LudditeJourno at The Hand Mirror has said everything I want to and have struggled to say about this abuse case, so I have reprinted her post.
I am a father and I don't think any of this is funny. Child abuse isn't funny.
Trigger warning – please be careful with this post – it is deliberately provocative.
Imagine this. You’re a woman. You live with your partner and your daughter. One night, your partner has gone out to a Christmas party by himself. When he comes home, it’s late, he’s drunk, he fancies a shag, you don’t.
You say “no, thanks” and go to sleep.
In the wee hours of the morning, you wake up. Something’s not quite right. You open your eyes properly and look around. Your beautiful little girl, all of four years old, has jumped into bed with you.
Your partner has pulled down her pyjama pants. He was removed her night-time nappy. He has his mouth where her tiny, four year old genitals are.
You probably shout or scream. You probably grab your daughter and pull her away from him. You probably can’t quite believe what you’ve just seen, and desperately wish you hadn’t. You probably try to control what you want to say and do to him, because you have a little, confused girl in your arms who needs a cuddle, who needs help to put her nappy and pyjamas back on properly.
He says “I was confused, I thought it was you.”
You don’t believe this. You don’t wear nappies to bed. And you had already told him, that night, that you didn’t want to have sex.
Who knows how much you talk about it that night – but you decide you have to report this to the Police. You’re not sure why your partner would lie about trying to do adult sexual things with your daughter, but you don’t want her to be at risk. You don’t know what to believe. Could this happen again? Has he done this before? You don’t know. But you can’t risk your little four year old girl. You talk to people. No one else wants to believe it either.
When you tell the Police, he is furious. He made a mistake, he was drunk, it could happen to anyone. Don’t you care about him? What about his career, he’s a comedian, he makes people laugh, this will ruin everything. He just wants a chance to show you and your daughter how much he loves you. But he has to get a lawyer, because the Police investigate.
It’s in the papers. He tells people that whoever told the Police did it out of spite, to get back at him. It was a genuine mistake, and the report to the Police was malicious, but he’s distancing himself from that bad person now.
The case drags on and on. Even though the court tells reporters they can’t say who you are, who your daughter is, you know everyone knows. Everyone in your lives. They all have opinions about what you should do. Most of them don’t think it’s that big a deal. You don’t want to tell them the details of what you saw, and anyway, you’re not supposed to talk about it.
You might never want to see him again, or you might beg him to go talk to someone professional. Your daughter is behaving differently, crying at night and being very clingy. She doesn’t want to take off her nappy. She wants to see her dad, but she doesn’t want to be alone with him.
You see, over and over again, what you woke up to that night. Flashbacks, other people call it. You feel like you’re there.
The trial is called off for now, because they say they can find no evidence. You don’t understand, doesn’t what you saw count? Doesn’t what your daughter says count?
He tries again. So does his family. Why do we have to do this? Come on now, let’s just forget it and things can get back to normal. Stop making a fuss. He loves you. He loves your daughter. He will never do anything like that again.
You stay strong. Your lawyers stay strong. The trial goes ahead, fifteen months later. The lawyers talk. He doesn’t want to go to prison, and he knows he will if the court believes you and your daughter, if you get to tell them what happened that night.
Your lawyers do a deal. He says he did it, he did try to do sexual adult things with your four year old daughter. He says he is guilty. You don’t have to talk in court after all.
You go back for sentencing. The judge says your partner needs to get back to making people laugh as soon as possible. She said what happened wasn’t so bad, and he had suffered enough, and anyway it wasn’t like real child abuse, because that happens in secret. He doesn’t have to go to prison, or have counselling, or do community work. He is free.
Your life has changed forever. So has your daughter’s. None of this was funny.
The child and mother are the victims and they have my support for the henious abuse of trust that they have to endure. Kia kaha.
Hat tip - The Hand Mirror
I like this new Māori parenting program, due to be released on Thursday, by The Office of the Children's Commissioner. It is based upon research which shows that abuse of children was shunned by Māori and arose from Missionaries and colonisation.
Stuff
Prior to Europeans arriving, children were considered gifts from the gods and whanau shunned child abuse.The researchers suggested abuse arose only after Maori were introduced to corporal punishment in missionary-run classrooms
It is so good to see the myths and slurs on Māori getting dealt to by research. Te Kahui Mana Ririki, the child advocacy group, commissioned the research and Chair Dr Hone Kaa states
"It will serve to demonstrate to Maori they don't have to believe they're inherently violent," he said.
Maori children were taught by Europeans that bad behaviour should be punished by physical violence, he said. This steered away from the traditional idea children were tapu and discipline should be avoided because it tamed the child's spirit.
They researched the treatment of children using oral histories, poems, and European observations and what did they find?
Researchers found children were treated with loving care and indulged. "The father was devotedly fond of his children and they were his pride and delight," the report found. "Children would entwine themselves around their father's neck for an entire day, asleep or awake, as a constant companion." This instilled love, security, and confidence into Maori children.
Lead researcher Margaret Mountain Harte hoped the findings could be introduced in school curriculums to educate Maori teens. "It's empowering for me. The whole warrior culture was balanced by the nurturing one," she said.
Yes we need to take back the ownership of us, we need to keep decolonising our own heads because they have forcefed the myths into us. This isn't a rosy picture of hippie Māori - the reality of the old times are known and people were killed and degraded for all sorts of reasons, including children. But that is irrelevant to the fact that children were the future and that future was protected seriously. Of course there are those who don't buy this and that includes Paul Moon
Maori history professor Paul Moon, of Auckland University of Technology, dismissed the idea abuse began after the Europeans came. "The proposition that missionaries introduced violence, it's one of those allegations that entered the historical bloodstream and once it's in that bloodstream, it's hard to get out. I would want to see evidence."
