Ça suffit!!! -- ENOUGH!

For over a decade, DJ! has published blogposts that expose the malevolent weapons deployed by patriarchy to enforce its gynophobic ideologies.

Fern writes and tweets mainly about choice with respect to women's reproductive rights, and its sociopolitical significance. I focus on individual and systemic manifestations of a system that upholds men's privilege and impunity in matters of physical and sexual violence against women and girls.

Around 2016 I lost patience with the drawn-out process of writing blogposts about these issues. So much unrelenting VaW everywhere across the planet, that tweeting / retweeting was expedient. 

Every act of violence against women and girls boils down to the same element: men are "allowed" to do what they do and the challenge is to not get *caught* and if that happens, count on the old white boys to affirm the male imperative to hunt down their prey and have fun, doing harm.

This. 

“I think this Tuesday, Dec. 15, will be a dark one for all victims of sexual assault, because I am an example of the limits of the justice system when it comes to sexual violence. I profoundly deplore that the myths and the stereotypes of another era, that were often brought up by the defence, could be echoed in that courtroom. It is a negative message sent by the justice system to victims,” Charette said.

“Finally, to all the victims, I would like to say this: Don’t be ashamed. Despite the disappointment of today, I invite you to denounce (sexual assaults). Things are starting to change.”

Change..? Seems so, so slow. Peter Nygård was arrested in Winnipeg for extradiction to the US to stand trial.

His arrest on sex trafficking charges came after U.S. federal authorities raided Nygard’s Manhattan offices earlier this year [...] after 10 women sued Nygard, saying he enticed young and impoverished women to his Bahamas estate with cash and promises of modeling and fashion opportunities. Several plaintiffs in the suit, filed in New York City, said they were 14 or 15 years old when Nygard gave them alcohol or drugs and then raped them. 

 

Last, and certainly not least. 

In a series of sexual-assault rulings this fall, the Supreme Court has sent a message to appellate courts that they should listen to lower-court judges who believe the complainant.

The court has ruled in seven sexual-assault cases this fall, and in all seven, it has taken the side of the complainant and prosecution. In five of those cases, appeal courts had thrown out convictions registered by trial judges, saying their decisions had been unfair to the male defendants. In the other two, trial judges convicted the men and appeal-court majorities upheld the convictions. [...]

Women’s advocates say the Supreme Court is maintaining its fairness.

“I really don’t see this in any way being about a loss of objectivity and fairness or jumping on the MeToo bandwagon,” Megan Stephens, the executive director and general counsel for the Women’s Legal Education & Action Fund, said in an interview.

The court, she said, is sending a message to appeal courts not to second guess trial judges on credibility and reliability assessments. “The primary message coming out of the Supreme Court is ‘don’t forget, you owe deference to those trial judges’. ”

Assessments of credibility (honesty) and reliability (accuracy) are central to the trial judge’s job. Appeal courts generally defer to these assessments because it is the trial judge who sits in court and hears directly from the witnesses. Witnesses do not testify at appeal courts. But if an appeal court believes the trial judge made a legal error in their approach to assessing credibility, it can throw out a conviction and order a new trial.

There were no legal errors. The criminal defence lawyers who appealed their clients' guilty verdicts would not accept the judges' judicial decision based on the testimony of witnesses / complainants whose credibility they attempted to destroy for their clients to *win* and to affirm their right to rape.

As these two squalid predators did, and were acquitted of their crimes, free to sexually assault again with impunity.

Legal errors. Did Judge Beaudoin commit any of those? Or was he merely conned by the prolific liar and accused serial sex predator Paul Batchelor?

Change. Whatever. Du n'importe quoi.

Ghomeshi Lessons, part 1.

What to write about the trial of the decade? The banal evil of social media hyperbole + a depraved legal system can devour events and regurgitate a perfectly horrifying dawg's breakfast.

The cathartic element in this case and trial is a histrionically skilled and malignant narcissist who has benefitted immeasurably from patriarchy AND feminism.

Seasoned feminists observed that in the 1970s women acquired the right to say YES enthusiastically to sexual activity.  This *revolution* was immediately countered by many men who exploited it to their advantage by denying a woman's right to say NO.

Generations of men then followed, some who claim not to understand what consent is, others who whine about being "friend-zoned" and those who aspire to PUA summits of Roosh-like action.

