Footballer pleads guilty to nine sex assault charges, Thu May. 28 2009
A former football player - the man dubbed the so-called "Rutland Rapist" - pleaded guilty to a series of sexual assaults that shook Kelowna, B.C., two years ago.
Okanagan Sun defensive back Tyler Stephens, now 21, was arrested and charged in October 2008, shocking local residents.
http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090528/bc_football_assault_090528/
"Rutland Rapist"
Marcel Joseph Parent won't get dangerous offender tag
Calgary sex criminal won't get dangerous offender tag, By Daryl Slade, Calgary Herald
May 29, 2009
CALGARY - A man convicted of robbing and sexually assaulting a tanning salon employee no longer faces the prospect of being declared a dangerous offender, which would have meant an indefinite prison sentence.
After reviewing a psychiatric report, Crown prosecutor Jonathan Hak said Thursday he would not seek the dangerous offender status for Marcel Joseph Parent, 31. Instead, he'll pursue long-term offender status.
"The next step in the process is I need to get the attorney general to approve this application," Hak told provincial court Judge Heather Lamoureux. He said that will take about 30 days.
Hak and defence lawyer Tonii Roulston would then argue over a specific sentence, although the prosecutor said they were far apart on that issue.
Despite the differences between Roulston and Hak in sentencing, she said "we'll very likely be consenting to an LTO (long-term offender designation)."
An LTO designation carries tight community supervision for up to 10 years after release by the National Parole Board.
Parent was found guilty Feb. 3 of robbery, sexual assault, unlawful confinement and uttering death threats at a northwest strip mall on Jan. 15, 2008.
Hak said his decision to seek the designation was based on Parent's more violent sexual assault on another female tanning salon employee in 2002.
The 22-year-old victim in last year's incident told court her attacker had a knife and ordered her to kiss him three times on the lips and then groped her in the genital area.
Sentencing has been set for Aug. 11.
Child porn addicts live in shadows
This from Holly's Fight for Justice,
Interesting story.....Availability of help for offenders is limited, unless they get caught. By Lori Coolican, The StarPhoenix on May 7, 2009.
It seems to be in the news every week or two -- the kind of story that provokes disgust.
Some previously anonymous man -- young or old, rich or struggling, respected or obscure -- is off to jail because child pornography was found on his computer.
And it's seldom just one or two pictures of a young girl or boy. Police and prosecutors who bring people to justice over child porn have much bigger targets these days, pursuing charges supported by thick piles of damning evidence.
To read the entire story go to this link
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/money/Child+porn+addicts+live+shadows/1571295/story.html
Quebec court convicts Munyaneza of war crimes in Rwanda !
Désiré Munyaneza, a Hutu, faces life in prison, Last Updated: Friday, May 22, 2009
'We have been waiting for this. Nobody comes to Canada to hide.'
—César Gashabizi, a Rwandan genocide survivor
To read this entire story go to CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/05/22/quebec-rwanda-war-crimes-guilty.html
Joseph Oliver pleaded guilty today to two counts in the 1993 deaths of Dale Worthman and Kimberley Lockyer
Man pleads guilty in double-slaying, claims "a Mr. Murrin" is killer
May 25, 2009, By THE CANADIAN PRESS
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - A Newfoundland man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a 16-year-old double slaying has alleged in court documents that the man who did the killing was "a Mr. Murrin."
Joseph Oliver pleaded guilty today to two counts in the 1993 deaths of Dale Worthman and Kimberley Lockyer.
In an agreed statement of facts, Oliver says he lured Worthman and Lockyer to a clearing in a field near St. John's to meet Murrin on the day they disappeared.
He says he saw Murrin shoot Worthman in the head before the gun was aimed at Oliver and he was told to leave.
The statement of facts alleges that 30 minutes later Murrin met Oliver in his vehicle and told him that "he had put four in Kim's head."
The documents do not include a first name for Murrin, but Shannon Murrin has said in the past that he told police he had information about the killings of Worthman and Lockyer - though he has denied any involvement.
In 2000, Murrin was acquitted in the killing of eight-year-old Mindy Tran in Kelowna, B.C.
Oliver was charged with second-degree murder in January 2007, about six months after the couple's skeletal remains were discovered in a wooded area in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, on the outskirts of St. John's.
Worthman and Lockyer disappeared in August 1993, marking the beginning of one of the province's longest missing persons investigations.
Ten Suggestions For People Called Out For Abusive Behaviour
1. Be Honest, Stay Honest, Get Honest
If you know that you hurt the person calling you out for abuse, acknowledge it. If you think its a possibility that you might have hurt them let them know. If you have any inkling that some way that you interacted with them might have compromised their dignity and boundaries let them know. The first step to dealing with our abusive tendencies is getting out of denial. Denial is like an infection. It starts in some locality (specific instances and situations, nitpicking at certain parts of an account of the situation[s]), and if untreated festers and eventually consumes us entirely. When we are able to vocalize that we are aware that something isn't quite right with our behaviour it brings us a step closer to dealing with it in a meaningful and honest way.
2. Respect Survivor Autonomy
Survivor autonomy means that the survivor of abuse, and the survivor of abuse alone calls the shots concerning how abusive behaviour is dealt with. This means s/he calls the shots and you live with her/his decisions. You don't get to determine how or even if a mediation/confrontation happens, or initiate action towards a resolution. You get to make it explicitly clear that you respect their autonomy in the situation, and that you're willing to work towards a resolution. They may prefer to never be in the same space with you again and don't wish to speak with you. It is not their responsibility, nor their duty, to attempt for resolution or enter into dialogue with you or take any specific course of action for that matter However it is your responsibility, as someone being called out, to respect their needs and desires.
3.Learn To Listen
It is imperative that you open your ears and your heart to the person calling you out. This will likely be difficult, because people tend to get defensive and closed when they are accused of wrongdoing. Very few people in this world want to be pegged as the "bad apple of the "bunch" To listen you will need to keep your defensive and knee jerk reactionary tendencies in check. These suggestions could be very helpful to you:
A) Let the person calling you out direct the dialogue. If they want you to answer questions do so, but otherwise let them have the floor.
B) Be aware when you're formulating responses and counterpoints in your head while they're expressing their account of the situation(s), and attempt to stop doing so.
C) Focus on their account of things, and save going over in your head how you remember things until after they have spoken.
D) Reflect upon the entirety of what they expressed and not just the disparities between your and their account of events.
E) Talk with your friends about how you can better listen before you enter a mediation/confrontation.
4.Practice Patience
Sometimes things take time to be resolved. Sometimes it takes months, years, decades for a resolution, and sometimes there is no clear cut resolution. However, there is no timeline for resolution when human dignity is at stake. Be patient and never attempt to force a resolution. a process, or a dialogue. You may ask for a dialogue or a mediation, but if the answer is no it is no until s/he says it is yes. Don't attempt to wear down the boundaries of the person calling you out by asking for dialogue or mediation over and over again. Stay put, reflect, and think about the power dynamics in your relations with others.
5.Never, Ever, Blame The Victim
S/he did not ask for violence or abuse. S/he did not ask for it in how s/he dressed. S/he didn't ask for it, because s/he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. S/he didn't ask for it, because s/he is a sex worker. S/he didn't ask for it because she chose to make out with you or because s/he went back to your place or because s/he is known to be into s/m or because she is a "tease" or because she is a "slut". S/he did not ask for it in anyway. It is not acceptable to write off his/her responses to your behaviour, because she is "hypersensitive" to ‘your' threatening of abusive behaviour. It is not acceptable to say that s/he is "exaggerating" the abuse, because s/he is a feminist/queer liberationist/activist/punk/youth/"a PC thug"/etc. It is not acceptable to say that s/he is making it up, because s/he has a history of abuse or any other such nonsense. Making excuses for why someone is to blame for your hurtful actions are a way for you to avoid taking responsibility for ‘your' fucked up behaviour. They expose you as a coward.
6.Speak For Yourself
You can account for your experience and your experience and your experience alone. Don't ever assume that you can know how the person calling you out as an abuser experienced the situation(s). People walk down the same streets everyday and have very different experiences. This is a simple fact of life. It is, also, a very different experience to have the winds of privilege blowing against your back than to have the winds of oppression blowing in your face as you walk down those same streets. You cannot know how someone else felt at a certain moment, and so you should never presume that you have the right to judge the validity of their feelings. If they have expressed how they feel, then what you need to do, first and foremost, is to listen. It is important that you actively seek to understand theirs feelings. If you find that you simply cannot understand their feelings no matter how sincerely you try it is still not your place to judge the validity of them.
7. Don't Engage In Silence Behaviour
By telling your "side of the story" you could be creating an atmosphere that silences people who have been abused. If you feel that their are major discrepancies between your account of the situation(s) and their account, and that you are being "falsely accused" take a deep breath. First you need to know that you can never stop sincerely investigating the yourself and questioning how your behaviour affects others ..the case is never closed. With time you might come to realize that, yes, in fact your behaviour was abusive. It is your responsibility to continuously challenge your notions about how your behaviours effect others, and to challenge your understandings of how you hold power over others in your relationships. Read books, enter into recovery programs for batterer'/sexual assailants, seek out a therapist, and discover your own ways of challenging yourself and your conceptions of how your behaviour effects others.
