team president about it, she tried to deter me from moving her, stating that a European student would probably find any kind of physical punishment to be difficult. We moved her and she was very happy in her new peaceful home.

There need to be standards enforced by the organizations, and there needs to be minimum safety standards expected of volunteers. As long as these organizations push for volunteers to take care of more students than they can cover, these sort of unfortunate situations will happen.