This section of the site is torn between people who believe ritual abuse happens, and people who think it is a chrisitan illusion.
My feelings on the subject are just this.
As we all know, this society has some very dark and harmful indiviuals walking its streets.
These people can cloak themselves behind any religions and torture people claiming it is a ritualistic belief.
History has proven these people exist, some gain national attention.
Some do not. However, known fact is people do get abused.
But claiming it is satanic is only a claim. Christians have been known to abuse in the name of god.
If not there would be no history of the Salem Witch trials.
This is my thoughts on the subject, but you will find a little more information here to make up your own mind.

IN the NEWS: .. per- www.newsmakingnews.com

September 2000, Murfreesboro, Tennessee;  Alonzo South, 31, pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual battery. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Overview: South admitted that on at least three occasions over the last two years he participated in satanic rituals in which a nude girl under the age of 10 was sexually touched. Court records say the child, who was the daughter of a woman involved in the satanic group, was raped in a home, the nearby woods, a shed, a pickup truck and a car. See, "Man gets 24 years for satanic-ritual rape of 10-year-old girl," The Tennessean, Sept. 30, 2000

April 2000 Warsaw, Poland; Tomasz Suszyna and Robert Krakowian pleaded guilty to murder

Overview: A 19-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy were killed during a ritual Satanic mass in southern Poland, police said after finding the cut up and burned bodies. The two victims were members of a sect that staged the black mass in a disused bunker on the outskirts of the town of Ruda Slaska, but they did not know they were to die. Another teenage cult member who survived was taken to the hospital with multiple knife wounds. See, "Teenage cult members killed in Satanic mass," Agence France Presse, March 4, 1999 and "Polish satanists jailed for ritual double murder", Agence France Presse, April 1, 2000.

March 2000, COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO, TENTH APPELLATE DISTRICT, FRANKLIN COUNTY.

Shawn Ellis, Dependent Minor Child, (Franklin County Children Services, Complainant-Appellee, Carla Richardson, Respondent-Appellant). No. 99AP-725, No. 99AP-726; Permanent court commitment of children upheld.

Overview: The mother and father did not comply with the reunification plans for their children and the court stated satanic occult practices were allegedly commonplace: "After being in counseling for over three years, appellant continued to deny what happened to her children and claimed an inability to remember the abuse. There was even testimony that appellant could not recall taking blood and hair from the children as part of satanic rituals."

August 11 1999, Helsinki, Finland; Jarno Sebastian Elg, Terhi Johanna Tervashonka, Mika Kristian Riska sentenced for ritual murder

Overview: A court sentenced three alleged satanists, including a 17-year-old girl, to prison terms for killing a man and ingesting some of the body parts. Jarno Sebastian Elg, 24, was given a life sentence for killing a 23-year-old man in November and instigating others to participate in a ritual that included torturing the victim and listening to heavy-metal music. The Hyvinkaa District Court in southern Finland sentenced Terhi Johanna Tervashonka, 17, to two years and six months in prison and Mika Kristian Riska, 21, to two years and eight months in the case. The victim, who was not named, suffered prolonged torture and eventually was strangled to death, the court said. It also said the three people convicted "were strongly influenced by satanism." The court declared most of the details of the case secret. See, "Alleged satanists sentenced for murder, cannibalism," Associated Press, August 11, 1999

These are a few examples of ritual abuse making the news.

Per the http://www.religioustolerance.org/sra.htm

Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) can be defined as the psychological, sexual, and/or physical assault forced on an unwilling human victim and committed by one or more Satanists according to a prescribed ritual, the primary aim of which is to fulfill the need to worship the Christian devil, Satan.

It is important to realize that this is a relatively restrictive definition. It excludes a number of behaviors:

Abuse by non-Satanic pedophiles who pretend to be Satanists in order to gain better control of their victims through fear.

Mass murderers by non-Satanists who try to use the "Devil made me do it" defense when captured, but who have little or no knowledge of Satanism.

Abuse and murder by psychotic individuals and psychopaths who are primarily driven to crime by their mental illness, not by any religious belief system.

Estimates of the number of SRA murders in the U.S. and Canada range from 0 (among skeptics) to 60,000 (among believers in the widespread nature of SRA). It is a type of crime for which no reliable statistics are available.

Basically, if you feel you or someone you care about has been subject to ritual abuse
Don't wait any longer and get to a doctor or therapist, they will help.
People are abused each day, whether or not through ritual or by someone claiming it such.