Understand that if you attempt to silence the person(s) by promoting your account of things as "the truth" you will silence others as well. People will fear coming forward with their stories and fear confronting abuse, because of YOUR silencing behaviour. If you are committed to creating a world where people speak freely about the wrongs done to them you will want to avoid focusing on how the accusers are "lying" about you, and you will want to avoid airing your presumptions and theories as to their "motives". One example off the top of my head is how one particular rapist/sexual assailant passed out a list of 40 points of contention at a punk show to refute the stories of three women calling him out. The flyer went on and on about the disparities between these women's stories and the "truth". This is one blatant example of silencing behaviour, but it can act in far more subtle ways.
Silencing behaviour is ANY behaviour which attempts to make the survivor of abuse out to the perpetrator of misinformation. It is any behaviour which attempts to make the abuser out to be the victim. It very quickly puts into question the character of the person calling out an abuser. Often it leads to a backlash against them both explicit (threats, harassment, violence) and implicit (endless questioning, non supportive behaviour i.e. "I don't want to get involved in this" or "I'm hearing a lot of different stories"). Silencing behaviour creates an atmosphere where people fear and don't call out their abusers, and therefore an atmosphere where abuse flourishes.
However, this does not mean that you should not speak of how you experienced the situation(s) differently from the other person(s) calling you out. It simply means that it is your responsibility to do so in a way that is respectful and that does not help to foster an atmosphere of silence around abuse. You may need to relate your experiences to those with which you have close friendships/working relationships and to those that approach you, but as I said above speak for yourself. Do not intersperse their account with yours to illustrate the inconsistencies that you perceive. Do not relate the person(s) stories for them. Do not go on and on about how they should have called you out in a different manner. Do not talk about their shortcomings in the relationship/ friendship. Do not cast yourself in the role of the victim of a "witch hunt" or "cointelpro". Do not assert that they are lying, and if your account differs from theirs make it clear that this is how you and only you account for your experiences(s) of the situation(s). Let what you say be limited exclusively to your recollection. If you feel the need to vent find a good person to vent to whose outside of your immediate social scene/community (if you look hard enough you might find a therapist willing to work with you on a sliding scale basis, preferably find one with a radical/feminist analysis) or someone outside the scene/community altogether (who you know for sure has not been a victim of abuse). If you honestly believe you are being falsely accused your character will have to speak for yourself rather then you speaking for your character.
8. Don't Hide Behind Your Friends
Often the people most vocal in defending abusers are not the abusers themselves, but their friends, comrades, and lovers. "But s/he's really a good person/activist/artist" or "S/he contributed so much to the community/scene" or "The person I know would never do something like that" are some common defensive reactions among many. If you feel that people are trying to insulate you from your problems or from questioning your actions....let them know that it isn't acceptable. You need to hear the criticisms and anger of the survivor(s) and their allies. As well you need to stop others from engaging in silencing behaviour. Let them know that if they truly care about you that instead of defending your character and reacting to the accusations they need to help you examine yourself and figure out ways of transforming dominating behaviours.
9.Respond To The Wishes of The Survivor and The Wishes Of The Community
Taking responsibility for our harmful actions is an integral part of the healing process. You will need to respond to the wishes of the survivor and the community not just for their healing, but yours as well. If s/he or they wish that you be suspended from certain projects/activities or that you engage in a batterers/assailants program or that you do book reports on books about ending rape and abuse or if they want you to do anything within the realm of possibility don't argue with them....give them what they ask for. You need to show the survivor and the community that you are acting in good faith and that you are ready to deal with your problems of abuse or at the very least that you are willing to sincerely investigate the possibility that you engaged in abusive behaviour. You need to show the survivor and the community that you respect their autonomy and their ability to make decisions that meet their needs and desires for safety, healing, and ending oppression. Again if you want to live in a world free of abuse,rape, and oppression you will support survivor autonomy and community self-determination even if you feel you are being "falsely accused". . Do not engage in the silencing behaviour of attacking the demands and process of the survivor(s) or the community. This is what abusers and their supporters typically do to create a smokescreen of issues to take the heat off of themselves.
10.Take Responsibility....Stop Abuse and Rape Before It Starts.
It takes a lot of courage and self-knowledge to admit that you've hurt someone, that you compromised their dignity and self worth, or that you used power over someone in the worst ways. It takes a lot of sincerity to make an apology without expecting to be applauded or thanked for it. However, this is what it will take to start overcoming our abusive tendencies. To know that you have wronged someone and to do otherwise is to perpetuate the hierarchy. It is to be more than simply complicit within it, but to actively support it. It will take honesty, diligent self investigation, and compassion to start to overcome our abusive tendencies. Once your able to admit that you have a problem with (sometimes or always) abusing people you can begin to learn how and why you do it. You can learn early warning signs that you're slipping back into old patterns, and you'll be better able to check yourself. My life has been a life of unlearning such patterns of abuse, of learning to reject the roles of both the abuser and the abused, and it is far from over. Bad habits are easily taken up again, and many times it is easy to assume that we are not wielding power over someone. We must persistently question this assumption just as we would demand that any assumption be questioned, lest it become dogma.
It is crucial that we learn to ask for consent from our sexual partners. It is crucial that we learn to recognize aggressive and passive aggressive abuse in its various emotional, economic, physical, and sexual manifestations, and that we stop it before it escalates to more severe and harmful levels. We need to call it out when we are aware of it in other people, as well as ourselves This process is a process of overcoming of oppression, of rejecting the roles of oppressor and oppressed. It is a path that leads to freedom, and a path that is formed by walking. Will you take the first step?
wispy cockles currently resides in Richmond VA where he organizez with the Richmond Queer Space Project and spins records with the 215noise crew.
Rape computer game protested
A Japanese computer game that appears to glorify rape has been taken off the market. But protesters complain that similar games remain on sale. McClatchy News Service
TOKYO -- The uproar over a Japanese video game featuring the rape of two girls and their mother has led to increased calls by the public to more strictly regulate child pornography.
Although the sale of the rape game has been suspended in response to a protest from an international human rights organization, a large number of similar games are still on sale across the country.
In the computer game, developed and first sold in 2006 by a Yokohama-based game software maker, a player gropes two girls -- who appear to be teenagers -- and their mother while in a subway car, then confines and rapes the three, making them pregnant.
The player then forces the three to terminate their pregnancies.
In the game, the more violence a player uses on the female characters, the more points the player scores.
The use of rape in the game led to it being condemned by the British Parliament earlier this year.
Following the protest campaign started last week by Equality Now, a New York-based international human rights organization, the maker halted all sales, while Japan-based Amazon.co.jp said it had stopped selling the game in late April.
But the protesters have pointed out that the voluntary halting of the sale of this one game is an unsatisfactory outcome.
''The problem isn't just about this specific game, but about all similar games still available,'' said Yukiko Tsunoda, a lawyer and member of Equality Now.
Tsunoda pointed out that a large number of similar games are widely distributed in Japan, featuring story lines in which a player repeatedly rapes or is violent toward women.
Hiroshi Nakasatomi, a gender studies researcher and associate professor at Fukushima University, said he believed the game in question was chosen as the focus of the protest campaign 'because its title includes the word `rape,' making it possible [for English speakers] to see what the story is about at a glance.''
Canadian prostitutes get training for the Olympics
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Athletes, coaches and organizers aren't the only people getting ready for next year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver, with training also underway for the city's prostitutes.
A Canadian agency that provides support services for the city's sex workers is preparing a brochure and training to inform prostitutes about their rights and how to deal with the international media when they descend on the city to cover the Winter Olympic Games from February 12-28.
"It is a supportive tool that we are offering," said Natasia Wright, of the Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society (PACE).
"What we are doing is putting together a brochure for our members on their rights to do with the media in general in preparation for the Olympics," she added in a telephone interview.
http://in.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idINTRE54J75L20090520
B.C. expert says Craigslist open to changing sex ads section in Canada
May 17, 2009,By Camille Bains, THE CANADIAN PRESS
VANCOUVER, B.C. - Craigslist officials seem open to changing their online sex ads section in Canada after dropping it altogether in the United States, says a human trafficking expert.
Ben Perrin, a law professor at the University of B.C., along with the RCMP and the Peel Regional Police force in Ontario have discussed the issue with the online classified ad company in an effort to prevent sexual exploitation of minors.
"We already know that Craigslist has been used as a portal for the sale of victims of human trafficking in Canada," Perrin said.
"We've had at least six cases in the Greater Toronto Area where the Peel Regional Police have identified Craigslist as being primarily involved for the sale of these victims of sex trafficking."
An Ontario man convicted in Canada's first human trafficking case last year used the free site to sell a 15-year-old girl as a prostitute, Perrin said.
