Call the cops

Just make sure they're not BC cops.

COQUITLAM -- A provincial court judge called it a tragedy but said she had no choice but to end serious sex charges against a man because the Crown failed to have police statements translated from Russian and another language.

The Crown sought to have the case adjourned repeatedly over a two-year period until the police statements of two complainants could be translated from Russian and Dari.

The defence applied for a judicial stay of proceedings, arguing the accused constitutional rights to make full answer and defence had been violated.

The defence also argued that the right of the accused to a speedy trial was also violated by the delay.

The judge reluctantly agreed.

<SNIP>

The man, only identified in a written judgment as H.S.O., was charged with 13 offences, including five counts of assault, three counts of threatening, one count of assault with a weapon, one count of touching a young person for a sexual purpose and one count of public mischief, for reporting an offence that had not occurred.

"Regardless of what happens today in this courtroom, there is a tragedy," the judge said during her ruling.

"I have to add that it is very disturbing that the value of the complainants' sexual, physical and emotional integrity is less than the cost of translation and transcription."

More here.

The witness material had been in the hands of a senior police officer for several months with no further efforts made to get the translation work done, Buller Bennett said.

The judge also noted that it also took a full year after the man's arrest for police to disclose that they had statements from him in need of translation as well, also in Russian and Dari.

You know, you just don't want to be raped in B.C.

Invasion of privates-y

Simply unacceptable.

Medical students commonly do internal pelvic examinations while patients are unconscious before gynecological surgery.

It's raising questions about whether the women consented. A McMaster medical school graduate has revealed the majority don't know students do pelvic exams while they're anesthetized.

Her study, published this month in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, found only 19 per cent of women were aware a medical student might have examined them.

As a result, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario plans to speak with Ontario's medical schools about patient consent.

"It was a surprise," said Kathryn Clarke, spokesperson for the college. "That practice, even occurring on a small scale, is intolerable."

At issue is how much detail doctors have to give patients to get consent.

A pelvic exam is an integral part of the surgery. Doctors do the exam after the patient is unconscious because they can get a better sense of her anatomy when she is relaxed. That exam guides decisions such as how to make the incision.

In Hamilton, that exam is routinely done three times -- by the doctor, a resident and a student.

<SNIP>

Women in Hamilton aren't explicitly told the resident and student will do a pelvic exam. They're told they'll have an exam before surgery and asked if medical students can take part in the operation.

Doctors say by consenting to have students on the surgical team, they're "implicitly" agreeing to allow them to do pelvic exams.

"The consent is for the whole procedure," said Dr. Patrick Mohide, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at McMaster.

"A pelvic examination is part of the procedure."

But the study by Dr. Sara Wainberg, who is a resident at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, suggests that's not clear to women.

She questioned 102 women who underwent gynecological surgery at Calgary Pelvic Floor Disorders Clinic.

More than 70 per cent of them say they expect to be asked for consent before medical students conduct pelvic exams under anesthesia.

You know what the law calls this kind of thing when it's performed without consent?

Sexual assault.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Sister Sage testifies on the subject.

SOWwatch

Seriously. Helena Guergis, the Conservative Minister of State for the Status of Women? 

Don't make me laugh.

And, with that, a new feature kids, right here on Broadsides! The adventures of Party Girl Guergis in her defence of women's status which, judging by her party's record, is to be lowered at every opportunity.

Example, from last week's Question Period in the wake of Saskatoon MP Maurice Vellacott's fabulations about women's reproductive choices. This exchange between Bloc MP Nicole Demers and Guergis. Boldface is by moi.

Nicole Demers (Laval, QC, BQ): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister responsible for Status of Women refused to denounce the unacceptable statements made by a Conservative MP who implied that abortions contribute to the development of breast cancer. Besides being wrong medically, this assertion is meant to make women feel guilty. We would expect that the minister would defend women and the right to abortion with vigour rather than saying things worthy of Sarah Palin. When will the minister stop protecting the dinosaurs in her party to the detriment of women's right?

Hon. Helena Guergis (Minister of State for Status of Women): --Very clearly in the house yesterday, this member is actually fully aware that there are elected members in this house who have said very similar things at different times. Members in this house represent their constituencies and they are free to have any opinion that they choose to. It does not mean it represents the government. But please let me highlight one of our most recent achievements to protect women across the country. Recently we revised our citizenship guide. I would like to recognize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for the great work he's done in specifically outlining that barbaric practices like female genital mutilation are not tolerated in Canada.