Jian Ghomeshi falls into the latter category.  His public schtick, which worked admirably well for pseudo-feminists in the 1970s, was refined to the point that many staunch feminist acquaintances were completely scammed by his Support Bro' demeanour.  Meanwhile, in his private life he was the guy who badly needed to hurt women to get a really good hard-on.

In late 2014, when rumours about certain proclivities became too loud, he deployed a well-honed tactic of pre-emptive aggression.  He showed a video of one of his rough sex episodes to his CBC bosses.  It's not known whether the other participant consented to the activity, its recording or its presentation to Ghomeshi's superiors.

That didn't go well.  So he cranked up the campaign by posting a self-indulgent piece (Just a lad with a kink!) on his Facebook website, not anticipating this would provide leverage to The Toronto Star to publish their story.

This led to an outpouring of many other women reporting that Ghomeshi had physically assaulted them.

When his PR firm failed him, Ghomeshi hired Marie Henein as his criminal defence lawyer, weeks ahead of actually being charged with criminal assault.

Here's a chronology of events.

Back in 2014, I anticipated Henein would find ways of stitching-up the evidence.

Playing Cassandra is an unpleasant role though somebody has to do it.

This was before the trial commenced.  As it unfolded, I wrote a blogpost and used tweets to observe, from afar.

Horkins' pontification seems to confirm that Henein used the knowledge she gleaned from his previous judgments to map out a strategy that played to his beliefs and principles.  A specific approach to cross-examination was required to demonstrate the complainants were unreliable and that their testimony wasn't credible.

But. If the prosecution's case could be so easily destroyed, why didn't Heinin approach the Crown, as she did with the Michael Bryant case, to lay out the full content of the defence preparation and suggest that the charges be dismissed?

In the Bryant file, technical experts dismantled the sloppy evidence-gathering TPS produced. As well, there was considerable information with regard to Darcy Sheppard and manifestations of physical threats he expressed against other drivers.

Wait.  Here's the difference between the two cases, in addition to the possibility one of the accused is a basically decent person and the other one isn't.

I am not a lawyer, but I believe that a professional would have to consult their client before engaging with the prosecution in matters such as plea bargaining or suggesting charges be dismissed.

With Bryant's case, proceeding to trial meant that Henein or her assistant counsel would have to set up Crown witnesses as well as TPS staff testimony for demolition and in the process, embarrassing the police department as well as the prosecution lawyers.  Proof of Darcy Sheppard's previous violent behaviour would have to be thoroughly documented.  Bryant was likely to be acquitted, why not avoid the expense of a prolonged trial that besmirched the memory of his victim?

In light of what's been revealed with regard to the pleasure he takes from manipulating, degrading, harming and injuring women, I believe that if Ghomeshi had been informed of Henein's strategy, he would have licked his chops at the eventuality of seeing these women savaged in the court-room.  No way would this vindictive man have chosen to deprive himself of a privileged front-row seat to their humiliation.

That trial stands not only as a warning to women who have been physically and sexually assaulted to avoid reporting the crime to the criminal injustice system, but to those who might now and in the future, be approached by Ghomeshi.  His sexual fetish is violence against women and girls. (Some of the women who claim he approached them online are under 21 years of age. He is 46.)

A woman who was a graduate law student when she dated Ghomeshi in 2002, described what occurred and why she chose at that time not to report his violent, coercive attack on her.

Cops, crown lawyers, defence attorneys, judges: anybody who continues to exonerate and justify the way in which the legal system crushes complainants and re-victimizes them, explicitly colludes with patriarchal violence.

Unless they speak up against such travesty, and work to change this injustice.

ADDED: _What Ought Crown Counsel to do in Prosecuting Sexual Assault Charges? Some Post-Ghomeshi Reflections_ March 29, 2016 from Alice Woolley.

"[..] preparation is still essential for the prosecution of a criminal trial. Witness preparation does more than tell the lawyer about the nature of the evidence. It allows the lawyer to assess the witness’s ability to present the evidence, to determine whether the witness will advance the lawyer’s trial strategy and, ultimately, to determine if that trial strategy has a viable chance of succeeding given the nature of this witness’s evidence and capacity to testify. Further, it allows the lawyer to help ensure that the witness gets to provide her testimony, and that she will not end up looking like a liar when she is telling the truth.