Last week, after facing numerous lawsuits, Craigslist announced it would shut down its exotic services section in the U.S. and replace it with a new adult-services section where every ad would be monitored by its staff.
Critics have called Craigslist an online brothel after a Boston masseuse was killed earlier this year when she responded to an ad on the popular site.
Craigslist is not taking responsibility for the woman's death.
Perrin said he's hoping a discussion with the company will result in major changes in Canada as well.
"There's an agreement to move forward to the next stage, which is to begin to discuss some of the specific measures and assess which would be most effective in the Canadian context," he said.
"The number of postings in Toronto and Vancouver in particular have increased according to Craigslist, in recent months, so there's a real need to tackle this issue in Canada."
"We have every indication that they're taking this very seriously," Perrin said.
Susan MacTavish Best, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Craigslist, said the company "had a thoughtful and productive conversation with Mr. Perrin and law enforcement this past week."
"We look forward to continuing the discussion in Canada over the upcoming months," she told The Canadian Press in an email.
Craigslist has taken some measures to protect Canadian and American users of its site.
For example, the company has come up with a filtering system that prohibit certain words prevalent in the sex industry from being used in ads, although those who use the site have found ways to bypass it, Perrin said.
"What's critically missing from the Canadian Craigslist websites, of which there are over 50, is phone number and credit-card verification for someone who wants to post in the erotic services section," he said.
Such verification is necessary on the U.S. sites, but Perrin said Craigslist officials have said they haven't instituted such measures in Canada because law enforcement in Canada didn't appear interested.
"So we've organized a group of law enforcement in Canada who are willing to work with Craigslist."
Sgt. Marie-Claude Arsenault of the RCMP's Human Trafficking Co-ordination Centre was involved in last week's talks with Craigslist and said the company seems receptive to working with Canadian police.
"It was a very open discussion to try and work together," Arsenault said from Ottawa.
"I'm hopeful and positive that we'll be working with Craigslist and it will be a positive partnership."
Ontario resident Naomi Baker, who recently founded the non-profit group Canada Fights Human Trafficking, said Craigslist should shut down its erotic services section in Canada, in keeping with its decision in the U.S.
"That portion of Craigslist should not even be legally on there," she said.
"How do you govern that? How do you let some people on and some people off if you think it's human trafficking? You can't govern it, it's a can of worms."
Baker said the organization will be training volunteers from its British Columbia chapter to respond to an expected increase in human trafficking cases during the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Law enforcement officials say predators who lure young victims into the sex trade don't face much of a deterrent because unlike in the United States, Canada does not have a mandatory minimum sentence for trafficking people under 14.
Arsenault said there's little understanding, even among law enforcement officials and prosecutors, about human trafficking, which is often equated with human smuggling.
But people don't have to be transported across international borders to be sold into sexual slavery. Arsenault said pimps often move underage people from one province to another in Canada.
The RCMP has said between 800,000 and four million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking and the industry is almost on par with drug smuggling when it comes to the billions of dollars it generates.
Police and various groups are urging Parliament to pass a private member's bill that calls for a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for those convicted of trafficking people for profit.
The bill has passed first reading and is now in the committee stage.
Proponents hope the bill will move through that stage quickly, especially if a minority federal government falls and progress on the bill becomes meaningless.
In the United States, those who traffic children under 14 must serve a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, while the offence against children between 14 and 18 amounts to an automatic 10 years behind bars.
Protect kids from bullying By Juliana Menke, Special to the Times
Tampa Bay residents were shocked to read about the 13-year-old boy who was sexually assaulted at Walker Middle School in Hillsborough County. From mid March through early May, four boys bullied and tormented the young victim. Thirty five school days. At school. During school hours.
"For whatever reason, he didn't tell anyone," Hillsborough County School superintendent MaryEllen Elia said. "We need to be sure our students feel they can talk about this."
Fantastic idea . . . except that children don't talk about this. And as long as adults expect them to talk about it, children will continue to suffer in silence.
Bullies typically target kids they perceive as different and vulnerable — kids who are younger, perhaps smaller, maybe better or worse at something than the bully. Bullying nearly always starts with hurtful words. The language is frequently threatening and insulting. Most kids try to ignore this initial phase of bullying. Children who report verbal bullying know that they will regret it.
The next phase can include pushing, blocking and other physical contact just shy of punching. Even if they are outweighed and outnumbered, boys especially expect themselves to be able to "handle it." If children want to continue doing something meaningful to them, such as playing a team sport, they may protect their activity at the expense of themselves. If an adult notices and asks, many boys will say nothing is going on.
To read full article the link is below,
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/essays/article1000361.ece
First Lady of Trinidad and Tobago to host Caribbean YWCAs RTI participants
This from Holly/Admin,
Check out the website....http://www.worldywca.org/world_ywca
A number of high profile UN agencies, civil society groups and faith-based organisations will join participants of the Caribbean YWCAs Regional Training Institute (RTI) in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago from May 24-29. ‘Caribbean Women Creating Safe and Secure Communities: United to end Violence Against Women and the Spread of HIV’ is the theme of the training and the importance of the issues has mobilised many regional partners to become involved in the upcoming event.
http://www.worldywca.org/world_ywca/ywca_news/world_ywca_news__1/caribbean_ywca_rti_09
Liberals push for investigation into missing native women
May 14, 2009, By Sue Bailey, THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA - The Conservative government is deflecting calls for a public investigation into more than 500 cases of missing or murdered native women.
Liberal MP Anita Neville says her party will push until the government acts.
She says there would be national outrage if hundreds of women from another cultural group were targeted the same way.
A recent report found that 520 native girls and women - most under the age of 30 - have been killed or have vanished since 1970.
Two-thirds of them - 348 women - were murdered, and almost one-quarter are still missing.
The government cites $5 million spent on the Sisters in Spirit research campaign, and says it's working on a second phase.
Neville says more action is needed.
"Their plight has been ignored long enough - it's time," she said Wednesday in the House of Commons.
The Liberals say they'll write to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson asking for action that goes beyond research.
"It's time to go beyond the record-keeping and find out why the police are not responding," Neville said.
"Why are these women missing? Are they women who come from poverty? What are their life circumstances that have put them in this position?"
Media also have a role to play to ensure no missing-person case is swept aside, said Liberal MP and aboriginal affairs critic Todd Russell.
Beverley Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, says native girls and women still don't get the same attention from police or the media when they vanish.
Time and again, families are told by officers that their daughter likely ran away or doesn't want to be found, she said.
Jacobs recently compared such brush-offs with the frenzy of police and media attention given similarly tragic but non-native cases.
"We're still dealing with racism, stereotypes, discrimination," Jacobs said.
The proportion of missing women has held steady at about 25 per cent in the last two years despite regular updates to the Sisters in Spirit database.
"This suggests a trend of ongoing disappearances: for every woman found alive and removed from the database (or found deceased and re-coded as a case of murder), the name of another missing woman or girl is added," Jacobs reported two weeks ago.
"This demonstrates the ongoing severity and urgency of the issue."
About half the 520 cases occurred in the last nine years.
Researchers stress they can't accurately say whether there has been a surge over time because they don't have enough information on similar cases before 1970.
Details from earlier decades are often sketchy and record-keeping is spotty.
Most of the 520 cases are based in the West where aboriginal populations are highest: 137 in British Columbia, 85 in Alberta, 71 in Manitoba, 59 in Saskatchewan, 59 in Ontario and 17 in Quebec.
The rest are based in the Atlantic provinces and territories or are still being researched.
Former gov't members say Alberta's human rights code changes are embarrassing
May 12, 2009, EDT.By Jim Macdonald, THE CANADIAN PRESS
EDMONTON - Alberta's move to extend human rights protection to parents who want their children excluded from classroom talk about sex or religion is being condemned by former Tory government members who created the province's original human rights code. Ron Ghitter, who introduced Alberta's human rights legislation in 1971, says the commission enforcing it is already overworked and was not set up to police classrooms.
"It's totally backward and makes me embarrassed as an Albertan," Ghitter said in an interview. "It's not a human rights issue at all."
The controversial proposal was a trade-off by Premier Ed Stelmach's Tories.
Several years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ordered Alberta to enshrine gay rights in its human rights code. After much foot dragging, the province brought forward legislation to do that this spring, but there was a catch. The bill included changes to the Human Rights Act that would give parents the right to pull their kids out of any class that deals with issues sex or religion.
The issue has exploded in the news media and Albertans are speaking out on radio talk shows and in letters to newspapers. The teachers union and human rights groups are upset and even former Tory politicians are stepping forward to comment - including some who rarely criticize their own party.
Former culture minister Mary LeMessurier said she's "disturbed" by the proposed changes to the Human Rights Act.
"Why does it have to be changed?" she asked in an interview. "Nobody has proved to me that we've been going the wrong way."
LeMessurier, who held the portfolio from 1979 to 1986, said as a parent she never veered away from any topics her children wanted to talk about.