Ya think? I mean, until the revision of the citizenship guide, parents could pop in with their terrified daughters at any old corner store and have her lady parts chopped up while all the rest of us turned a blind eye. Wow. Thanks Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. I don't know where Canadian women would be without you and your swell woman-loving government to defend us from the incoming barbarians.

But what about those resident dinosaurs, hunh?

Okay, so now that you get how this is gonna go, we fast forward to today's Question Period (again, boldface by me):

Hon. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, more than 520 aboriginal women and girls have gone missing or have been murdered in this country. Aboriginal women need to feel safe and they need to know they are being heard. The government talks about being tough on crime but refuses to act. It refuses to launch a complete public investigation. What will it take? How many more women will have to go missing? When will it launch a comprehensive, national, public investigation?
   
Hon. Helena Guergis (Minister of State (Status of Women), CPC): Mr. Speaker, the member is well aware that we are supporting Sisters in Spirit, which is led by the Native Women's Association of Canada, as it should be. It is a five year, multi-research project that our government supports and financially backs. We are in fact looking at exploring the next options. In fact the president for NWAC has recently said that she knows that I am supportive and that we are working together on a regular basis to look to the future.

Aboriginal women are being picked off like ducks in Dick Cheney's gunsights and all the government can do is ''look'' at exploring options? Gee, thanks Madame Minister. Thanks for nothing.

Oh and thanks for voting to get rid of the long-gun registry. And let's not forget your support of Bill C-484, which the government said was reopening the abortion debate.

Stay tuned right here for more non sequiturs and political bafflegab from your not-so-woman-friendly Conservative government woman defender.

H/T to the brilliant Pale for the image.

Rapier Wit II

Via Broadsheet:

''Gang rape.'' Har-har.

I bet this girl thought it was a blast. And this woman too.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Had to share this comment from friend Camille Tovee when I posted this video on my Facebook profile:

That was beyond disturbing. And yet, when an actual rape does happen, they're so quick to dismiss it. I guess it's only a crime if their pocketbooks are involved.

Rapier Wit

ABC's Modern Family star Sofia Vergara is 37. She has a son who is 18.

Do the math.

Now watch this clip from Wednesday's The View:

What's so funny, Whoopi, Babs and the rest of you? This is a joke?

A 13 year old getting raped and pregnant is a JOKE?

Or maybe because it's not, you know, rape-rape, it's ahahaha funny.

At least Whoopi choked on this one.

Alarmism

The Current's Sarah Haskins on the fear factor:

At least the alarm company acknowledges that women are more likely to be attacked by men they know than by strangers.

H/T Aunty Bertha

Rape Round-up

What a few weeks it's been for sexual assault news.

It's a wonder the cops don't lock up all the men to keep women safe.

Oh, right. That's not how it works, is it? Silly me.

So anyway, let us begin right here at home.

You remember how, this past summer, B.C. confessed rapist  Fernando Manuel Alves walked out with a 9 month conditional sentence after the judge described the assault on his victim as ''rough play?'' An ''opportunistic event" because she was drunk, possibly drugged, and couldn't say no? You know, the guy who really didn't do anything -- although what he did do landed him on sex offender registry for 20 years? That guy?

Now it looks like there's another guy in B.C. charged with four sexual asaults, enough to have police put  out warnings about him, out on the streets.

He's been the subject of police warnings and faces four counts of sexual assault.

But former B.C. Lion Josh Boden has been granted bail.

The reasons for Josh Boden being granted bail are covered by a publication ban.

He faces four sexual assault charges, all from alleged incidents in Downtown Vancouver and in and around SkyTrain stations.

Police say most of the attacks involve women being grabbed from behind in August and September.

Imagine being grabbed by a 205 pound man in an elevator.

Moving across the pond, the Daily Mail asks if date rape drugs aren't a myth. (I added the boldface.)

 A controversial study, published last week, claimed drink spiking is an 'urban myth', a modern scapegoat for a generation of women who cannot face the fact that the vast amounts  of alcohol many are imbibing could be in any way responsible for a loss of control, which can have devastating consequences.

<SNIP>

 'Something very curious is going on,' says Dr Adam Burgess, who spent a year researching the issue at the University of Kent's school of social policy for a project funded by the British Academy.

'How can you account for this great big gap between lack of any evidence for drink spiking  and what so many women believe is going on?

'There's a displacement exercise going on here. Why, despite all the evidence, do women so readily blame the spiker rather than the amount of alcohol they are drinking? That is the real issue here.'

<SNIP>

Could it be that women instinctively feel that if they admit to themselves how much they had drunk they would also be admitting they were somehow to blame for putting themselves at risk?

