A repeat sex offender from New Zealand who abused the young daughters of a woman he met through an internet dating site has been deported from the Philippines.
David Stanley Tranter, 59, who has a string of sex convictions, has been wanted since 2007, when he was freed from prison and placed on extended supervision orders for up to 10 years.
He was arrested in Santos City on June 5 last year after being found by the Social Welfare and Development Department. Tranter was then held at a detention centre.
He was unable to produce his passport which resulted in him being charged with immigration law violations.
In expelling Tranter, the Philippines' Immigration Bureau said his presence in the country posed a threat to national security and public safety, The Manila Bulletin newspaper reported.
Tranter, who was deported to Auckland last week, was wanted for aggravated robbery, dishonesty and sexual assault of minors, the newspaper said.
"This, to our mind, is very alarming as these cases involved moral turpitude," an official said.
Tranter was jailed for three years for the indecent assaults in 2000 of two girls, aged 11 and 13, after beginning a relationship with their mother through an internet dating agency.
At sentencing, the court was told he had a previous child-sex conviction in 1968.
Just six weeks after being freed from that jail term, in March 2003, he attacked a 16-year-old girl on a Christchurch street in what the court called a violent sexual assault.
In 2004 he appealed against his three-year sentence, but the Court of Appeal instead increased his sentence to four years.
In 2006 the Parole Board was told he was a high risk for reoffending and he served his full term. He was freed in March 2007. Five months after his release he fled the country.
Police issued a warrant for his arrest in August 2007 for breaching his parole and supervision order.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Let's learn from this teacher's sex ordeal
Problem child doesn’t even begin to describe the kid at the heart of the latest school sex-abuse case.
This 16-year-old boy was being treated for a series of personality problems, had turned to drink and drugs and was addicted to internet pornography.
He was regularly seen by psychiatrists and had a track record of making false sex claims against women, including his teachers.
So when this deeply disturbed kid accused his teacher of having sex with him you’d think police would write it off as just another one of his perversions.
Sure, they have a duty to investigate his claims, some of which included ill-judged affectionate letters written by the teacher.
But to take it all the way to court? That’s madness.
Instead of quietly dealing with this serial liar with a known sex obsession, they arrested his teacher.
It was his word against the word of Teresa McKenzie, a 39-year-old mother of two described by colleagues as “an amazing teacher”.
This was the moment all common sense went out the window.
I imagine social services and the police were so busy chasing random PC targets they forgot all about reason.
It was so obvious Mrs McKenzie was innocent it took a jury just 50 minutes to clear her of all charges.
Any case of child abuse must be taken seriously.
But this case is indicative of the PC madness gripping our welfare departments.
They bend over backwards to protect the “human rights” of a strapping 16-year-old serial fantasist.
But what about the rights of Mrs McKenzie?
This case has destroyed her life. She was sacked from the job she loved as a deputy headmistress and despite her exoneration, her CV is now toxic.
Then there’s the effect on her family.
Her marriage was tested to the limit and her young children were kept under the scrutiny of social services.
Try explaining that to your kids, your kids’ friends and all those parents whispering at the school gates.
Teaching is a tough profession.
Teaching “special needs” kids who have been thrown out of mainstream school is the toughest job of all.
When Teresa McKenzie was assigned to this troubled boy, she was warned of his behaviour by another female teacher.
She took him on regardless because that’s what truly dedicated teachers do.
But you wonder, after this appalling case, how many teachers will risk their reputations and livelihoods to help disturbed kids.
Teachers like Mrs McKenzie need all the support they can get from social services and welfare departments. They need co-operation not paranoia.
This case, which cost the taxpayer about £50,000, should never have come to court. It finally took 12 common men to figure out what a team of “professionals” couldn’t see – blinding common sense.
Oral sex: Anwar's lawyer raps AG for not charging Soi Lek
KUALA LUMPUR: Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail has been accused of double standards over his decision not to charge newly-minted MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek for 'sexual deviancy'.