"Whether it was drinks or drugs, every night we sat at the dining room table and discussed issues," said LeMessurier, who is a member of the Order of Canada and a former president of the Canadian Save the Children Fund. "Things that might cause them concern if they were not fully aware of the consequences."
Stelmach says Alberta has changed dramatically since 1971, when its human rights legislation was first enacted.
"We've come a long way," the premier said. "I believe it's a fundamental right for parents to have that particular right in terms of educating their children.
"There may be some who disagree with me. They may disagree with this government. So be it. But I feel very confident. I really do."
Officials representing Alberta's school boards met with the government Tuesday to denounce part of the legislation that would require teachers to give parents advance notice when a controversial subject might be raised in the classroom.
Heather Welwood, president of the Alberta School Boards Association, said the change will allow parents to "run and file a human rights complaint" if they don't feel they were given proper notification.
She added that parents and teachers are already clamouring to find out, "How did we get here?"
"I'm getting the sense that Albertans in general wish they had been consulted on this and they're wondering what it is the government is trying to fix."
Fil Fraser, who was chief commissioner of Alberta's human rights commission from 1989 to 1992, sees this as a "watershed" moment that could lead to a national debate.
"People who care about human rights from across the country (are) weighing in on Alberta as having the worst human rights legislation in the country," says Fraser. "We once had the best."
Dave Russell, who was deputy premier under Peter Lougheed in the 1980s, says Stelmach's government has clearly shifted to the right of the political spectrum on social issues.
"I think there's something to the fact that we've got such a heavy rural caucus and rural-based cabinet," said Russell. "They tend to be to the right."
The debate has also caused friction within the government caucus. Insiders say one rookie member walked out of a caucus meeting during the emotional debate.
Minister of Sustainable Resource Development Ted Morton is often cited as one of the big drivers behind the government's social agenda. The former Reform Party stalwart has long advocated for parents who oppose gay rights.
But Morton denies any direct involvement in the government's move to give parents more "choice" in the classroom. He applauded the change when they were presented to caucus.
"I think that we've seen parents' rights in this matter put under attack and eroded," said Morton. "I suspect that most parents will be quite comfortable with this policy."
He added he thinks this issue is being overblown in the media and that "common sense will prevail.
"The parental right to educate children is a fundamental one and has a proper place in the Alberta Human Rights Act," he said.
"I'll even goes so far as to predict other jurisdictions will pick it up.
Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett says people are reading too much into the government's motives and he can't understand the "huge hue and cry."
"I think it's a good idea to acknowledge the fact that parents have the ultimate right to determine a child's education," he says. "We thought it was symbolic."
Immigration dealings with double murderer to remain secret
May 12, 2009, EDT.By Bill Graveland, THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY - A Canadian immigration adjudicator has ruled the public can't observe the detention review of a landed immigrant from Bosnia who's been the subject of an international manhunt for the past 13 years for murdering two men.
That means the hearing will be held in secret and the public won't know if Elvir Pobric is released or is deported.
Pobric, who lives in Grimsby, Ont., is wanted in Bosnia after escaping from prison where he was serving 20 years for robbing and killing two men in 1992. Court records indicate that Pobric lured two associates, who traded in black market foreign currency, to his mother's home where he shot them in the head with a pistol.
Pobric, who works in Calgary but returns regularly to his family in Ontario, was arrested on a Canada-wide warrant after a hunt by Alberta sheriffs and police in Hamilton, Ont.
Adjudicator Leeann King, who is based in Vancouver, refused the media's request to have his Canada immigration detention review open to the public.
"She gave two orders: she dismissed the application and said not only would the detention review proceed in private but she also said the application hearing and her reasons for decision would be private as well," Melissa Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, said Tuesday.
Reporters argued that any refugee protection claim by a man convicted of two murders was a matter of public interest and should be reported and that it was widely reported that he had come to Canada as a refugee.
A detention hearing is held for foreign nationals or permanent residents if the Canada Border Services Agency has reasonable grounds to believe that the person is unlikely to appear for future hearings, is a danger to the public or is inadmissible to enter or remain in Canada.
In order to remove Pobric from Canada, he would first have to be stripped of his landed immigrant status. The Crown will most likely argue that he misrepresented himself when he entered Canada.
Pobric's family claims the Bosnian was interned along with fellow Bosnian Muslims in Tunjice detention camp in Banja Luka shortly after the outbreak of violence between ethnic Serbs and Bosnians in 1992.
Anderson said the news media would be allowed to argue in favour of the hearing process being open to the public at future hearings.
Hamilton police received information from Interpol that Pobric broke out of a prison in Foca in 1996 and surfaced in Canada in 1999 when he entered the country as a refugee.
He lived in Hamilton for several years before moving to Grimsby with his wife and children. Police say Pobric was a self-employed siding contractor who ran Ontario Custom Aluminum and had worked in Calgary for several years.
The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) invites you to the first Canadian Social Forum, which will take place in Calgary, May 19-22, 2009.
We're bringing together community leaders from social development, public health, environment, community safety and recreation. The Forum targets poverty – both urban and rural. Workshops by aboriginal presenters doing innovative work across the country will play a critical role.
This Forum will be the place to witness, experience and be part of the profound change that happens when we all move beyond our comfort zones and work together on a common issue. Be part of it.
Join us in Calgary in May.
http://www.ccsd.ca/csf/2009/index.htm
Sexual Assault and Family Violence in the Territories
Fast Facts
Sexual Assault and Family Violence in the Territories
Preventing family violence in Aboriginal communities involves developing a better understanding of the causes of the violence. To this end, the Department of Justice Canada recently released a report, Understanding Family Violence and Sexual Assault in the Territories, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples, which provides evidence of the relationship between being accused of an offence and having a history of abuse. This research was based on an in-depth review of a sample of Crown Prosecutor files (dated January 1999 to December 2004).
More specifically, the report indicates that:
The majority (93%) of the territorial accused were First Nations, Métis or Inuit; 98%of those accused of a sexual assault offence and 87% of those accused of family violence were male;
Approximately half (52%) of those accused of a sexual assault charge and 69% of those involved in family violence incidents were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the offence;
The majority of victims of family violence reported an injury; 67% reported a minor injury and 17% reported a major one;
Other effects reported, through Victim Impact Statements, included inability to sleep, feelings of fear, disgust, shame and anger; and
About three-quarters (77%) of those accused of a family violence offence and just over two-thirds (66%) of those accused of a sexual offence had suffered at least one form of abuse in their personal history.
The author argues that it is important to understand this history of abuse (and connections to the socioeconomic outcomes of colonization) to break the cycle of family violence in Aboriginal families and communities.
For more information about the research, please go to:
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/rs/rep-rap/2008/rr08_1/index.html
Sexual violence and its health consequences for female children in Swaziland: a cluster survey study
The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 9 May 2009
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60247-6 Cite or Link Using DOI
Editors' note: This study documents that sexual violence against female children is a substantial problem in Swaziland and that such violence has serious health consequences. In a self reporting survey of 1900 households, one in three females reported that they had experienced some form of sexual violence as a child. But this study is more than a prevalence study. It also describes and documents many of the circumstances and conditions under which sexual violence tends to occur. These patterns provide important information about how to target and organize prevention strategies and policies.
Summary
Background
Despite concern, few studies have been done about sexual violence against girls younger than 18 years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. We report the prevalence and circumstances of sexual violence in girls in Swaziland, and assess the negative health consequences.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60247-6/fulltext
Special Report: Anatomy of a Crisis
By Andrew Douglas
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - Over the past year, the Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center has deteriorated into an understaffed and overwhelmed facility. Insiders call it a public safety concern - mismanagement that reaches the top offices in Memphis city government.
So imagine the horror when a 14-year-old rape victim was told she'd have to wait almost two weeks to collect DNA.
THIS FROM HOLLY/ADMIN,
MEMPHIS SEXUAL ASSAULT RESOURCE CENTER NEEDS FUNDS!!
NO ONE WANTS A 14 YEAR OLD TO BE TOLD TO WAIT TO HAVE DNA COLLECTED! THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM!!
We've heard from many of you concerning this matter, and want you to know you can take action. If you want the issues resolved at the rape crisis center, call or email the Memphis Mayor's office or your city council representative and let your voice be heard!
MAYOR:
Willie W. Herenton
City Hall - 125 N. Main St. Room 700
Memphis, Tn 38103
Phone: (901) 576-6007
Email: mayor @memphistn.gov
Mayor's Citywide Call Center during normal business hours (8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday except on holidays):
Phone: (901) 576-6500
CITY COUNCIL:
Bill Morrison
District 1
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Bill.Morrison@memphistn.gov
William C. Boyd
District 2
Contact Information:
William C. Boyd
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Bill.Boyd@memphistn.gov
Harold B. Collins
District 3
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
or
P.O. Box 301132
Memphis, TN 38130
(901) 545-5987 office
(901) 332-3691
Harold.Collins@memphistn.gov
Wanda Halbert
District 4
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Wanda.Halbert@memphistn.gov
Jim Strickland
District 5
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Jim.Strickland@memphistn.gov
Edmund Ford, Jr.