Because let’s be absolutely clear: it is the ethical duty of a defence lawyer to make prosecution witnesses look like liars, even if those witnesses are telling the truth. That duty is constrained; a defence lawyer must not harass a witness, and must remain within the boundaries of the legal restrictions on cross-examination (in a sexual assault case, e.g., not asking improper questions about the complainant’s sexual history). But within those constraints a defence lawyer will do his best to exploit any inconsistency or weakness in the witness’s evidence to make that witness appear to be non-credible. Whether or not the witness is in fact telling the truth is not only irrelevant, it may make discrediting that witness essential to the defence lawyer’s ability to obtain an acquittal for his client [..]"

Read the whole magnificent thing here.

ALSO: This. _Mastery or Misogyny? The Ghomeshi Judgment and Sexual Assault Reform_ April 1, 2016 from Joshua Sealy-Harrington.

As discussed earlier, Justice Horkins’ judgment has deeply polarized Canadian discourse on sexual assault, receiving both warm praise and vitriolic criticism.However, in my view, neither approach is optimal for deconstructing the judgment with a view to improving the Canadian administration of sexual assault law. Rather, a careful consideration of the judgment’s strengths and weaknesses permits the most comprehensive analysis of the genuine mistakes made by Justice Horkins (and others), and how best to avoid those mistakes in future cases.We need to address the problems that pervade the Canadian administration of sexual assault law, and those problems must be understood before they can be solved.

In my humble opinion, Kwe Today presents the best pragmatic and theoretical arguments for a timely and necessary revision of the criminal code and its sexual assault provisions.

Theses are the thinkers who are raising their voices, after Marie Henein blew the lid off the festering legal system rot.

We might listen, then actively support law reform in this regard.

"Honour" killing neo-CONs and christian sharia won't be shrieeeking about.

Well, isn't this inCONvenient for all the islamophobes?

A woman in Turkey is awaiting trial after beheading a man who she says raped her repeatedly for months and [impregnated her]. Her lawyer says the woman killed the man to protect her honor.

Nevin Yildirim, a 26-year-old mother of two, lives in a small village in southwestern Turkey. She said the man, Nurettin Gider, began the attacks a few days after her husband left in January for a seasonal job in another town, according to a source close to the case.

Yildirim said Gider threatened her with a gun and said he would kill her children, ages 2 and 6, if she made any noise, according to the source. That was the first of repeated rapes over the next eight months, the source said. [...]

On August 28, at least five months pregnant by a man who she said continued to rape her, Yildirim said she decided she had had enough. Gider was climbing up the back wall of her house. "I knew he was going to rape me again," she said at her preliminary hearing August 30.

She said she grabbed her father-in-law's rifle that was hanging on the wall and she shot him. He tried to draw his gun and she fired again.

"I chased him," she said. "He fell on the ground. He started cussing. I shot his sexual organ this time. He became quiet. I knew he was dead. I then cut his head off."

How would Paul Ryan, Todd Akin and the rest of the Rapeublicans react if a US woman "stood her ground" in this manner?

They may be concerned that it would set a bad example of "frontier" type justice but more likely, they'd be afraid that other women might start defending themselves as Nevin Yildirim did.

Remember her name.

(Not So) Baseless Smears!

Waaaah! Somebody smeared Stephen Woodworth, he of Woodworth's Wank/M312, on Twitter! While he was getting his sick mum a hamburger! His press release, sans mention of the burger. (By the way, the Guelph Mercury does a pretty nice smear of the guy who posted it.)

It was all over the place and while I didn't retweet it, knowing by now that Woody is far too slippery to come out and say something that explicit, lots of people did.

deBeauxOs pointed out (can't find the bloody tweet) that while the quote is a conflation of Santorum and Woodworth (and doesn't that creep a body right out?), it seems to reflect his view of the issue.

Now since Woody's got me blocked, it is huge pain in the ass to track down his actual tweets. Luckily, @lahtay44 copied his answer to a question on rape.

Typically, he deflects.

@WoodworthMP: **For some the answer might be different if question was"Do you support a raped woman's right to take her child's life?"**

I don't know if that was in answer to SomeCndnSkeptic, who has been asking for Woody's view on pregnancy resulting from rape for fucking months. I've asked him and will report.