Believing your drink was spiked transfers the blame to a malevolent, external force, something which women have no control over. It shifts responsibility.

Alcohol expert Robin Touquet, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Imperial College, London, points out: 'Women are demonising so- called drink spiking rather than facing up to the fact that drinking too much alcohol can put them in a highly dangerous situation.

'Most of the time, drink spiking does not happen. It always comes down to booze.

'Alcohol is a drug and in excess it adversely affects every system in the body. The message to women is: "Don't make yourself vulnerable."'

<SNIP>

'Research has identified that alcohol is far more likely to be a factor in rape and sexual  assault cases than drug spiking.'

Dr Burgess believes while fear of drink spiking prevails, too little attention will be paid to how much women are drinking. The danger is that underestimating the danger will put women at further risk.

Because whatever the risks of the drink spiker coming after you - the chances are that alcohol will get to you first.

Now I am willing to concede that not every woman who claims she was drugged was in fact drugged, despite the easy availability of the offending substances. (And by the way, my impression is that people in Britain have a tendency to get really much more smashed than they do.) But, even if a small percentage of women are drugged, it's still a big problem.

What bugs me here is that,  if a woman is out of her mind crazy drunk, she is in no position to give consent. What's more, this report, as well as the experts it quotes, imply that, if women get drunk, they're responsible for getting  raped. Its their own damn fault.

Does that make any sense to anybody out there?

Didja notice how this report never mentions the guys who take advantage of this ''opportunistic'' event?

Reminds me of this hateful scene from Mall Cop Observe and Report:

Not to mention last month's horrific gang-rape of a teenager in California, a brutal two hour attack that ocurred while some 20 other guys watched and did nothing.

As Broadsheet points out, the victim blaming has begun:

In summary: She asked for it, because girls and women aren't supposed to wear dresses (apparently not even to their high school homecoming dance); they aren't supposed to hang out in all-male groups; they aren't supposed to go outside at night; and they aren't supposed to get drunk. Some see a violation of any one of these rules -- or the many others imposed on women -- as bestowing some responsibility on the part of the victim; she's guilty by virtue of being incautious. Most folks, however, will take the same approach but insist on a semantic difference: They aren't blaming the victim, they're blaming the violence on her violations. In other words: She didn't deserve  to be raped, but she was raped because she made some stupid mistakes.

Which is why I love this guy:

Okay, it’s entirely valid to demonstrate that rape victims are more likely to have been incapacitated by alcohol than by drugs.

But rape is caused by rapists – not by women who are drunk or drugged,or by other risk-factors mentioned by the researchers such as walking alone at night.

Young women should of course be warned of the dangers of the world. But let’s be clear: Female students, or any woman of any age, should be able to get drunk, even make the mistake of getting too drunk, or walk home alone, or for that matter wear tiny skirts, without fear of sexual assault or rape.

I’m sure the good researchers of Kent University didn’t mean to suggest otherwise, but women aren’t raped by lager, alcopops and tequila slammers. It’s just important to remind ourselves where the crime is when studies like this are published.

So now, we go Down Under. (No jokes please.)

A group of past and present University of Sydney students set up a ''pro-rape'' page in the sports and recreation section on Facebook, describing themselves as ''anti-consent''.

The male students, mostly from the elite, all-male St Paul's College, initially ensured the ''Define Statutory'' group had an open, public profile, and proudly displayed their membership on their personal Facebook pages.

Both the commander of the NSW Police sex crimes unit and the head of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre condemned the site, describing it as ''grooming perpetrators of sexual violence''.

The Facebook page, which has since shut but ran from August until late last month, is part of a broader culture at the residential colleges that demeans women in a sexist and often sexually violent way, experts say.

<SNIP>

The outgoing master of Wesley College, the Reverend David Russell, was much more frank  about the issues facing the university's residential colleges, saying in his eight years in the role he had spoken to several female students who felt they had to leave college. ''They say 'I just don't feel safe.'''

For Mr Russell, ''this is a story that has to be told. There is no question in my mind, women are seen as meat. That is the awful, ugly truth of it.''

The commander of the NSW Police sex crimes squad, Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, said when operational, the Facebook page - tagged ''pro-rape, anti-consent'' - was ''inciting people to sexual violence''.

Over at Feministing and Jezebel, they're asking why it is that Facebook would allow this while banning groups that promote breast-feeding. Good question. But I am far more disturbed by the fact that these brats thought it was okay to rape young women -- and I'm certain they're not the only ones.

Coming back States-side, Feministing considers the validity of rape statistics after two researchers from the Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund question how data are collected for government reports.They maintain that the rape figures are understated because the methodology used by government agencies is flawed.