District 6
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Edmund.Fordjr@memphistn.gov
Barbara Swearengen Ware
District 7
Contact Information:
1636 Sydney
Memphis TN 38108
(901) 458-9406
Swearengen.Ware@memphistn.gov
Joe Brown
Super District 8
Position 1
Contact Information:
1384 Jackson
Memphis TN 38107
(901) 274-4724
Janis Fullilove
District 8, Position 2
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Janis.Fullilove@memphistn.gov
Myron Lowery
District 8, Position 3
Contact Information:
128 Harbor Isle Circle
Memphis TN 38103
(901) 521-4300
Myron.Lowery@memphistn.gov
Kemp Conrad
District 9, Position 1
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
Office (901) 576-6786
Fax (901) 576-6796
E-mail:
Kemp.Conrad@memphistn.gov
Shea Flinn
District 9, Position 2
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Shea.Flinn@memphistn.gov
Reid Hedgepeth
District 9, Position 3
Contact Information:
125 N. Main, Room 514
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 576-6786
Reid.Hedgepeth@memphistn.gov
http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=10341914
Craigslist Told to Remove Illegal Content in Ten Days or Face Possible Prosecution
Anderson, S.C. – Attorney General Henry McMaster today called on the CEO of the Internet classified site “craigslist” to remove “the portions of the Internet site dedicated to South Carolina and its municipal regions which contain categories for and functions allowing for the solicitation of prostitution and the dissemination and posting of graphic pornographic material” within ten (10) days.
“If those South Carolina portions of the site are not removed,” McMaster said, “the management of craigslist may be subject to criminal investigation and prosecution.”
Read McMaster’s letter to craigslist: http://www.scag.gov/newsroom/pdf/2009/craigslist_letter.pdf
A number of area law enforcement officials, including Anderson County Sheriff John Skipper, Pickens County Sheriff David Stone, and Oconee County Sheriff James Singleton, joined McMaster today at the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office to make the announcement.
In November 2008, craigslist entered into an agreement with forty (40) state Attorneys General and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (“NCMEC”) to put in place safeguards to combat unlawful activity and improve public safety on the craigslist Internet classified service.
Recent national events, along with ongoing law enforcement efforts in South Carolina clearly indicate that craigslist has not put in place sufficient safeguards in the last six (6) months to prohibit the Internet site from being used as a vehicle to advertise or solicit prostitution and to post graphic pornographic pictures accessible to minors.
Read the agreement here: http://www.scattorneygeneral.com/newsroom/pdf/2009/craigslist.pdf
$1.75 million for sexual abuse by priest
Chatham, Ont., woman receives $1.75M for sexual abuse by priest on May 8, 2009, By THE CANADIAN PRESS
LONDON, Ont. - A woman who was sexually abused by a priest in southwestern Ontario has been awarded $1.75 million to settle a civil lawsuit.
Lou Ann Soontiens, of Chatham, Ont., was among 47 women that Rev. Charles Sylvestre pleaded guilty in 2006 to sexually assaulting over four decades.
Sylvestre, a parish priest in London, Sarnia, Chatham, Windsor and Pain Court, died in prison just months into a three-year sentence.
Soontiens' lawyers call the settlement a "full measure of justice" after she endured five years of childhood sexual abuse, a related abortion and decades of living with the effects of abuse.
The case, which Soontiens launched three years ago, was settled within days of the start of the trial with the Roman Catholic Diocese of London.
Lawyer Robert Talach calls the settlement, reached Tuesday, the "largest settlement of an individual sexual abuse case in Canadian history."
New report on sexual violence reveals mixed news
Perham Enterprise Bulletin - 05/07/2009
A recent review of five sources of data on sexual violence in Minnesota revealed mixed news. While hospital treatment and criminal arrests have increased in recent years, reports to law enforcement of sex offenses have remained stable, and two self-report surveys indicated a decrease in victimization.
The data are included in the new report, Violence Data Brief: Sexual Violence, 2002-2007, from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). It is available at www.health.state.mn.us/injury/pub/ViolenceDataBrief_2002-2007.pdf.
"Sexual violence is a major public health issue, resulting in significant and rising costs to our health care system," said Minnesota Commissioner of Health Dr. Sanne Magnan. "While MDH is helping to coordinate statewide prevention efforts, everyone can contribute to the solution. Creating policies at work and school, engaging in discussions with family and friends, and making sexual violence prevention a priority in all communities are a few of the strategies that will help reduce the problem."
Hospital care for sexual violence
MDH analyzes hospital data on the treatment of people who have experienced sexual violence. In 2007, more than 1,500 Minnesotans received such care, an age-adjusted rate of 29.6 per 100,000 population. During the study period of 2002-07, the annual rate of increase was 6 percent, or about 68 additional cases each year.
Although only a small percentage of people who experience sexual violence are treated in hospitals, the data provide useful detail about victims, circumstances and health care costs. The vast majority (93 to 94 percent) of patients were female. Seventy-six percent of females and 61 percent of males were under age 30. Urban areas had rates of victimization that were up to three times higher than rural areas.
Nearly all (98 percent) of sexual violence patients were treated in emergency departments and released, rather than being hospitalized for one or more days. Of those who had more serious injuries, brain injuries were among the most disabling. Those admitted to the hospital for one or more days were ten times more likely to be diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (3.24 percent) than those who were treated in the emergency department (0.3 percent) in the six-year period.
The median charge billed by a hospital for emergency department care of a person treated for sexual violence ranged from $803 to $909 during the six-year period, and inpatient charges ranged from $6,567 to $12,997.
A previous MDH report showed that the overall cost of sexual violence in Minnesota in 2005 was $8 billion, including long-term services to victims, treatment and incarceration of offenders and loss of productivity.
Arrests for sexual-violence related offenses
Arrests increased between 2002 and 2007, from 23.4 to 30.4 per 100,000 population, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS). More than half the arrests were for sex offenses other than rape; those specifically for rape declined.
Reports to law enforcement
Police reports about sexual violence remained relatively constant between 2002 and 2007, at about 125 events per 100,000 population, based on data from DPS. Most of the reports (72 percent) were for sex offenses other than rape. About half the reports resulted in arrest of the offender.
Community surveys about past experience
Self-report surveys of past experience with sexual violence showed a decline between the early 1990s and 2007 in the percentage of respondents who reported they had experienced sexual violence. Reports of experiencing sexual violence in the Minnesota Student Survey, which is administered to 6th, 9th, and 12th graders, decreased from 9.2 to 6.5 percent. The Minnesota Crime Survey, a random statewide mail survey that includes questions on perpetration as well as victimization, showed a decline in similar questions from 2.6 to 1.5 percent.
Interpretation of differences
The difference among the data sources may be attributed to varied definitions of sexual violence and measurement of different experiences among people who seek medical care, those who report to law enforcement, and those who respond to surveys. MDH epidemiologists suggest that the increase in the numbers being treated in the hospital is due to better recognition and documentation by hospitals and to people's greater willingness to go to the hospital after an assault. Similarly, the increase in arrests may be attributed to awareness of a variety of offenses in addition to rape, for which arrest rates are down.
National crime surveys showed declines in sexual violence for a number of years, then an increase each year from 2004 through 2007. Self-report surveys are considered the most reliable indication of actual occurrences of sexual violence. Although the Minnesota surveys appeared to show slight declines, statistical tests on the data do not confirm either an increase or a decrease.
MDH, with community and agency partners, has developed a plan to prevent sexual violence, called The Promise of Primary Prevention: A Five Year Plan to Prevent Sexual Violence and Exploitation in Minnesota, www.health.state.mn.us/injury/topic/svp/documents/svpplan.pdf.
A data and research team contributed to the new data brief and is evaluating model sexual violence programs to be shared statewide.
Victor Malarek comments on human trafficking
Men blamed for sex trade by Melissa Cupovic Mar 11, 2009
PERSISTENCE - Malarek describes the effects of the sex trade on women. Every year, approximately two million people are bought, sold and illegally moved across and within national borders. They are then forced into a life of degradation and sexual exploitation. These individuals, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and young girls, are the victims of human trafficking.
According to the UN, human trafficking is the third most profitable illegal money-making venture in the world, earning an estimated 12 billion dollars per year. Last Wednesday, The Zonta Club of Kitchener-Waterloo hosted a lecture by Victor Malarek, a Gemini award-winning, investigative journalist and author, on the subject of trafficking women.
Malarek described the trafficking of women and girls as “a monumental human rights disaster,” one which “has yet to register as a priority for the vast majority of nations.” According to Malarek, there are many reasons for the explosion of the global sex trade, which include government corruption, the involvement of organized crime, the Internet, the ever-increasing demand from men for paid sex and the movement to legalize prostitution. However, “The key ingredients,” he explained, are “extreme poverty, criminal greed and the perverted sex drive of men.”