So. You decide. The false quote is grosser, but is it fundamentally different from the loaded-language answer Woody did give?

Image source.

ADDED: SomeCndnSkeptic replies.

@fernhilldammit He said it is unanswerable because we have to "first agree on terms".Spin bullshit. #M312

— Steve Thoms (@SomeCndnSkeptic) June 27, 2012

ADDED: LifeShite links to this post! *Waves* at LifeShiters. Be sure to check this post from today too.

ADDED: LifeShite says I'm accusing fetus fetishists of condoning rape because they oppose abortion even in cases of rape. Have a read of this old post on how ff's discount the incidence of rape-caused pregnancy and thus, 'hey, hardly anybody gets knocked up, what's the big deal with no rape exemption?' I do call that condoning rape, wouldn't you?

Trends for 2012: 'Sleep Sex'

Twitter is alllll over this incredibly asinine bit of 'advice' from The Star's Ellie.

Q: My husband said that while I was fast asleep one night he had intercourse with me. He thinks it’s acceptable since I’m his wife. I feel it’s almost the same as rape. It’s my right to go to sleep and know nothing will happen to me. I should be able to feel safe.

To do that without a person’s consent while they are unaware surely can’t be right. What do you think?

Curious

A: If having “sleep sex” with your husband feels so unsafe, you have bigger marital problems going on. This is what you should be dealing with, more than this one incident.

Let's clarify, shall we? In late 2011, non-consensual sex, once known as rape or sexual assault, is now 'sleep sex'.

Taking bets on a retraction/clarification from Ellie. . .

Oh look. There's her email address: ellie @ thestar.ca.

ADDED: Ellie didn't coin 'sleep sex'; she just misused it.

UPDATE: Ellie apologizes.

SlutWalk Toronto

The sluts hit the street today.

Too bad the weather was a tad nipply for some really slutty outfits. Nonetheless, the turnout was great, with an estimate of between 500 and 1,000.

Twitter coverage and more pix.

Slutwalk Toronto.

UPPITY-DATE: Toronto Sun says more than 1500 participants.

#laralogan & forcible penetration.

Was the brutal physical assault inflicted upon CBS reporter Lara Logan actual, *real* rape-rape? Were any of her body orifices penetrated with a weapon?

A penis can be a weapon when deliberately used with force and hatred, though many rapists are impotent and have tortured women with a variety of implements. Prurient minds need to know.

Even in the absence of the crudest of details, the shrieeeking hordes of gynophes (aka women-haters), islamophes (aka moslem-haters) and racists are yapping non-stop, spewing their ignorance over Twitter and the blogosphere.

Never mind it was a group of Egyptian women and men (soldiers) that rescued Logan from what some people consider a 'fate worse than death', right?

Of course, those same people seemingly have no time to consider the fate of women in the Congo. By the way, KAIROS and Rights & Democray, the organizations maligned and de-funded by HarperCons supported programs that provide assistance to women and girls who have survived vicious, vile sexual violence.

It's also important to remember the thousands of women in the US armed forces who were sexually assaulted by their male colleagues - not by the enemy - because, like Lara Logan, they were doing a *man's job*.

How to get fetus fetishists to STFU

Ask them about the 'forcible rape' language in the proposed Rapist Protection Act.

Anti-abortion politicians aren't the only ones keeping quiet about H.R. 3 since the forcible rape language came to light. Calls to numerous anti-abortion groups, including National Right To Life, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Americans United For Life, the Susan B. Anthony List and the Abstinence Clearinghouse were either unreturned or met with "no comment."

The closest I got to a comment was from the Susan B. Anthony List, a strongly social conservative group last seen calling on the candidates to for chair of the Republican National Committee to weigh in on life and the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. A spokesperson for SBA told me leaders of the group would be willing to get back to me "later this week," when he promised SBA leaders would have "much more informed comments on the topic."

For now, however, the spokesperson said SBA was yet another "no comment" in a long list of abortion foes uninterested in going on the record about the controversial language in a bill they've touted as the first step toward a Republican-led, pro-life House of Representatives.

Imagine. A notion so repulsive that even hardcore fetus fetishists won't go there.

Join in the Dear John Twitter campaign to help ensure that fetus fetishists wear this one. Forever.