According to Sankara Nair, Chua's alleged offence fell under Section 337B of the Penal Code, the same law under which Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has been charged for allegedly sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.
“Despite several police reports made on it (Chua's case), the AG refused to charge him when incontrovertible evidence is staring at us all.
“This is discrimination of the highest order and a clear testament of the AG's bias,” said the lawyer, who represents Anwar.
In a statement issued shortly after Chua clinched the MCA presidency this evening, Sankara described the AG's action as “prosecutorial dishonesty and unevenhandedness”.
Oral sex no different from anal sex
“There is explicit evidence by way of a video, of a former minister of health of the present ruling party, who has just won the presidency of his party.
“The VCD has been in the public domain for about two years. The video shows him engaging in oral sex with a woman. He is married and has grown children,” he said.
Sankara also noted that Chua had publicly admitted that he was the actor in the video and subsequently resigned as minister.
The lawyer stressed that oral sex with or without consent is no different from anal sex.
In view of this, Sankara urged the AG to drop the charge against Anwar.
Victims of sex abuse to sue Vatican
The Pope has been accused of protecting Father Lawrence Murphy Tony Allen-Mills in New York and John Follain in Rome
NEW revelations about Pope Benedict XVI’s alleged role in covering up accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have exposed the Vatican to the risk of lawsuits brought by victims around the world.
Mounting anger at the Catholic Church’s failure to act on predatory priests in the US, Europe and Mexico has plunged the papacy into an institutional crisis described by an American Catholic newspaper last week as “the largest in centuries”.
Yesterday the Vatican denounced the “aggressive persistence” of critics who were attempting to “involve the Holy Father personally in the matter of abuse”. A spokesman told Vatican Radio that the Pope’s record was “above discussion”.
Yet the talk in Catholic circles was of little else as the Pope’s former life as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich and senior Vatican administrator, came under intensifying scrutiny.
Last week it was alleged that, as head of the Vatican office monitoring priestly misconduct, Ratzinger failed to punish Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused up to 200 boys at a Wisconsin school for the deaf.
Instead of being defrocked or reported to police, Murphy remained a priest until his death in 1998.
“We are talking about a man who, before he became Pope, knew what Murphy was doing and did nothing about it,” said Donald Marshall, a mechanic who claims Murphy assaulted him in 1977 when he was 13. “The Pope is a fraud and a hypocrite.”
The reports coincided with a burgeoning German row over Father Peter Hullermann, a Bavarian priest who received therapy for paedophilia in Ratzinger’s diocese and was transferred to a new parish, where he continued molesting boys.
The Vatican insisted on Friday that Ratzinger “had no knowledge” of the decision to reassign Hullermann, despite reports that the archbishop, as he was then, was sent a memo with details of the case. Hullermann was eventually convicted of sex abuse in 1986.
Adding to the Vatican’s embarrassment was the acknowledgement on Friday by a prominent Catholic order that its Mexican founder, the late Marcial Maciel Degollado, known as Father Maciel, had not only molested trainee priests but had also fathered several children.
In fact, it was largely on Ratzinger’s initiative that the Vatican reopened a moribund investigation into Maciel’s activities as leader of the Legion of Christ.
Maciel was a close friend of Ratzinger’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who is considered a candidate for sainthood but whose reputation may also be stained by the spreading sex scandal.
All the latest cases involve complaints that the Vatican has failed to come clean about how it handled allegations of criminal conduct. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the German justice minister, has spoken of a Vatican “wall of silence” around the issue.
The Pope’s alleged role in the Wisconsin case emerged only when litigants who claim to be victims of abuse obtained internal church documents as part of their lawsuit. US lawyers in other cases are now determined to sue the Vatican for access to material that may shed light on relations between Rome and American bishops and the extent to which there may have been a policy to hush up abuse by priests.
“I want to know what the Vatican knew and when they knew it,” said William McMurry, who represents victims in a Kentucky case that may end up with a case from Oregon in the US Supreme Court.
McMurry told The Washington Post: “We’re trying to get what’s never been uncovered before — documents only the Vatican has. I want to know ... what they instructed US bishops to do. That’s the linchpin of liability.”