Trafficking is often the result of abduction, use of force, fraud, deception and violence. “Criminals know only too well how to employ weakness, and impoverished, desperate young women are easy prey,” said Malarek. Recruiters set up modelling agencies, newspaper ads and job fairs that, from the outside, look legitimate. They promise desperate women employment in foreign countries that will enable them to provide for their families. In hopes of attaining a better life in the West, women are lured into a life of abuse and sexual exploitation.
According to Malarek, recruiters themselves are sometimes trafficked women who are told, “You will be set free if you bring two or three in.” In certain cases, family, friends and even orphanages in countries like Romania and Moldova are involved in selling women to traffickers.
Malarek explained that although women have heard horror stories and are aware of the dangers of such agencies, ads and fairs, “They are willing to roll the dice out of sheer desperation.”
Once the women are captured, they undergo a process of “seasoning,” which ensures that they will be obedient to their keepers. They are threatened, beaten and drugged. Malarek said that trafficked women “live in constant fear as their abusers convince them that the authorities are in on the action.” From his own experience and investigation, Malarek has learned that often police are directly involved in trafficking, particularly in places like Greece, Israel, England and the United States.
According to Malarek, this problem will persist and grow until men realize that they are the problem: “It is men that are fuelling the explosion.” Malarek argued that ordinary men – fathers, husbands, CEOs, politicians, policemen, etc. – “are at the very root of trafficking.” If there is no demand there is no need for supply. Therefore it is men that hold the key to ending the trafficking of women.
Organizations are pushing for the legalization of the sex trade, arguing that it will help victims of trafficking. However, Malarek argued that legalization is a form of “harm reduction” rather than “harm elimination,” which would lead to an end. “Legalizing prostitution is a gift to Johns,” Malarek said. It is an invitation to rape and will only exacerbate demand. It will not empower women, as the message that it will convey is “that it is okay to buy and sell the bodies of women.” Prostitution according to Malarek “is not a job opportunity or an occupation but a lifelong jail sentence.”
Victor Malarek Book Launch (April 2008)
Victor Malarek 30 April 2009 Toronto, Ontario, Canada Book launch of "THE JOHNS" SEX FOR SALE AND THE MEN WHO BUY IT
Organised by The Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association of Toronto (UCPBA) http://www.infoukes.com/ucpba-toronto and Key Porter Books http://www.keyporter.com
The Ukrainian Canadian Art Foundation http://kumfgallery.com
"The Johns" is available for sale at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Johns-Sex-Sale-Men-Who/dp/1559708905 Video by UkeTube - Ukrainian Video
Check out this Post by Marcella Chester!
The Johns Sex For Sale And The Men Who Buy It
http://abyss2hope.blogspot.com/
CBC News Sunday interview with Victor Malarek part 1/2
Thomas Joseph Pidgeon, 38, was handed a four-year penitentiary sentence!
By TONY BLAIS, COURT BUREAU
A cocaine-addicted former Edmonton soldier who raped a city woman and threatened to “take a knife to her” and “cut her eyes and throat out” was sent to prison today.
Thomas Joseph Pidgeon, 38, was handed a four-year penitentiary sentence, but after getting four months credit for the two months he had spent in pre-trial custody, he has 44 months left to serve.
Pidgeon, a former private with 1 Field Ambulance who is now out of the military and had been living in Ontario prior to sentencing, earlier pleaded guilty to sexual assault causing bodily harm and unlawful confinement.
Provincial court Judge Harry Bridges rejected a defence pitch for a conditional sentence to be served in the community, saying the confinement and the injuries suffered by the victim in the attack were too aggravating.
“You showed a callous disregard for her feelings and her person,” said Bridges, adding he reduced the sentence due to Pidgeon’s remorse and efforts to take counselling.
The rapist’s mother began sobbing in court after her son was given prison time and he hugged and comforted her before being led away into custody.
Pidgeon apologized to the judge, calling it a “horrible crime” and describing himself as a “sick” man.
“I’m so very sorry for hurting her, both physically and emotionally,” said Pidgeon. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of the harm that I caused her.”
Defence lawyer David Paull told court Pidgeon is off the cocaine and said his mind is now clear and he has accepted what he has done and is “on the road to recovery.”
Pidgeon, who was also a paramedic, was ordered to submit a DNA sample for the national DNA databank in Ottawa, placed on the national sex offender registry for 20 years and banned from possessing weapons for 10 years.
According to agreed facts, the violent sex attack happened at an apartment in northeast Edmonton on June 12, 2007, the day after Pidgeon was released from a military jail after being locked up for nearly three weeks following a conviction for violating a military disciplinary law.
Court heard Pidgeon knew the victim and showed up at her apartment about 3 a.m. and kicked in the front door.
She told him to get out and threatened to call police, but the drunken soldier grabbed her by the arms and pushed her into her bedroom and onto the bed.
He then straddled her, tore open her night shirt and began taking off his pants. She tried to get away, screaming for help, but he put a hand over her mouth and punched her in the side of the head so hard she saw stars.
After threatening to hurt her even more if she yelled again, Pidgeon began to “maul” her breasts and lick her neck and face before raping her over her protests.
Court heard the woman later tried to leave to get a glass of water, but Pidgeon pushed her down and told her he was going to “take a knife to her.”
He then asked about money and threatened to “cut her eyes and throat out.” Meanwhile, police arrived as a result of a neighbour who had called 911 after hearing the door being broken down.
Officers noted articles of military uniform spread over the bedroom floor and, after Pidgeon put on his torn shirt, military dress pants and parade boots, he was arrested.
Court heard the victim suffered injuries to her private parts, as well as abrasions to her arm, neck, shoulder and legs and a raised bruise on her head which resulted in a black eye, severe swelling, headaches and dizziness.
Sexual Violence
Understanding Sexual Violence [PDF 507 KB]
This fact sheet provides a basic overview of sexual violence. It is intended for the general public.
Sexual Violence: Facts at a Glance [PDF 102 KB]
This fact sheet provides up-to-date data and statistics on sexual violence.
Preventing Violence Against Women: Program Activities Guide
This guide describes CDC's public health activities and research to prevent violence against women.
World Report on Violence and Health* [PDF 247 KB]
This report is the first comprehensive review of violence on a global scale. Chapter 6 provides detailed information on sexual violence
http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/sexualviolence/index.html
Rape: the worst crime
This from Holly's Fight for Justice,
To read this entire article go to this link, http://www.womensweb.ca/violence/rape/index.php
By Linda Lin
Rape and survival, both are related. What happens to someone who has been raped? What happens to her life? How does she get over that single event that changes her entire life? How does she get past that roadblock that stands firm in the middle of her entire existence? How does she live, even one day at a time, after an event that is one step short of murder? Rape has been called soul murder. Those who have never been raped do not understand the full impact that rape has upon the victim.
The five things you need to know about the National Sex Offender Registry
Apr 24, 2009 by Michael Friscolanti
When Christopher Stephenson was a young boy—before he was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered by a notorious pedophile—his father would often tuck him into bed with a classic fairy tale: The Emperor’s New Clothes. A well-known children’s book, it tells the story of a pompous but gullible monarch who mistakenly hires two swindlers to revamp his kingly wardrobe. The result? The con men convince the emperor that they have discovered a gorgeous—but invisible—new material, and then promptly parade him around town in his latest “clothes.”
In Ottawa yesterday, as Christopher’s dad testified in front of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, he used that fictional fable to illustrate a very real point. “Mr. Chair, committee members,” said Jim Stephenson, sitting beside his wife, Anna. “In its present form, the [national sex offender registry] has no clothes, either. It is dysfunctional, and fails to properly protect Canadians from becoming victims.”
Sadly, Jim Stephenson is hardly the first person to criticize the fairy tale state of our sex-offender registry. The database has been described as everything from “a national embarrassment” to something straight out of a “Monty Python skit,” and a series of Maclean’s investigations uncovered a horribly broken system crippled by weak legislation, archaic technology and an utter lack of political will. But for the first time since the database was launched in 2004—and more than two years after the law mandated a Parliamentary review—MPs are finally taking a close look at the litany of problems plaguing the registry.
For two days (four hours in all) the Public Safety Committee heard from a variety of expert witnesses, from bureaucrats to police officers to privacy advocates. There was news (in five years, the registry has not solved a single crime). There was honesty (some offenders are “falling through the cracks,” said a senior RCMP officer). And, of course, there was the inevitable politicking (Conservative ministers repeatedly lamented the fact that Jean Chrétien’s Liberals didn’t foresee all these obvious problems when they first introduced the registry). However, it was Brydie Bethell, representing the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, who summed it up best. “This is not an easy issue,” she said. “This issue strikes at the core of our hearts, as human beings and as parents.”
