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Category: rape culture

  • Marape’s message to PNG men, boys: ‘Stop the violence against women’

    PNG Post-Courier

    Prime Minister James Marape has issued a strong appeal to all young men and boys in Papua New Guinea — stop abusing girls, mothers, and sisters.

    He made the plea yesterday before flying to Australia, emphasising the importance of respecting women and children in society.

    Marape urged young men to take their issues to him instead of resorting to violence against women and children.

    Marape also called for the nation to rise in consciousness to preserve the values and achievements of their fathers and mothers who fought for independence 50 years ago.

    “We want to give a special recognition to the fathers and mothers of our country, a generation and people of our country to be proud to be here today,” he said.

    He expressed his pain at seeing the continued cycle of abuse and disrespect towards women and children in the country.

    Marape’s message was clear: violence and abuse towards women and children would not be tolerated, and the nation must come together to ensure the safety and well-being of all its citizens.

    ‘Don’t do it to our sisters’
    “These are not two things that we want to take on. For every young boy out there, if you have an issue in society, I don’t mind you taking it upon me. But please don’t do it to the girls in the neighbourhood,” he said.

    “Don’t do it to our sisters in the neighbourhood. Don’t do it to our mothers and aunties in the neighbourhood.

    “In a time when our nation is facing a 50th anniversary, I call for our nation to rise in a consciousness to preserve what our fathers and mothers did 50 years ago.

    “Lawlessness, disrespect for each other, especially women and children amongst us. This is something that I speak at great lengths and speak from the depth of my heart.

    “It pains me to see girls, women, and children continue to face a vicious cycle of abuse and total abhorrence, abuse of children, rape,” he said.

    “I just thought these are important activities coming up. I want to conclude by asking our country through the media.

    “We are in another state of our 50th anniversary year.

    ‘Let us take responsibility’
    “We have many challenges in our country. But all of us, we take responsibility of our country. As government, we are trying our absolute best.

    “Citizens, public servants, private sector, all of us have responsibility to our country. Unless you have another country to go and live in, if property is your country in the first instance, I call out to all citizens, take responsibility in your corner of property.

    “Privacy alone cannot be able to do everything that you expect it to do.

    “I’m not omnipotent. I’m not omniscient. I’m not omnipresent.

    “I’m but only one person coordinating at the top level. Call for every citizen of our country.

    “As we face our 49th year and as we welcome our 50th of September 16,) we call this on every one of us.”

    Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Tough new PNG police powers won’t work, says Transparency chief

    By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    Papua New Guinea’s amended Criminal Code Act will give police the power to deal with what they are calling “domestic terrorists”.

    The impetus for the new legislation has been the rash of kidnappings carried out in a remote part of the Southern Highlands.

    In Bosavi, gangs of youths have captured at least three groups, held them for ransom, and in the case of 17 teenage girls allegedly raped them.

    Police Commissioner David Manning said the kidnappings and ransom demands constituted domestic terrorism.

    “The amendments establish clear legal process for the escalated use of up to (sic) lethal force, powers of search and seizure, and detention, for acts of domestic terrorism,” he said.

    “It is high time that we call these criminals domestic terrorists, because that is what they are, and we need harsher measures to bring them to justice one way or another.”

    Police Commissioner, David Manning.
    PNG Police Commissioner David Manning . . . “It is high time that we call these criminals domestic terrorists.” Image: PNG police/RNZ Pacific

    Manning, in a statement, went on to say domestic terrorism included the “deliberate use of violence against people and communities to murder, injure and intimidate, including kidnapping and ransoms, and the destruction of properties.

    Includes hate crimes
    “An accurate definition of domestic terrorism also includes hate crimes, including tribal fights and sorcery-related violence.”

    Transparency International Papua New Guinea chair Peter Aitsi said he doubted the new law would be effective.

    He said police already had lethal powers.

    “I think in terms of changing the act to give them more power, I think they already have it,” he said.

    “But I doubt whether it will have any significant improvement in terms of the response to this emerging problem we are having now, of hostage taking and ransom seeking.”

    Aiitsi said that in the Highlands there was a proliferation of guns, and government authority had been overwhelmed by one or two individuals with the money and guns to maintain power.

    “So in this type of environment you can see the police and authorities, so-called authorities, would be powerless, because it’s these individuals that control these large sections of these communities, that are now well armed, that are the power in these areas.”

    PNG Highlands Highway
    PNG authorities “would be powerless, because it’s [some] individuals that control these large sections of these communities, that are now well armed”. Image: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ Pacific

    Call For a different approach

    Cathy Alex was one of a group kidnapped in February, along with a New Zealand-born Australian archaeologist and two others.

    She said she had got some insight into the age and temperament of the kidnappers.

    “Young boys, 16 and up, a few others,” she said.

    “No Tok Pisin, no English. It’s a generation that’s been out there that has had no opportunities.

    “What is happening in Bosavi is a glimpse, a dark glimpse, of where our country is heading to.”

    She said there was a need for a focus on providing services to the rural areas as soon as possible.

    Transparency International PNG's Peter Aitsi
    Transparency International PNG’s Peter Aitsi . . . PNG has allowed its government system to be undermined by political elites with “our people really being pushed to the real margins of our development”. Image: Transparency International PNG/RNZ Pacific

    Peter Aitsi said that over the past 20 years PNG had allowed its government system to be undermined with political elites taking control of sub-national services.

    He said this had led to “our people really being pushed to the real margins of our development”.