As a sovereign state, the Vatican has immunity from US lawsuits. Yet federal appeals courts in Oregon and Kentucky have allowed abuse cases to proceed. Judges in the Kentucky case ruled that an exception to diplomatic immunity might be granted if the Vatican was deemed to have employees in the United States who had caused harm.
“The Vatican operates with such insularity and arrogance,” complained Jeff Anderson, a lawyer who has worked on the Oregon case. “They remain legally impenetrable. But this is the first foot in the door.”
The US Catholic Church has already paid out more than $1.1 billion to victims since 2004. Yet many insist that financial compensation is not enough and that the church should be forced to explain why so few priests were punished for decades of abuse.
“Benedict should make public all the files of every case they’ve had,” said Peter Isely, the Milwaukee-based director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “We’re talking about a conspiracy at the highest level to cover up child sex crimes.”
Donald Marshall recalled the moment that Murphy came into his room, sat next to him and started reading the Bible. “Then he put his hand on my knee, then he started kissing me ... and started to fondle me. I was completely shocked, to say the least. I was just a 13-year-old kid.”
WHAT A FIND
Meet the powerful cast of Love, Sex Aur Dhokha, a film on its way to becoming a cult classicWith Love Sex Aur Dhokha, a film, Dibakar Banerjee has proved that nobody understands the dysfunctional and voyeuristic tendencies of the New Young India better than him. But would he have been able to make the cut without an ensemble cast of unknown actors, some of them so good that they make the superstars look bad? We think not.
Remember their names: Anshuman Jha (student director Rahul), Shruti (Rahul’s girlfriend Shruti), Raj Kumar (store supervisor Adarsh), Neha Chauhan (department store girl Rashmi), Arya Banerjee (dancer Naina), Herry Tangri (pop singer Loki Local) and Amit Sial (sting journalist Prabhat). Together, they form the raw and unbelievably un-filmi cast.
We catch up with the LSD bunch at a coffee shop in suburban Andheri. The gang has just returned from a screening in Pune where they witnessed the reaction of the audience first hand. The mood is euphoric. They vow to demand a “sexcess” party from their director. Having spent a year together workshopping and shooting, their camaraderie is obvious. They finish each other’s sentences, laugh at private jokes and give away risqué anecdotes.
Cancer Linked To Oral Sex Virus
Head and neck cancer linked to a virus spread through oral sex is quickly rising and suggestions are being made that both boys and girls should be offered vaccinations for protection, doctors said Friday.
In recent years, head and neck cancers have been in slight decline, but cases of a particular form known as oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) have been steadily increasing, especially in the developed world.
In a report appearing in the British Medical Journal, doctors said the growth seems to be linked to cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). Two vaccines -- Cervarix, and Gardasil -- can prevent HPV, which is the cause of most every case of cervical cancer, the second most common cancer in women around the world.
Many developed countries have launched programs to immunize girls from HPV to try and protect them from the sexually transmitted virus before they become sexually active. While boys have been left out of the immunization program because it has been seen as too expensive, scientists say it may be time to rethink that idea.
“We need to look at the evidence again to re-evaluate the cost-effectiveness of male children in light of this new and rapidly rising incidence,” said Hisham Mehanna of the Institute of Head and Neck Studies at University Hospital Coventry.
More than half a million cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed annually in women and as many as 200,000 a year die from the illness. Head and neck cancer is the sixth most common cancer among both men and women, with about 640,000 new cases annually worldwide.
A recent study showed that the risk of developing head and neck cancer was linked to a history of six or more lifetime sexual partners, four or more oral sex partners, and, in men, an earlier age at first sexual intercourse. HPV-related cancer has been reported in 60-80 percent of recent biopsy samples in studies in the United States, compared to 40 percent ten years earlier, researchers wrote.
The findings have other important health implications, according to Mehenna. Patients with HPV-related head and neck cancer were typically younger and employed, he said. Patients with HPV-related cancer also had a better chance of living longer as the cancer appeared to be less deadly than those caused by smoking and drinking.