And so, while the agencies may be reporting that rape incidents are being reduced, in fact the opposite is true.

Next, the H1N1 flu hysteria, and its connection to rape. Bitch magazine wants to know why we're not doing as much to prevent rape as we are to prevent the flu.

Now, I don’t want to diminish the grief of those who have lost loved ones to H1N1. I don’t even want to question the scientific validity of the Center for Disease Control’s decision to declare it a pandemic. But the fact remains that the impact of H1N1 is far less than that of other public health crises that receive a fraction of the attention and resources. The CDC reported just over 43,000 cases of H1N1 between April and July of this year and estimates that it will affect a million people, or 0.3% of the total population of the United States. Compare this to the 2.5% of women and 0.9% of men who reported being raped or sexually assaulted in the past year. The most recent statistics about rape available from the CDC are from last year. Swine flu? Last week.

What would our media, our public discourse, and our institutional responses look like if people cared as much about rape as they do about H1N1?

I imagine the federal government urging colleges to stop the epidemic of rape by developing protocols for quarantining students who have tried to use drugs or alcohol to incapacitate women who would otherwise not consent to sex. Or university officials directing students to stay off campus or out of public areas until they are free of the belief that they are entitled to sex any time they want for a full 24 hours. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Sure, it sounds great. But, if anybody were to get quarantined, it probably would be the women, at least that's what I think. Because, we know that, women walking around late at night or having one too many cocktails are just begging for it.

Wouldn't want them leading on all those poor unsuspecting and helpless guys.

Cycle of Violence

November is Women Abuse Awareness Month in Canada, and already I am receiving news releases from social service agencies, police forces and community groups.(Note that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the US.)

Of course, men are occasionally the victims of violence by their partners but the latest statistics prove once again that women by far are the victims, and are at much greater risk of being killed or seriously injured by their partners.

True, 65 Ontario men died between 2002-2007 in domestic violence incidents -- but the vast majority killed themselves after killing their partners and, sometimes, their children.

The irony is that, as some UK research shows, men abuse more but women are more likely to be arrested.

Men were significantly more likely than women to use physical violence, threats, harassment and to damage the women’s property, while the women were more likely to damage their own. Men’s violence tended to create a context of fear and control, whereas women were more likely to use verbal abuse or some physical violence. However, women were more likely to use a weapon, although this was at times in order to stop further violence from their partners.

In terms of arrests, there were more arrests overall of men than of women. All cases with seven or more incidents, most of which involved men, led to arrest although women were three times more likely to be arrested. During the six-year period men were arrested once in every ten incidents and women arrested once in every three incidents.

Cases involving men as sole perpetrators were those most likely to result in intense fear and control of partners, while many cases where women were recorded as sole perpetrators were characterised by the police as the women being alcoholic or possibly as mentally ill.

Canadian spousal violence stats also show that women were more like to commit ''major assault'' than men but, given the absolute numbers, nearly three times as many women were victims of ''major assault'' than men.

With the current economic situation affecting so many jobs held by men, the risks for women are increased. Research indicate that men who are depressed are more likely to lash out, especially if their partners are leaving or threatening to leave them.

This is not a knock on men, although some readers will see it that way. I acknowledge that only a teeny tiny fraction of men in North America think it's acceptable to hit women and probably even fewer do. And sure, there have been many false charges of abuse. But that doesn't diminish the reality of the situation.

The truth is, violence against women should also be a men's issue. 

Ultimately, this would cause a shift in male culture such that some men’s sexist abuse of women and girls would be regarded – by other men -- not only as distasteful but as utterly unacceptable. In this new climate, individuals would be strongly discouraged from acting out in abusive ways because of the anticipated negative consequences: loss of respect, friends, and status, and greater likelihood of facing both legal and non-legal sanctions. In fact, if men’s violence against women truly carried a significant stigma in male culture, it is possible that most incidents of sexist abuse would never happen. This is because contrary to popular myth, the vast majority of boys and men who assault, harass and bully girls and women are not sociopaths. They are average guys. Many of them see the sexist treatment of women as normal. They behave toward women the way they think men are supposed to. If the example and the expectations of the men around them changed, they would be likely to adjust their behavior accordingly.

Which brings us to this harrowing story today:

A 15-year-old girl leaving early from the homecoming dance at Richmond High School was enticed into a darkened alley just off campus to hang out with as many as a dozen young men who were drinking.

When the girl joined in and became drunk herself, police say, the men attacked her.

One after another, as many as six men raped the girl, police said Monday. Others watched. For more than two hours, no one tried to stop the attacks, and no one called police.