    Not engaged in society
    “So as a result they are not engaged in the process of society building or even nationhood.”

    Aitsi said this results in the lawless conduct.

    “Their interest is to serve those who can put food on the table for them, and essentially what they see as people who care about their welfare, but they are just using them for their individual outcomes.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Labour calls for minister to resign if he fails to tackle rape figures within a year

    Robert Buckland must resign as justice secretary if he can’t reverse the plunging prosecution and conviction levels for rape within a year, Labour has demanded.

    “Crocodile tears”

    Shadow justice secretary David Lammy accused Buckland of shedding “crocodile tears” this week. It came after Buckland apologised for the downward trends in bringing sexual offenders to justice. Ministers set out plans for a “system and culture change” after convictions for rape and lesser offences in England and Wales hit a record low.

    General Election 2019
    David Lammy (Joe Giddens/PA)

    Buckland said sorry over the dire situation. And he accepted that government cuts to the legal system played a part in plunging conviction rates following the publication of an official review. But Lammy said:

    The Justice Secretary’s crocodile tears will mean nothing if the Government fails to reverse its disastrous failure of rape victims. The Conservatives’ decade of cuts to the justice system has let rapists and other violent criminals off the hook while denying victims justice.

    Rape convictions and prosecutions have more than halved in three years. If he cannot reverse these figures within a year of his apology, the Justice Secretary should do the honourable thing and resign.

    All time low

    The latest CPS figures for 2019-20 show 1,439 suspects were convicted of rape or lesser offences in England and Wales in 2020. That’s the lowest level since records began. That figure was down from 1,925 the previous year, despite reports of adult rape to police almost doubling since 2015-16.

    There are an estimated 128,000 victims of rape and attempted rape a year. But only 1.6% of reported cases results in a charge. A Tory spokesperson accused Lammy of “continuing to play politics with such a serious issue”. They added:

    But more worryingly, It shows naivety and a poor understanding of the criminal justice system to think that five years of decline can be reversed at the drop of a hat.

    We’re focused on delivering justice for victims, not headlines for newspapers.

    Shame

    Earlier this week, Buckland said he was “deeply ashamed” by the downward trends and cited a raft of measures aimed at increasing the number of allegations to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). They’re also intended to increase the number of suspects charged and ensure the amount of cases reaching court return to 2016 levels by the end of this parliament.

    Measures include a pilot scheme aimed at reducing cross-examination of victims in court by conducting pre-recorded interviews and a nationwide recognition that only evidence about the complainant that is pertinent to the case should be used.

    A new approach to investigations, which ensures that there’s an “early and robust assessment of suspect behaviour and offending patterns”, is also planned.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Dozens of women sue Pornhub alleging it profits from non-consensual content

    Dozens of women have sued the company that owns PornHub. They’re alleging that the adult video website profits from non-consensual content.

    34 women filed a lawsuit in California which describes the site as a “classic criminal enterprise” run in the same way as the fictional Sopranos mafia.

    The lawsuit

    It’s alleged that MindGeek, the owner of PornHub, has created a “bustling marketplace” for “child pornography, rape videos, trafficked videos and every other form of non-consensual content”.

    The lawsuit states:

    This is a case about rape, not pornography…

    It is a case about the rape and sexual exploitation of children. It is a case about the rape and sexual exploitation of men and women.

    And it is a case about each of these defendants knowingly and intentionally electing to capitalise and profit from the horrendous exploitation and abuse of tens of thousands of other human beings so they could make more than the enormous sums of money they would have otherwise made anyway.

    The lawsuit only names one of the plaintiffs. Meanwhile four are listed as being UK citizens when they were filmed. And 14 said they were underage at the time and therefore ‘victims of child sex trafficking’.

    Survivors

    Crystal Palace footballer Leigh Nicol shared a statement on Twitter saying she was a victim after her private videos appeared on the site:

    Nicol said:

    When the videos appeared on PornHub it ruined my life, it killed my personality, it zapped the happiness out of me. It brought me almost two years of shame, depression, anxiety, horrifying thoughts, public embarrassment and scars.

    I still bear those scars. It’ll be an ongoing battle for the foreseeable future for myself and other survivors.

    Serena Fleites is the only plaintiff the lawsuit names. She was allegedly 13 when her boyfriend coerced her into making a sexually explicit video. It was uploaded to Pornhub without her knowledge or consent, the lawsuit states, and was viewed millions of times.

    Fleites became depressed and attempted suicide as a result of the video, the lawsuit claims.

    According to the lawsuit, the women have suffered “substantial damages,” including “physical, psychological, financial and reputational harm”. Moreover, it states that MindGeek’s websites are some of the most popular on the internet. And the online porn industry as a whole may generate as much as 97bn USD a year (£70bn).

    Lawyers for the women are demanding substantial damages.

    Pornhub’s response

    In a statement, Pornhub said it has “zero tolerance” for illegal content and investigates all complaints.

    It described the allegations of running a criminal enterprise similar to that of the Sopranos as “utterly absurd, completely reckless and categorically false”.

    And Pornhub said its website has:

    the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history, which include the banning of uploads from unverified users, expanding our moderation processes and cooperating with dozens of non-profit organisations around the world

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Protecting Kids from Abuse

    For years, the Pentagon mishandled sexual assault cases involving kids living on military bases, until an Associated Press investigation jolted lawmakers into action.

    Reporter Holly McDede brings us to Berkeley High School in California, where students were fed up with what they saw as a culture of sexual harassment and assault among their peers. 

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    This post was originally published on Reveal.