Peter Van Loan, the Public Safety Minister, assured reporters this week that Stephen Harper’s government is already “consulting” with stakeholders and considering amendments that would toughen up the registry. (Of course, his predecessor, Stockwell Day, said the exact same thing—and nothing happened). Adding to the endless consultations, the parliamentary committee must now prepare yet another report for the government, including a series of specific recommendations. Until then, here are five essential things that they must consider:
1) HOW WE GOT HERE
Christopher Stephenson was 11 years old when Joseph Fredericks, a convicted child molester with a heinous criminal record, abducted the young boy from a Brampton, Ont., shopping mall on Father’s Day weekend, 1988. Fredericks kept Christopher alive for 36 hours and assaulted him repeatedly before slitting his throat and dumping his body. A coroner’s jury later concluded that if police had access to an electronic registry of known sex offenders living in the neighbourhood, detectives might have knocked on Fredericks’ door while the boy was still alive. As Jim Stephenson testified today: “There would have been a very definite, different outcome. You talk about time being of the essence in an investigation like that? Police were on the scene within about three minutes of Christopher’s abduction. They responded very quickly, but did not have much information to go on. They had no information on sex offenders who were living in the community.”
Ontario, under then-Premier Mike Harris, launched a provincial sex offender registry in April 2001 (eight years ago this week). It’s called Christopher’s Law, in honour of Jim and Anna’s son. Anyone in the province convicted of a sex offence is automatically added to the database, and among the “state-of-the-art” features is a geo-mapping function that can pinpoint the names and addresses of every registered rapist and pedophile who lives near a crime scene. Harris offered Ontario’s software to the Chrétien government free of charge, but for a long time, the feds weren’t interested. And when Ottawa—under increasing pressure from provincial governments—finally did decide to build a nationwide sex offender registry, they didn’t want Ontario’s help. Instead, the federal Liberals ordered the RCMP to build a completely new system from scratch. Many of the current shortcomings can be traced back to that single decision.
2) REGISTRATION IS OPTIONAL
More than 19,000 names appear on the national registry, but if the RCMP had its way, there would be thousands more. Unlike in Ontario, the legislation that created the national registry (The Sex Offender Information Registration Act, or SOIRA) does not make inclusion mandatory. A prosecutor must ask a judge to order a convicted sex offender onto the database, and according to statistics collected by the Mounties, almost half of all eligible criminals are spared the hassle of telling police where they live. “In some provinces, applications are diligently made, while in others, orders are not being sought for a variety of reasons,” testified Insp. Pierre Nezan, the RCMP officer in charge of the registry. “Someone convicted of molesting a child in one province may be ordered to the registry, while in another, they may not. Given the difficulty in determining which sex offender will re-offend and which will not, this means that some of the recidivists are falling through the cracks.”
When they first drafted the law, the feds feared a Charter challenge. Months before the national system went live, Abraham Dyck, a sex offender in Ontario, convinced a lower court judge that Christopher’s Law is unconstitutional because it paints all offenders—from flashers to rapists—with the same brush. The Ontario Court of Appeal later disagreed, but as Doug Hoover, a federal justice official, told the committee on Tuesday, the Supreme Court could still weigh in on the issue. In other words, if the federal government moves toward automatic inclusion, it may want to wait until the country’s highest court rubber-stamps the practice.
3) FLIP THROUGH THE ROLODEX
Police have a hard enough time monitoring offenders who are ordered to comply. The computer system is so primitive, and so hampered by restrictive legislation, that it can’t even keep track of the most basic fact of all: When is Joe Offender scheduled to check in?
Everyone in the system must report to police once a year, if they leave home for more than two weeks, or if they change addresses. But the RCMP has no legal authority (or a line in the electronic database) to record a person’s next reporting date. RCMP detachments across the country are literally forced to use separate hard-copy systems—a Rolodex, for example, or an Excel spreadsheet—to monitor compliance.
The Ontario system, on the other hand, is one-stop-shopping. It provides up-to-the-second statistics, and as soon as an offender is overdue, the computer issues an automatic red flag. Kate Lines, a chief superintendent with the Ontario Provincial Police, testified in front of the community on Tuesday and made a point of showing off her registry’s technical muscle. “As of 8:15 this morning,” she said, “there are 11,963 offenders registered in the Ontario registry with 278 currently non-compliant and under investigation.” Translation: the Ontario compliance rate is precisely 96.84 per cent.
Insp. Nezan of the RCMP said the national compliance rate is similar (94 per cent, he said) but conceded to the committee that it took a few days to collect those stats. The computer system is simply incapable of keeping track, and as Nezan warned, it will “be increasingly more challenging” as the registry expands.
The database lacks other crucial “administrative fields,” Nezan told the committee. The computer can’t alert police when a federal offender is released from custody and supposed to register—and even if it could, the Correctional Service of Canada refuses to share that information. For reasons that defy common sense, federal prison officials continue to insist that they do not have the legal authority to tell registry staff when a dangerous offender is back on the streets.
The cops also can’t record an offender’s vehicle information, including a licence plate number—or the fact that he may be dead. “Because of the specificity of the Act, we can’t add a little box—to be quite frank—that says ‘deceased,’ ” Nezan explained. “So if an investigator calls us and is looking for a potential list of suspects or persons of interest, we may inadvertently provide him a list of people and one of them may be deceased. They are essentially chasing a ghost. They are chasing their tails.”
4) NO PROACTIVE USE
This can’t be stated enough: the purpose of the registry is to help detectives locate potential suspects living near a crime scene. Unlike in the United States—where sex offender registries are available online, and are meant to allow the public to find dangerous people living in their neighbourhooods—the Canadian version is for police use only. The content is off-limits to only a select few officers, and not a single witness who testified this week lobbied for a U.S.-style system that welcomes harassment and, in some cases, vigilantism. Three years ago this week, a New Brunswick man famously drove across the border to Maine and murdered two men whose names and addresses were posted on the state’s Internet sex offender registry.
What police forces do want, however, is the power to use the national registry in a proactive fashion. As the law stands now, the database can only be accessed to help solve a crime, not prevent one. During his testimony, Nezan offered a troubling example of the registry’s limited capabilities. “There was a man in an elementary schoolyard taking pictures of children,” he said, not disclosing the location. “The staff who worked there didn’t recognize him as a parent, staff, reporter, or otherwise so they were alarmed by his presence. When they tried to approach him and confront him, he fled. They called the police, the police called the National Sex Offender Registry, but we couldn’t access the database because there had not been a sexual crime that had occurred. Those are the types of proactive uses that we would like to see expanded upon.”
5) IS THE REGISTRY REALLY WORTH THE EFFORT?
This is the critical question, the one that hovers over every debate about the national sex offender registry. After weighing all the pros and cons about proactive use or the Charter rights of child pornographers, the government must decide: Is the database actually effective? Even if it were a well-oiled machine, is it doing society any good?
The goal, remember, is to pinpoint possible suspects, not keep 24-hour track of every known sex offender. But as Insp. Nezan admitted during his testimony, the national registry has not solved a single crime since it was launched four-and-a-half years ago. “We think the results will come,” he said, optimistically. “But we need some important modifications, and it just takes more time.”
Here is Nezan’s logic: as more and more names are added to the list (a process that would be bolstered by automatic inclusion) the odds of catching a repeat offender would naturally increase. Yet even in Ontario, where the provincial registry is eight years old and includes every convicted offender, the database has solved only one crime. One. “This is a significant intrusion of an individual’s privacy—an intrusion that can only be justified on the grounds that it produces a clear and demonstrable public safety benefit that cannot be achieved through less intrusive means,” said Carman Baggaley, a strategic policy advisor in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. “Assessing the effectiveness of the scheme is very important. If it’s not effective, then the privacy intrusion is for naught. Sacrificing someone’s privacy in the hope that this may protect society is a dangerous precedent.”
Baggaley urged the committee not to recommend any changes to the system until a formal, third-party evaluation is conducted “into the effectiveness of the legislation.” He pointed out, quite accurately, that a 2007 report by the Ontario Auditor-General concluded that “even though sex offender registries have existed for many years and can consume significant public resources, we found surprisingly little evidence that demonstrates their effectiveness in actually reducing sexual crimes or helping investigators solve them, and few attempts to demonstrate such effectiveness.” A recent evaluation of the New York state registry reached a similar conclusion.
Brydie Bethell, representing defence lawyers, testified that there are already legal measures in place to rein in the types of repeat, loathsome offenders who pose the highest threat. Police chiefs have the power to warn the public if an especially prolific sex offender is back on the streets. Canada also has dangerous offender legislation, which allows for indefinite jail terms (think Paul Bernardo) and if that doesn’t apply, prosecutors can apply for Section 810 peace bonds, which impose strict bail conditions on newly released prisoners. Lumping every convicted offender into the same registry—from, in Bethell’s words, “drunken office party kissers” to convicted pedophiles—is not only a potential waste of resources, but an unfair infringement on those who pose a very low risk of re-offending. “We are here to strike the appropriate balance, to step back and look dispassionately at what we have, what’s missing, what’s needed, and why we are doing this,” she said. “It is an issue that requires us to balance individual and collective rights.”