Online dating is bigger than porn – People want Contact more than Content
Facebook has over 400 million members and growing. Why?
Now it is clear that people are finding that online is THE PLACE to find a mate. Average time on site 22 minutes! Average age is 48. Customer spend on average $239 a year. The industry is worth over a $1.0 billion a year. Why?
What this says to me is that:
- People are alone and cut off – they want to find safe ways of connecting
- What we want is social contact more than content
- If you have content, then you have to wrap contact around it - a Jane Austen Book Club will do it – As Hugh says make it into a Social Object
- Your content becomes a Trust builder- Is this why so many personal ads say “I am an NPR listener”? It could just as well say “I am a Tea Bagger” – still tells others who you are
Contact – real human contact is what people want. The proof is in the sex statistic – 1/3 of women have sex on the first date – why? I think because the online dating algorithms work – both feel that they are indexed a match and the barriers go down
And your online social strategy is based on what ideas?
Zimbabwe newspaper says sorry to Queen
The offending cartoon of the Queen pregnant after Jacob Zuma's state visit tot he UK.
By Fortune Tazvida
Zimbabwe’s weekly Standard newspaper has been forced to apologise to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II after publishing a computer doctored picture of her pregnant following a visit to the UK by South African President Jacob Zuma. Zuma travelled to the UK earlier this month with papers there tearing into him as ‘a sex obsessed buffoon.’
Various other cartoonists there played on the theme of him trying to seduce the Queen.
However it was a cartoon taken from an unknown internet site showing the Queen pregnant that has however gone the extra mile.
The Zimbabwe Standard newspaper published the photo alongside an article about Zuma trying to break the deadlock in Zimbabwe.
Attached to the picture was the caption “Zuma UK trip successful.” It effectively implied Zuma had got the Queen pregnant during the state visit.
The paper said while some readers found the photo amusing, it also caused offense and was seen as tasteless.
Chloe – Review
Interesting character drama with a remarkably awful finaleIt’s always interesting to see the kinds of choices a young actress will make after she hits stardom. After Megan Fox hit stardom via Transformers, she opted to keep picking roles based on her looks and sex appeal as opposed to any requiring any sort of demands on her as an actress. Amanda Seyfried, who starred with her in the flop Jennifer’s Body, has taken an alternate route as an actress since hitting fame on the big screen with Mean Girls after years on television. Taking a number of independent roles, as well as stealing Mamma Mia! from Oscar winner Meryl Streep by being the only one on screen with a natural singing voice, Seyfried seems poised to be amongst the finer actresses of her generation when all is said and done. And when all is said and done, Chloe is the film people will point to as proof that her acting chops have significant potential.
Seyfried stars as the titular character, a prostitute who finds herself in the middle of a marriage on the brink. Catherine (Julianne Moore) is a doctor concerned with her husband’s fidelity. David (Liam Neeson) is very flirtatious amongst women who aren’t his wife, missing his flight home from a conference and the corresponding material making it look bad in this regard. When a chance encounter between Chloe and Catherine leads to the latter using the former to “test” David’s fidelity, the results are not what Catherine is expecting. Caught up in an escalating affair between Chloe and David, Catherine finds her values and her marriage tested as it leads to an unimaginable finale.
And unimaginable is perhaps the wrong word for it; for the first two acts, the film is a top notch erotic thriller. As Catherine and Chloe bond, so to speak, over Chloe’s affair with David there’s a palpable chemistry between the two. As Atom Egoyan explores this dynamic between the two, a first rate erotic thriller is into play until the film takes a decidedly wild turn into Fatal Attraction territory, marking the finale completely out of place with the film’s previous ramblings.
But the first two acts are absolutely special. Taking out the philosophical ramblings of Nathalie…, which the film was remade from, and adding in a bit more sex while replacing the more cerebral approach of that film, Chloe has taken the finer points of that film while substituting a more “Hollywood” conclusion. Part of it may have to do with rescripting the film in the wake of Natalia Richardson’s death (Liam Neeson’s spouse), but one can’t help but watch this film and see that the finer points of the original have been taken and a more clichéd, unoriginal ending have been attached.