Hey paul isn't that research and evidence included in the report coming out on Thursday?
Moon said the report's reliance on oral histories and lullabies also raised doubts over its reliability
Oh well, I am sure I saw that the 'great european historical record' has also been researched so hopefully that will allay moons fears. Meanwhile his broken record will keep revolving.
The abuse of children is intolerable and must be sorted. Race or ethnicity has nothing to do with whether a person will abuse a child but poverty does, and stress does. This research can rebalance the lies and disinformation put out to suppress Māori aspirations. This research can be used to reeducate those at risk of abusing, those who do not have the mana and knowledge and are already abusing. This program will make a difference for our children.
Does it work?
Te Kahui Mana Ririki has reported a reduction in child abuse after running workshops based on its findings.
Great initative and some awesome research - thank you.
What issues would children and young adults say are the problems facing this country? Just remember there is no agenda from them - they aren't political or trying to score points - they are just telling it as they see it - and their insights are valuable. From the children from the country which ranks as second lowest for child safety among 30 developed countries.
From Stuff
In a report commissioned by Save the Children, 199 children nationwide were asked to speak up about what they thought was wrong with their country.
The kids, aged six to 17, identified youth gangs, bullying, child abuse, discrimination against Maori and ethnic minorities, as well as drugs as areas of concern.
"We are human but they treat us as rats," one child spoken to for the report said, referring to racism in the community.
At the root of all of those issues is the exploitation of people by other people. It is the same root cause identifyed here. It is related to incidences like dying while running away from the police and bashing seals heads in. They all stem from the same alienation built into the system. Sticking plasters are not going to work on this stuff - we need to get to the core of the problem - the basic inequity that is there and work from that point up.
It is important that we do all we can to oppose injustice wherever it is. Part of opposing it is to spread information about what is going on. The struggle indigenous Papuans face in fighting for independance against Indonesia is immense. Tom Allard from the Sydney Morning Herald has published a story about a new shocking video showing torture of two Papuans.
From SMH
"Although Jakarta made an autonomy deal with the province almost 10 years ago, its indigenous Melanesian people remain the country's poorest while migrants flood into the resource-rich area and dominate business and paid employment, further marginalising the Papuans.
There have been repeated reports of abuses by the military and police, but foreign journalists are banned from entering Papua without special permission, while non-government groups, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, have been told to leave in the past year.
''We have been living under Indonesia for almost 48 years,'' said Victor Kogoya, a member of the central committee of the Aliansi Mahasiswa Papua, a Papuan student group. ''For all this time, we have never felt calm, never peace. Why? Because ever since the security state has been chasing us, arresting us, killing, terror and intimidation.''
The victims speak in the Papuan dialect Lani, strongly suggesting the video was filmed in Puncak Jaya, a regency in Papua's highlands where a unit of the armed Free Papua Movement commanded by Goliath Tabuni has been staging sporadic attacks on Indonesian police and military posts for the past two years.
Papua, which was formerly known as Dutch New Guinea, was not incorporated into Indonesia when it became a state in 1949. It was held by the Dutch until 1962 when, following Indonesian military incursions into the area, an agreement brokered through the Untied Nations gave Indonesia administrative control of the region pending a referendum.
That ''referendum'' involved just 1025 handpicked tribal leaders who unanimously agreed to join Indonesia. The so-called ''Act of Free Choice'' has been labelled fraudulent and remains a source of great anger for many indigenous Papuans.
While separatist sentiment remains strong, it has little international support. Australia recognises Indonesia's sovereignty over the region.
This struggle is close to us for many reasons not just geographical. kia kaha.
First they said it was a stocktake, then they said that they would be mining schedule 4 national parks when they are taken out of that schedule no matter what anyone said, then they said they would do surgical mining where the land surface is not disturbed and now brownlee won't rule out open cast mining. If you think we are going to allow that gerry you are more of an idiot than you look.
From Geoff Cumming at stuff
"Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee has refused to rule out open-pit mining in our highest value conservation parks ahead of a review due out shortly.
The Government is considering allowing access to minerals in parts of the conservation estate now off-limits to mining under Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act.
The areas are listed in Schedule 4 for their ecological and scenic values, and include all 14 national parks and the Coromandel Forest Park.
This attitude of take, take, take is abusive - to the people and to our world. You have an unwinable fight on your hands brownlee - i hope you don't end up with blood on them too.
Snap - The Standard
Sometimes normal horror isn't enough. News released on Stuff that Israel has admitted illegal organ harvesting 10 years ago, is so outlandishly sick that it could be a sci-fi plot.
"Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.
The Channel 2 report said that in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.
In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place. "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer," the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.
Hiss became director of the institute in 1988. He said in the interview that the practice of harvesting organs without permission began in the "early 1990s." However, he also said that military surgeons removed a thin layer of skin from bodies as early as 1987 to treat burn victims. Hiss said he believed that was done with family consent. The harvesting ended in 2000, he said.
Complaints against the institute, where autopsies of dead bodies are performed, at the time of Hiss' dismissal came from relatives of Israeli soldiers and civilians as well as Palestinians. The bodies belonged to people who died from various causes, including diseases, accidents and Israeli-Palestinian violence, but there has been no evidence to back up the claim in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians for their organs. Angry Israeli officials called the report "anti-Semitic."
I hope the perpetuators of this atrocity are brought to justice.