Registry critics also like to point out that the stereotypical sex offence—ie. the lurking stranger who tortured and murdered Christopher Stephenson—is an infinitely rare occurrence. The vast majority of victims are abused by people they know and trust (an uncle, for example, or a babysitter) and not by a man in a trench coat lurking in the bushes. In fact, most people on the national database (82 per cent, according to Nezan) are first-time offenders. There is nothing a registry could have done to spare their victims or solve the crime. The Ontario registry, for instance, didn’t help Holly Jones, the 10-year-old Toronto girl who was kidnapped and murdered near her home in May 2003. Her killer, Michael Briere, had an impeccable criminal record and wasn’t listed on the registry.
There is, however, another side to the tragic Holly Jones case. No, the registry didn’t catch her killer, but it eliminated dozens of possible suspects in those crucial few hours after she went missing. Armed with a list of convicted offenders living in the neighbourhood, police were able to knock on doors, cross off names, and redirect limited resources to other potential leads. And what if one of those offenders was the perpetrator? What if Holly Jones had been saved by a sex offender registry? Would anyone be bickering about privacy intrusions or statistical analyses? “If we spend one minute of our time on this, one dollar of our money, and it saves one child or one youth, one woman or one man from becoming a victim, it’s worth our time and our money,” said Robert Oliphant, a Liberal MP on the Public Safety Committee.
The stats, by the way, work both ways. Although researchers have never proven that registries reduce crime, a 2006 study conducted by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy did find that sex offenders convicted for failing to register have 50 per cent higher recidivism rates. In other words, there registration has its benefits: those who are ordered onto the database, and check in as required, are less likely to re-offend.
“It is true that offenders who are truly motivated to perpetrate crimes of violence will usually do so,” Nezan says. “It would be disingenuous on my part to suggest that the national sex offender registry would always or even consistently prevent sexual crimes. But there have been cases with other registries where this very thing has happened. While we do not view the sex offender registry as the panacea for solving sexual crime, it nevertheless has a role to play and can support our efforts in identifying and prosecuting sexual crime offenders. More importantly, crime prevention should always be one of law enforcement’s primary goals.”
Jim Stephenson, who since his son’s death has found the courage to meet and counsel many jailed sex offenders, puts it this way: “They appreciate the fact that the sex offender registry reminds the sex offenders that somebody is watching. If that isn’t preventative enough, I don’t know what else can be suggested.” Other than quoting another fairy tale.
Tags: Christopher’s Law, Friscolanti, National Sex Offender Registry, Pierre Nezan, Stephen Harper
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/04/24/the-five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-national-sex-offender-registry/ printed on May 5, 2009
Sexual Assault Awareness Month: 'dude code of silence' must be broken
This from Holly DeSimone,
I personally had the privilege of meeting Sexual Assault Centre London executive director Louise Pitre.....She is amazing!
Thank you Louise and your staff for bringing forth awareness during the month of May!
Story by Ross McDermott, LondonTopic.ca 05/01/2009
The "dude code of silence" must be broken. That was the clear message from Louise Pitre, executive director of the Sexual Assault Centre London, and every other speaker that took to the podium during the official launch of Sexual Assault Awareness Month at London's Covent Garden Market, Friday (May 1).
And while the day marked the start of a month-long campaign to raise awareness of sexual assault and domestic violence against women, the focus during the launch involved putting the onus on men, the predominant perpetrators of such crimes, to take responsibility and "Stand Up, Speak Louder, Believe Deeper."
Pitre said sexual violence "lives and breathes" in every corner of the community.
"We can pretend that it doesn't.
We can pretend that only strangers rape women...
We can pretend that men do not have the responsibility to break the dude code of silence...
We can pretend.
I ask you this:
Who are we serving when we pretend?
Who are we serving when we make sexual violence invisible?"
Missing Children Spark Outcry, Thousands of children go missing in China every year, and parents say officials have so far done little...
HONG KONG—The disappearance of hundreds of children in southern China has prompted an outcry among parents, who say the government has done little to locate their children or determine what may have happened to them.
Authorities have dismissed as rumor concerns that hundreds of missing children may have been subjected to organ harvesting.
Announcing the return of three out of four missing children in Heyuan city, in Guangdong province, in recent days, Huang Jinlai, director of the Yuancheng district Public Security Bureau, told reporters of the organ-harvesting allegations: “This is nothing but rumor.”
Huang Jinlai’s comments come amid growing concerns from the parents of the missing that their children may be being harmed or exploited by those who steal them.
A mother surnamed Huang in Guangdong’s Dongguan city said she was worried the children may have been crippled and used in begging gangs, or had their organs harvested and sold.
One child got lost, that’s all. You should read the newspapers."
Heyuan police official
“The police are just like bandits,” Huang said. “They have no idea how we feel about this. I was crying at home last night. Why are they like this?”
“All these years, I haven't even known whether my child is alive or dead. I’m worried that some of the children have been crippled and left by the side of the road to beg for money.”
“Other people say that they take their hearts for transplant. It makes me scared just to think about it. I can’t sleep, day or night. I just keep thinking about it,” Huang said.
Inaction alleged
Another mother, surnamed Zeng, whose seven-year-old daughter went missing in 2006, said the government didn’t appear to take the problem seriously enough.
"Because you [the government] ignored our cases and didn't try very hard to solve them, there is little we can do [besides protest]. So many children disappear every year, and it's because you, the local government, don't take it seriously," she said.
"If you did your job of enforcing the law properly, we wouldn’t be losing our children."
An employee who answered the phone at the Dongguan municipal police department, and officials in the municipal government, declined to comment on the cases.
Repeated calls to the municipal Party secretary’s propaganda office went unanswered during office hours two weeks ago.
Hundreds missing
Huang Jinlai said three children from Heyuan, surnamed Huang, Wen, and Tang were now back with their families, while an 11-year-old surnamed Miao, missing since April 5, had yet to be found.
The three boys were taken and sold to childless friends of the kidnappers. Four-year-old Tang Duowen was sold for 27,000 yuan (U.S. $3,970). He was let go after he refused to stop crying, officials said. Wen was sold for 40,000 yuan (U.S. $5,882).
Huang’s public statement contrasts with comments last week from Heyuan officials, who have so far denied that the children were the victims of kidnappers. Parents say kidnappers have taken hundreds of children in Guangdong since 2007.
An employee who answered the phone at the Heyuan municipal police department last week said Tang was not a “stolen child.”
“Who says we have kids ‘disappearing’? Why are there reports in Guangdong newspapers saying that our kids are disappearing?” the employee said.
“One child got lost, that’s all. You should read the newspapers. We have already issued a statement that was printed in the Heyuan News,” he said.
‘Wanted’ list
Miao said he received a call last week from Tang Duowen’s father telling him that his son was back at home, accompanied there in person by the Heyuan Party secretary, the secretary of the law enforcement committee, and Heyuan police chief Peng Dingbang.
Their presence indicates a growing concern about missing women and children, amid sharp criticism from the relatives of the missing that the authorities aren’t doing enough.
Police have drawn up a “wanted” list of the top 50 people they suspect of kidnapping women and children in a series of cases in recent years, a nongovernment group helping parents find their missing youngsters, said.
A recent communiqué issued by the Ministry of Public Security called on police in Shanxi, Fujian, Shandong, Henan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan to keep up their efforts to crack a series of cases of missing women and children.
It named as suspects 10 people, including Li Mingsheng, Lin Wenzhou, Wang Ying, and Wei Jiapei, all of whom are currently on the run.
Zhang Baoyan, spokeswoman for the “Baby Come Home” Web site that was set up to help the relatives of missing children, said she had been told about the wanted list by executives in the kidnapping office of China’s public security.
“There are a total of 50 people on the wanted list nationwide,” Zhang said. “The police have already asked for these 50 names to be published in the newspapers.”
“After that, they will focus on the most serious cases and really start to crack down in some key areas,” Zhang said. “But there are a lot of these cases. There are another 40 names still to be published.”
DNA database
A parent of a missing child in Dongguan surnamed Song said some of the parents didn’t believe that publishing such lists would work, and had yet to see proof that police had cracked a single case.
“They say they want to catch these human traffickers and child kidnappers, but we don’t believe them because we have yet to see this happen with our own eyes. I think these are empty words, and that no children have yet been brought home.”
Almost 1,000 children have gone missing in and around Dongguan since 2007, according to parent campaigners. None has yet returned home in that city, they say.
Around 100 parents staged a protest on the city’s streets on April 15. Some carried banners offering rewards of hundreds of thousands of yuan for the safe return of their children.
And in April, a private investigation company established to help relatives recover missing loved ones rescued a four-year-old boy from the eastern part of the province, around Chaozhou and Shantou.
China’s Public Security Bureau has pledged to set up a nationwide DNA database connecting all 236 labs in the country by the end of May 2009.
Original reporting in Cantonese by Hai Lan, Lee Ruo-ching and Cheung Lik. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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