Seyfried is the real find in the film, though. With a pair of acting heavyweights around her, she doesn’t so much hold her own but command the screen. Her chemistry with Neeson is limited, but the film is centered on their relationship. Its focus (and rightly so) is between Chloe and Catherine, and Moore and Seyfried have an intense chemistry that culminates in a powerful love scene between the two. It’s interesting to see Moore, perhaps the best actress currently working not to win an Oscar, to raise her performance to match a relative newcomer as Seyfried more than holds her own on screen. It’s fascinating to see as Seyfried seems to be coming into her own as an actress and this is perhaps the perfect vehicle for her to do it.
Chloe would be much more than an independent film looking to find an audience if it had an ending worthy of its first two acts. Instead, it’s just an erotic thriller that collapses under its own weight.
Best Love & Sex Comments of the Week
We love talking about love. And sex. And everything in between. And we enjoy reading what you guys have to say about what we write (and any hot bedroom tips you may have), so speak up!
Today, we'll spotlight some of the best comments this week from The Stir's Love & Sex channel, as well as some celebrity input from Twitter.
From Relationship Musings: Second Marriages Rock!: Emmy_Dollface says, "I had a three month long starter marriage before I met my second husband. It was baaad. But if it weren't for the break-up of the first marriage, the second one would have never happened. I am so happy I got a second chance."
It's so true! You don't always find your Prince Charming on the first go!
From Celebrity Couples: Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher: nonmember Robin says, " Although, I do not know them personally and can only go by public image, I think they will stand the test of time because they have focused on long term important issues, not just 'hotness.' They are both value-oriented and they have the same values. They've dated a while before deciding to get married so it wasn't a rush decision. They got to know each other and neither of them seem the type to take marriage lightly."
I completely agree. I think these two will be one of the few that actually stay together for a long, long time.
From Lubricate Your Love Life: Lokismama says, "Honestly, and this is my own personal opinion, I prefer the silicone-based lubes (provided you're not playing with silicone toys) for my plays that actually require lube. Sure, it's a pain to get off, but it doesn't dry out or get sticky like some of the water based ones I've tried."
Thanks for the advice! I've never tried silicone-based before, but I may have to give it a go!
Tweet from Nicole Richie: "I don't see nothin' wrong with a little bump n' grinndd."
I like the way this girl thinks!Protesters call for Pope's resignation over alleged sex abuse cover up
Palm Sunday worshippers were startled to face strong protests against the Pope and calls for his resignation as "an accomplice in sex crimes" outside London's Westminster Cathedral.
The demonstration by 50 members of secularist, women's and gay organisations accused the Pope of "covering up child sex abuse by Catholic clergy" and called him a "protector of paedophile priests".
Some congegants had sympathy with the protest, but others were angry at what they accused of being an attempt to create generalised anti-Catholic sentiment out of the current child abuse crisis - which has been growing in scale and strength in recent days.
The Vatican is now at loggerheads with many of its critics, who accuse the Holy See and the Church hierarchy of being completely out of touch and in denial about the depth of the problem.
Radical and progressive Catholics, themselves strongly critical of the Church leadership and calling for sweeping change, including a possible Vatican III Council, have been reluctant to ally with the style of the 'Protest the Pope' coalition.
Instead they are wanting to use the build-up to Pope Benedict's visit to Britain later this year to push the Church to reverse its denial, open itself to legitimate criticism and commit to real change - including free conversation about teaching on sexuality, women and gay people in ordained and lay ministry, the culture of clerically-based secrecy, enforced priestly celibacy, and the deadening weight of hierarchy.
Some see the response of the Vatican to years of abuse within its ranks as an embodiment of the powerful reactionary and anti-change culture that has grown up in thinly disguised opposition to the reforming winds of Vatican II in 1963-65, which opened the Church, its mission, ministry and liturgy, to renewed faithfulness a changing world.