Rapist Protection Act, 2011

In their obsessive compulsive campaign to control and punish women, fetus fetishists in the US have hit on a genius new ploy. Rethuglicans redefine rape.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape."

Simply horrific.

In an effort to prove that irony is alive and well, Smith has given his Rapist Protection Act of 2011 the nickname: “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”. 173 Republicans have rushed to support this effort to punish victims of rape and give predators ongoing power over their victims and the peace of mind that comes with the Bill’s assurance that anybody they get pregnant will be forced by the State to carry the child to term.

Well, we know fetush fetishists want to turn back the clock.

"This bill takes us back to a time when just saying 'no' wasn't enough to qualify as rape," says Steph Sterling, a lawyer and senior adviser to the National Women's Law Center. Laurie Levenson, a former assistant US attorney and expert on criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, notes that the new bill's authors are "using language that's not particularly clear, and some people are going to lose protection." Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes. "There are a lot of aspects of rape that are not included," Levenson says.

Here's Melissa McEwan:

There are so many things wrong with this proposed legislation, I hardly know where to begin: The implicit redefinition of what constitutes rape, the ramifications of that redefinition for all survivors of sexual violence (not just the pregnant ones), the revictimization of survivors, the policing of women's bodies and choices, the auditing and ranking of survivors of rape, the auditing and ranking of various acts of rape itself, the condescending and infantilizing paternalism that Other People know what's best for a pregnant woman and survivor of rape, the virtual impossibility of being able to "prove," presumably in a court of law, that one was raped (forcibly or otherwise) in time to secure an abortion... There are so many rape culture tropes being served here, I could frankly spend the entire day documenting the innumerable manifestations of misogynistic fuckery at work here.

But instead I'm going to focus on but one truly shocking aspect of this proposed legislation which probably won't get a whole lot of attention: The proposed law effectively, if not by design, gives veto control over terminating pregnancies resulting from rape to the rapist.

A Twitter campaign has begun.

Use the hashtag #DearJohn to send the Orange Cry-Baby, @johnboehner, a message.

I'm thinking -- no, I'd better not. I'll tweet when I cool down a little.

Dear goddess, what kind of society is the US turning into?

There ain't no "cure" for gynophobia.

Enormous Thriving Plants caught Tucker Carlson's support for the patriarchal traditionally sanctioned "cure" for lesbianism which, throughout history and throughout a range of social, cultural, religious and ethnic environments is rape.

It takes a particularly twisted misogynist prick like Carlson, however, to justify and rationalize in this way the shocking stats about sexual assaults that female soldiers in the US military have suffered from their male colleague's sexual fury.

Under-reported, unchallenged and unpunished violence.

In the absence of a "cure" for men who hate women, fantasy fills the void. The existence of Lisbeth Salander, albeit as a fictional character and a gynophobe's nightmare is neither a remedy nor a solution, though collective imagination is a powerful instrument for change.

We need more Lisbeth Salanders, to counter the likes of Tucker Carlson, Russell Williams and Pope Maledict.

Why Toews might want changes to the Criminal Code.

Adulterer Vic Toews - who impregnated a woman decades younger than him (she was at the time a junior staff member working for a Conservative deputy in the House of Commons) - is thinking the Criminal Code should be changed.

Canada should consider reinstating the word "rape" in its criminal code, a senior Canadian cabinet minister says.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews called current use of the term term sexual assault a "very misleading and deceiving concept" that fails to capture important distinctions [...] It can basically be from a very minor sexual touching to a rape," Toews told a news conference Tuesday.

Changes to the Criminal Code sections that addressed a range of aggressive acts - sexual assault and abuse as well as significant indicators of their gravity and degree of violence - were the result of many years of work, involving all levels of expertise in the justice system. and collaboration between parliamentarians, Crown prosecutors and defense lawyers as well as advocates for witnesses/complainants.

These changes framed the prosecution of sexual assault in a manner that limited the attacks the lawyer for the accused could direct towards the witness/complainant. It was intended to facilitate the gathering of evidence, and to subject those procedures to the same rigour used when building a case for other forms of criminal assault; police officers and lawyers were to shift their focus from the victim's credibility (and judgments based on she said/he said) to the merits of all evidence collected, including the complainant's testimony.