"What's shocking about it is there were so many people willing to involve themselves in such a serious crime," police Lt. Mark Gagan said.

Equally shocking, he said, was "the number of people who witnessed it and who were in the area of it occurring who did not take steps to stop it, report it or help our victim."

Isn't there something really really wrong with the culture when 15 boys stand around and do nothing but gawk? How many of them had cell phones? How many of them could easily walked away and called 911?

And yes, usually when I raise these kinds of questions, my comments threads fill up with the usual suspects defending the indefensible. Or pretending there is no problem. Or blaming the victims.

Finally, just to show that I am an equal opportunity basher, I was surprised but not thrilled to see what Joan did to her boorish husband-rapist on the most recent episode of Mad Men. 

After Greg, or Dr. Blockhead as I've come to think of him, the thumb-fingered surgeon who wants to be a shrink, blows his psychiatry interview despite Joan's shrewd advice, he's breaks out his bottle of whine.

"Stop acting like you know everything. You don't know. You don't know what it's like to want something your whole life, and to plan for it and count on it and not get it."

Since she most definitely does, she bashes her very own Exhibit A over the head with a vase of flowers.

But I was disappointed for all the reasons Deeply Problematic outlined.

Joan has been a victim of this man's violence, and that complicates this act. What Joan did to Greg was nowhere near the same; Greg's act of violence and entitlement was one of the most horrific scenes of the entire series, barely approached by any other acts of violence or cruelty on the show. I can understand that urge to applaud her for kicking his ass - it's delayed justice. But she actually hasn't gotten justice from one awesome scene, and Joan being kickass doesn't mean that it's okay for her to be physically violent to Greg (outside of of self-defense, of course). And this is particularly striking and unsettling because of Mad Men's habit of ignoring this serious, contemporary (in the sense of 1960s and today) issue.

So, what else is new?

Consider: The YWCA just published a report Life Beyond Shelter which calls for the coordination of policies between all levels of government. It's available here.

As Dammit Janet! notes, it received little notice in the corporate media. That's because it wasn't about so-called ''honour killings.''

Woman abuse. Ho-hum. Old news.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: About that two hour-long gang rape of the San Francisco teen, read the comments here.

We're all waiting for the inevitable cell phone videos to turn up online.

Dirty thirty

Via Jezebel and further to this:

This.

Comes with a complete list of the 30 Republican legislators who voted against Senator Al Franken's communist anti-rape amendment to the 2009 Defense Appropriations bill. 

Yay them!

Thus spake the patriarchs

This makes me so angry I am spitting at my screen.

VATICAN CITY — African cardinals denounced the "cultural imperialism" of wealthy 
countries in their aid, trade and health care policies for Africa, saying Wednesday that the West's promotion of abortion rights and condoms is destroying the continent's moral fabric.

Because rape all over the continent is part of the ''moral fabric?''

And forget ''cultural imperialism.'' What about Catholic imperialism?

African prelates attending the three-week meeting on the role of the Catholic Church in Africa said their countries needed economic development partnerships that are based on trust and fairness, not ones that exploit Africa's natural resources and put conditions on aid.

Agreed on the exploitation part, but, if the conditions they reject include maternal health care and contraceptives, well, these guys are just emissaries from Misogynist Central in the Vatican.

"We want to be helped, but helped in the name of truth, with respect of what we are and what we want for ourselves," Cardinal Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar, Senegal, told a news conference.

He and Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier of Durban, South Africa, denounced "hidden" agendas of international aid groups and countries that promote abortion rights and condoms to fight HIV, saying the West was trying to impose its views on Africa.

Their arguments have been echoed during the synod, with repeated criticisms of institutions  that promote "reproductive health care" for women. The Vatican has warned that such programs — often supported by the United Nations — are really just a cover for promoting access to abortions and birth control.

The Vatican opposes abortion and artificial contraception. It has come under heavy criticism for its opposition to condoms as a way of fighting HIV, particularly in hard-hit Africa.

"There are certain cultural norms that are inherent in Africa," Napier said. "One of them is that sexual activity is for bringing babies into the world. It's not so much for enjoyment."

Yeah, well, rape isn't particularly enjoyable.

And neither is giving birth to HIV-positive babies -- and then dying and leaving them orphaned.

But this is what God wants, right?

SHAMELESS PLUG: I am a supporter of this Canadian Christian-mission run orphanage in Uganda.

Yeah, I did say Christian. Surprise, surprise.

The photo (above right) is of two of its wards, Fatuma and Frank.

Please consider a donation.

Thank you.