Meanwhile, Swiss Catholic theologian Professor Hans Kung, a leading figure associated with Vatican II, has called on Pope Benedict to issue a "mea culpa" for his part in "covering up decades of clerical sex abuse", both as an archbishop in Munich and as a cardinal in Rome.
Dr Kung, who once taught theology alongside the future Pope at Tubingen in Germany, pointed out last week that Benedict, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had served for many years in Rome as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, during which time he had imposed 'papal confidentiality' on cases of clerical abuse around the world.
In five years as Pope he had "not altered this practice one jot", said Dr Kung.
To the National Catholic Reporter in the USA, he declared: "In his 24 years as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, from around the world, all cases of grave sexual offences by clerics had to be reported, under strictest secrecy ('secretum pontificum'), to his curial office, which was exclusively responsible for dealing with them. Ratzinger himself, in a letter on 'grave sexual crimes' addressed to all the bishops under the date of 18 May, 2001, warned the bishops, under threat of ecclesiastical punishment, to observe 'papal secrecy' in such cases. In his five years as Pope, Benedict XVI has done nothing to change this practice with all its fateful consequences."
Meanwhile, in London, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, one of the organisers of the protest outside Westminster Cathedral, said: "Cardinal Ratzinger threatened to excommunicate anyone who spoke about [these crimes]. This makes the Pope personally responsible for the cover-up."
He added: "Pope Benedict's recent apology is inadequate because he has not apologised for his own failure to act against paedophile priests. He has not said sorry for his own role in covering up their sex crimes.
"The Pope knew about child sex abuse by Catholic clergy. He failed to stop it and he failed to report the abusers to the police. His moral authority is irreversibly tarnished. He should resign."
The Vatican robustly denies any cover up, though it has not opened its records fully on the issue or responded to many specific allegations. The Catholic Church in England and Wales and elsewhere has implemented significant reforms, particularly with regard to child protection, but cases of compensation for abuse have also been resisted or settled out of court, and many inside as well as outside the Catholic community believe that much more decisive action and change is needed.
In Italy, one Church figure, Antonio Riboldi, the emeritus bishop of Acerra, declared that the "attack" on the Church over its handling of decades of abuses marked the start of a war "between the church and the world; between Satan and God".
This is precisely the kind of aggressive attitude which others have said goes to the root of the problem. The Guardian newspaper in London and Manchester yesterday declared: "The church seems unable, or unwilling, to accept the depth of the crisis in which it has mired itself and blind to the way its foot-dragging apologies merely exacerbate the damage."
Calling for major reform at the top, the paper added: "In another institution it would be impossible to imagine the survival of a leading figure who was even marginally implicated in such a terrible betrayal of its founding purpose. Indeed, if there were a way of removing Pope Benedict, it might serve to demonstrate the defeat of a generation who for all the charisma of Pope John Paul II adopted this disastrous policy of ignoring and often perpetuating the tragedy inflicted on the victims by putting the protection of the church and the needs of the abusers first. But popes do not resign and they are not sacked... So under Benedict, the church hobbles on, haemorrhaging support with each new charge against it."
Priest on leave over child safety
Another parish priest in Northern Ireland has taken leave over child safety issues.
Cardinal Sean Brady said this was to allow the civil authorities, which had already been informed, to investigate the matter.
But he emphasised that the priest continued to enjoy the right to the presumption of innocence while the matters were being investigated.
According to a message posted on the Armagh diocesan website, the Cardinal made the announcement on Saturday evening after celebrating Mass in the parish concerned. The parish has not been identified.
Cardinal Brady said: "The policy of the Archdiocese of Armagh is that in all matters relating to child safeguarding, the safety and welfare of the child must be our paramount concern."
His spokesman has dismissed reports that Vatican officials want to force his resignation over separate child sex scandals.
The Catholic primate in Ireland has apologised for his role in the handling of sex abuse cases. He has said he wants to work towards a just resolution of a case being taken against him by a man who claims he was abused by Father Brendan Smyth but not enough was done to stop his attacker.