A national examination of the efficiency of the Criminal Code is certainly in order; the recent case involving Fernando Manuel Alves raises questions about the efficacy of the criminal justice system when serial sexual assault charges can be so easily brushed off.

So why did the deputy representing the riding known as Bible Belt/Provencher choose to hold a press conference, where little information of substance was presented? He is NOT the minister of Justice.

Changing the Criminal Code sex assault provisions would fall under the auspices of the justice minister [...] Justice Minister Rob Nicholson's press secretary, Pamela Stephens, said Nicholson is "always open to hearing suggestions on ways to improve the justice system." But she noted that the government already has an ambitious justice agenda.

The Con government exploits a number of tactics, among them the trick of sending out decoys to test the waters - public reception to one of their schemes. Is this one of them?

There could be another reason Toews seems hell-bent on changing the current provisions in the Criminal Code, with respect to sexual assault. This:

273.1 (1) Subject to subsection (2) and subsection 265(3), "consent" means, for the purposes of sections 271, 272 and 273, the voluntary agreement of the complainant to engage in the sexual activity in question. (2) No consent is obtained, for the purposes of sections 271, 272 and 273, where the accused induces the complainant to engage in the activity by abusing a position of trust, power or authority, ...

What is Toews trying to bury? It would certainly be inconvenient, if not actually a problem if someone in his position had coerced a subordinate to have sex with him. A fundamentalist christian patriarch like Toews would do everything in his power to ensure such provisions were removed under the guise of "improving" the Criminal Code.

Toews suggested the word “sexual assault”—the legal term since 1983 for sexual activity without voluntary consent—is a “very misleading and deceiving concept” and fails to capture important distinctions.

“It can basically be from a very minor sexual touching to a rape. Unfortunately the Criminal Code was changed in that respect,” said Toews.

Is it any surprise that Stevie Spiteful and his ReformaTory theocratic bullies are trying to change the Code and a number of laws to reflect their values? Stupid on Crime is a good way of describing their willful and obdurate plans. Nonetheless, in light of Marci McDonald's excellent, well-researched book "The Armageddon Factor", Canadian citizens should also look beyond the official agenda to scrutinize private motives for everything the Cons do.

The personal is still political.

Grand merci to Vanessa Long who brought this our attention.

'We don't execute victims' - CORRECTED

By a narrow margin, legislators in South Carolina have decided NOT to ban abortion coverage under state insurance in cases of rape, incest, or threat to incubator's life.

The original draft of the $5.1 billion spending plan would have banned state insurance from covering any abortion procedure, but Democrats pushed for the change during an emotional floor debate. The measure narrowly passed by a 57-54 vote.

The emotional debate included an argument that all bay-beez are Gord's gift.

And this pretzelly-twister:

"We live in a civilized society," argued Rep. Greg Delleney, R-Chester. "We do not kill children for what their fathers do. We don't execute victims. That's all we're saying: The state insurance plan shouldn't pay to execute victims."

No, we just force them to carry their rapist's child to term. Or their father's.

Or both.

And maybe die in the attempt.

Wait. There seems to have been a compassionate voice in the house.

But it was Rep. Lester Branham, D-Florence and a retired minister, who seemed to sway lawmakers in his hushed tone during a trip to the podium.

"Some things are put on God's shoulders that are not God's. They're our sins, our crimes," Branham said. "That act of impregnating a girl against her will is not a gift of God. It's a crime."

(Read more about the squirrelly state of South Carolina as seen by deBeauxOs.)

CORRECTION: The source I quoted yesterday has issued a retraction. (emphasis mine)

Yesterday, TheState.com reported that South Carolina lawmakers in Columbia rejected a proposed ban on abortions in their health plan in every case except when a mother’s life is in danger. However, that information was incorrect and we apologize for repeating it.

According to numerous reports, South Carolina lawmakers accepted the ban for abortions to be covered in their health care plan. Lawmakers specifically pointed out that abortions should be covered in cases of rape and incest to give women who become pregnant in those situations the choice. However, the vote approved the plan without concessions for rape and incest victims by a 57-54 margin.

Sorry about that. Should have known better. There is NO compassion in South Carolina.

Add your voice: Alves's sentence needs to be appealed

Mr. Grant Wong should be back in his office today. Mr. Wong is the person to contact in the matter of the no-jail sentence for convicted rapist Fernando Manuel Alves.

