Many children in the state of Iowa are being neglected by the State of Iowa's Department of Human Services Abuse Investigators. To many times the investigators take the easy way out in an investigation because it is easier to just believe the adult over the child or they are over worked with to many cases that they take the cases that have clear evidence. In the town that I live in alone I know multiple families that have been negleted and the children are forced to stay living with or have to have contact with thier abusers. This in turn teaches the child that even if they tell on the offender that nothing will be done and they will not be taken seriously. In one case for instance, a child told her mother that she had been being sexually abused and raped by her adoptive father for almost 8 years, they went to the police and DHS was called. The investigation started and things were going well, even the father's brother was a witness to hearing a confession. He was founded for 2nd and 3rd degree sexual abuse but was some how able to appeal it. Two years later 2 more of his children made accusations that he was molesting them and gave multiple pages of testimony to Child Protective Services. The investigation was once again in process but the mother's ex boyfriend at the time decided to get back at her because she had broke up with him and went in to DHS completly intoxicated and stated that the mother had made the children make up stories. DHS believed the ex boyfriend with out doing any other investigation, did not talk to the children and decided to drop the charges and immediatly gave the children back to the father. Another instance is a 3 year old girl came home from a weekend visitation with her dad and was complaining to her mother that her "private" hurt. The mother noticed that her daughters vagina was red and swollen and the little girl stated "daddy poked my private" the mother then called DHS to report it and the lady on the phone told her that there would not be enough evidance so they were not even going to investigate. These are just two of the multiple stories that are know just in the town I live in. I know there are far to many more stories out there and nothing is being done to help these children. I believe that each case should be investigated by more than one person and stricter guidelines should be fallowed in the investigation. Statistics given to me by a Child Abuse Advocate states that less than 1% of children actually lie about being sexually abused.