The Northern Ireland Assembly is preparing to order an official investigation into child abuse in Northern Ireland after details emerged of more attacks on children by members of the clergy.
The Times reported on Saturday that nothing less than Cardinal Brady's resignation will diminish fury at the highest levels in Rome over his role.
"Ireland needs a fresh start," a source in Rome told the newspaper. "By clinging on, he is putting his own interests before the church's."
Friday, March 12, 2010
Sex ed is about health and safety
Chris Hanzek believes I have a distorted view of the facts, yet there is nothing he has provided that refutes reality and the claims that have been made counter to his ideological viewpoint.
As Mr. Hanzek claims and I have never once denied, those who actually become abstinent do not become pregnant. My claim has been that abstinence-only education does not a single thing to increase the number of abstinent teens, and in fact only leads to those teens who do have sex to not know how to protect themselves. This is a claim that is substantiated by hundreds of studies, some of which I have referenced previously, and reality.
Abstinence-only education causes youth to not know how to protect themselves if they find themselves in a sexual situation. This is a fact.
It is a fact that Mr. Hanzek seems to take offence with and ignore, but it is still a fact that has been proven in study after study.
Mr. Hanzek has stated that it is not the fault of abstinence-only education, but "because the students didn't follow it." This seems somewhat at odds with his other statement, in that he has more faith in our youth to listen and do the right thing. Clearly, the statistics show that youth do in fact have sexual relations, contrary to the faith being put on display. As has been noted regularly, these youth do not have the information to know how to make informed, safe decisions, which is causing an increase in teenage pregnancy and STI transmission rates. Perhaps Mr. Hanzek would like to explain how he can simultaneously believe that our youth will avoid sexual situations, while still accepting that even within societies with abstinence-only education, pregnancy rates and STI transmission rates still are increasing.
Clearly, one of the two is failing. It is the "education" being provided that is at fault, not the youth for engaging in exploration.
It is also an unbelievable shame that Mr. Hanzek takes such a dim view towards comprehensive sexual education. He derides it as throwing our arms up in the air and telling children to do what they want, and how to do it. Perhaps if Mr. Hanzek had taken a sex education course recently, he would know that this is not what is done in our schools.
As a recent high school graduate, I can tell the readers that our schools teach us how to properly use condoms, why they are necessary and what some of the consequences of unprotected sex can be.
There is no "how-to guide" for procreation in the public school system; it is a discussion of how to keep each other safe.
That is what Mr. Hanzek seems to take issue with—an education plan that has trained professionals teaching our children how to stay healthy.
Calls to regulate networking sites such as Facebook pop up again
Calls for regulating the social networking sites have re-emerged after a British teenager was murdered by a convicted sex offender who she met on Facebook.
The murder of a 17-year old Ashleigh Hall has proved that some networking sites such as Facebook have failed to stop cases of sex offenders who use these sites to meet and mug children.
Child safety experts are also pressurizing the Government to make rules to force these sites to adopt adequate measures to stop sex offenders from abusing young members.
Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman has demanded quick action to ensure protection for children was kept up to date with changing technology.
Networking sites are being urged to install a ‘panic button’ to protect teenagers. But, Facebook says that it is a UK-centric tool that will not work well along with the reporting buttons it already has.
Some of the networking sites such as Bebo have already adopted the button.
Want more sex? Jog..
One in ten joggers have sex at least once a day a survey has reportedThe survey, which questioned 1,000 runners and 1,000 non-runners, not only found that one in ten joggers have sex once per day it found that three per cent of joggers said they have sex twice a day. Amongst the non-runners, one in four (25 per cent) said they had sex once a month or less.
The survey, carried out for charity Sue Ryder Care, also found that a quarter of joggers admitted going running to help them flirt with the opposite sex in a trend branded ‘flunning’.
Sue Ryder Care is running 24 organised running events throughout the UK this year.
Funds raised from the events go towards supporting people affected by conditions including cancer, strokes, brain injury, Multiple Sclerosis, dementia, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and Motor Neurone Disease.