If you haven't yet written to urge the Crown to consider the message a no-jail sentence sends to future victims and perpetrators of sexual assault, please take a few minutes and do it. Now.

Letters only, by mail and/or fax. Be polite. Stick to the facts and the social policy implications.

In particular, if you are in BC or have friends and family there, your voices are needed.

The contact info again is:
Mr. Grant B. Wong
Deputy Regional Crown Counsel
222 Main Street
Vancouver, B.C.
V6A 2S8

FAX: 604.660.4347

While I was googling around looking for any more recent stories on this case, I found a CBC report from September 21, 2007 on the original bail conditions.

The 44-year-old pub owner and vice-president of the Western Ball Hockey Association appeared in B.C. provincial court on Thursday, where he was released under strict bail conditions that include:

* Posting a $350,000 bond.
* Reporting to the Vancouver police high-risk offender unit.
* Not attending any bar or nightclub except for employment at the Station Square pub in Burnaby, as approved by his bail supervisor.

Nice, eh? Alves barred from bars, except for employment and the opportunity to drug other victims. How much sense does that make?

Background here and here.

BC More Lenient on Sexual Assault?

The case of rapist Fernando Manuel Alves's conditional -- no jail -- sentence got me wondering about sentencing for sexual assault in Canada in general, and BC in particular.

At the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, I found this:

According to Statistics Canada, the median sentences for sexual assault and for other sexual offenses are both 360 days. To compare, the median sentence for robbery is 540 days. This seems deeply flawed—to violently steal property is given more weight in sentencing than to violate the sexual integrity of another human being.

I went to the StatsCan link and found sentencing data by province for 2006/2007. Here, for example, is the table for BC.

Now, if I haven't goofed up the math, it appears that BC has a significantly higher rate of conditional sentencing for sexual assault than either Canada overall or Ontario.

In BC, there were 187 convictions for sexual assault: 68 of those resulted in prison time, 48 in conditional sentences, and 102 in probation.

For Canada overall, the numbers are: 1519 convictions, 753 prison sentences, 244 conditional sentences, and 999 probation.

For Ontario, 535 convictions, 236 prison sentences, 85 conditional, and 427 probation.

(The sentences don't add up to the total convictions, I'm guessing, because probation might go with a lot of other sentences. I am not a lawyer and sit to be corrected.)

In Canada overall, 49% of convictions for sexual assault result in jail time; in Ontario, 44%; and in BC, 36%.

For conditional sentencing, Canada has 16%, Ontario has 15.8%, BC has 25.6%.

OK, this is just one time period. There may be anomalies in the types and numbers of crimes.

But, it's odd, doncha think, that Ontario and Canada line up pretty well, while BC seems quite a bit more lenient?

Just asking. . .

Action Time: Alves's Sentence Needs to be Appealed

Dr Dawg has the goods on the person we can contact to urge that the no-jail sentence for convicted rapist Fernando Manuel Alves be appealed by the Crown.

The decision maker is:
Mr. Grant B. Wong
Deputy Regional Crown Counsel
222 Main Street
Vancouver, B.C.
V6A 2S8

FAX: 604.660.4347

Dr Dawg says that Mr Wong will not be back in his office until September. But that's no reason to delay writing.

It should be a letter, mailed or faxed (lawyers seem to like faxes). A nice, polite letter from a concerned citizen worried about policy implications. Letters from British Columbians would be double-plus good.

Alves needs more than a slap on the wrist. Would-be Alveses need to get the message -- rape = jail.

Let's get this done.

Background here and here.

Two Shocks

Shock 1.

One in four men in South Africa may have raped someone - with most of those attacking more than one victim, data from a new survey suggests.

The study, by the country's Medical Research Council, also found three out of four who admitted rape attacked for the first time while in their teens.

It said practices such as gang rape were common because they were considered a form of male bonding.

The MRC spoke to 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces.

The study found that 73% of respondents said they had carried out their first assault before the age of 20.

Almost half who said they had carried out a rape admitted they had done so more than once.

Read the whole thing.

Shock 2.

I went to wikipedia to confirm the numbers. There's a table based on a UN report on 64 countries' rape statistics for 2001 and 2002. It shows raw numbers as well as the rate per 100,000 population.

Indeed, South Africa topped the list with rates of 121.16 and 115.61.

So, which country is number 2?

Canada at 77.36 and 77.64.

The wiki article points out the obvious difficulties with such statistics -- under-reporting, definition, false reporting.

And I know that Canada no longer has a 'rape' law, but rather 'sexual assault'.

Nonetheless, Canada is SECOND?

If you were wondering, USA is third at 31.85 and 32.99.

Are crimes of sexual assault still a joke for cops?

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose? In London it would seem so.

The revelations today about how the Metropolitan police missed chances over six years to stop John Worboys - and indeed believed him rather than the victim - raises the question of how much has changed. At the top of forces such as the Metropolitan police there has been concern about the poor rape conviction rates and much thought on how to improve investigatory techniques and the victim support that the force offers.

Nine years ago the Met set up Sapphire teams in 30 boroughs, where trained officers told women all allegations of rape and sexual assault would be treated seriously. Haven sexual referral units were created where victims were medically examined in a supportive environment by specialist staff.

For frontline officers there is a strict protocol; primarily they are told to listen to the victim and accept her version unless there is a glaring reason not to. Despite such policies the Worboys case suggests that, at grassroots level, officers are not carrying out orders.

According to evidence, officers working in Sapphire teams have complained repeatedly that their units are de-prioritised and under funded. Some female police officers have told campaigners they would not go to the Met if they were raped because they do not believe they would be taken seriously.

At the heart of the controversy is how frontline officers treat women who complain of a sexual assault. The Worboys case suggests officers can be dismissive; several of the complaints made to the police were put down as "no crime" because the victims seemed flaky and unable to recall what had happened - all of which should have rung alarm bells ... not led to the victims being shown the door.

Here in Canada, the consequences of a legal judgement in favour of 'Jane Doe' and her lawsuit against the Toronto police organization would suggest that the system has improved how it handles investigations.

...much has changed since Paul Douglas Callow, known as the Balcony Rapist, stole through her open bedroom window 22 years ago, put a knife to her ['Jane Doe'] throat and raped her. The sex assault squad has grown from a 20-detective, 9-to-5 shoestring outfit to a bustling 30-detective operation with officers on call night and day. Its mandate has changed, too, from focusing only on stranger rape involving penetration to investigating any sexual assault in which there could be an ongoing danger to the public. ...

The squad is part of the 70-person Sex Crimes Unit, which includes divisions focusing on child exploitation, behavioural assessments and special victims. Changes to the system, Byrnes says, are owed in part to Doe's dogged wrangling.

For instance, after recommendations from the steering committee, squad officers now get specialized training. Other changes include:

• Front-line officers responding to 911 calls only take limited information, so victims only have to tell their story once. Squad members are hand-picked.
• There is a separate division dedicated to investigating rapes of prostitutes, a group previously ignored or blamed for their own plight.
• Cautions and press releases no longer contain "blame" language. For instance, women are no longer advised to "close their windows" if a serial rapist is on the loose.

Ten years ago, out of 1,570 sexual assaults reported in Toronto, the squad only investigated 70 cases because of its restrictive mandate. Last year, under the new rules, the Sex Crimes Unit probed 2,551 cases. "We've made the crime a priority," Byrnes says.

The Faculty of Common Law at the University of Ottawa recently held a conference - Sexual Assault Law, Practice & Activism in a Post-Jane Doe Era - to reflect upon whether anything has actually changed. The proceedings should be fascinating to read.

This passes for rationality among Catlicks?!?!

Further to deBeauxOs's post on girls and rape and age, LifeShite has this breathtaking quote from the über-cruel Archbishop who excommunicated the girl's mother and doctor, but NOT the girl herself:

José Cardoso Sobrinho, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, confirmed that while the child would not be held accountable for the act, the doctor who carried out the abortion and anyone who assisted or gave their approval were excommunicated by the Church.

"To be subject to this penalty is it is necessary to be of age. The Church is very benevolent, especially with minors," the Archbishop told the media. "Now the adults, those who approved, who carried out this abortion, are excommunicated."

So. A nine-year-old girl is NOT too young to rape, NOT too young to be forced to give birth, NOT too young to risk her life and health in being forced to give birth.

But the motherfucking Catlick Church is so 'very benevolent' that it considers her too young to be excommunicated.

Seriously. I got nuthin'.