Ms Savoroy added: “Our running events are a great way to meet likeminded people”
“This gives runners the confidence to interact and get to know each other – the perfect ingredients for a potential romance.”
First same-sex couples wed under new Mexico law
MEXICO CITY – The mayor was there. So were the protesters. Judith Vázquez wore an ivory wedding dress. So did her bride.
Judith Vazquez (left) and Lol Kin Castaneda embrace after getting married Thursday in Mexico City. Five couples wed under the new law. " width="175" height="206">EDUARDO VERDUGO/The Associated Press
Judith Vazquez (left) and Lol Kin Castaneda embrace after getting married Thursday in Mexico City. Five couples wed under the new law. Vázquez and Lol Kin Castañeda on Thursday became the first gay couple to marry in Mexico under a new law that allows people of the same sex to wed and to adopt children.
The law was passed by the Mexico City Legislature in December and applies only to the capital. It is the furthest-reaching gay-rights law in Latin America and one of several measures that have put the city and its leftist leaders at odds with the larger, more conservative country.
"This is a historic day," presiding Judge Hegel Cortes said shortly after pronouncing Vázquez and Castañeda, along with three other gay couples, "legitimately united in matrimony."
Jesusa RodrÃguez's flight was delayed and she missed the event; she and her partner of 30 years were wed later in a separate ceremony.
The city put on quite a show, despite harsh criticism from the conservative political party that governs the nation and from the influential Roman Catholic Church.
Thursday's ceremony took place in the columned courtyard of the 300-year-old Municipal Palace in downtown Mexico City, on a stage festooned with white lilies and a larger-than-life bust of Benito Juárez. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard attended, applauding warmly and hugging all the newlyweds, as did the heads of the city's legislature and highest court.
"I am overjoyed to finally be making this real," said Vázquez, 44. "A different world is possible."
Each of the couples responded affirmatively to the judge's questioning on whether they were entering marriage of their free will. Then Vázquez and her bride were the first to step up and sign the official registry, each sealing it with a thumbprint. They gave an ink-stained "thumbs-up" and kissed as the audience erupted in cheers.
Outside the Municipal Palace on the edge of downtown's vast Zocalo plaza, several dozen demonstrators waved signs proclaiming "marriage" as the union of man and woman. "Don't get confused!" the signs proclaimed.
"Can you imagine if two fathers take a kid to kindergarten, how all the other kids are going to react?" asked Carlos Osorio, a 29-year-old actor in charge of the protest. "Mexican society is not capable of accepting this."
The federal government of President Felipe Calderón, a conservative Catholic, filed a challenge to the law in the courts last month, arguing that it violates the rights and protections of families and children. The city's legal adviser, Leticia BonÃfaz, said she didn't expect a ruling for another year or more.
The church has been unusually vocal in its criticism, saying it was especially alarmed that gay couples would be allowed to adopt children.
Under Ebrard and his left-wing party, Mexico City has enacted a number of liberal laws and programs, including the legalization of abortion. In the case of abortion, several states responded by digging in their heels to keep abortion illegal.
A similar backlash might be in store for gay marriage as several states begin to examine legislation that would reaffirm matrimony as the union of man and woman.
Vázquez said she knew the fight was not over.
"I am dreaming," she said, "but with my eyes wide open."
Lesbian teen sues to force school to hold prom
JACKSON, Miss. — An 18-year-old lesbian student who wanted to take her girlfriend to her senior prom is asking a federal judge to force her Mississippi school district reinstate the dance it canceled rather than let the couple attend.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn't host the April 2 prom.
"Somebody said, 'Thanks for ruining my senior year.'" McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton.
The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend, who also is a student at the school, and wear the tuxedo.
The district's decision Wednesday came after the ACLU demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it said it violated students' rights. The ACLU said the district violated McMillen's free expression rights by not letting her wear a tux.
McMillen said she never expected the district to respond the way it did.
"A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they had already spent too much money on the prom" to cancel it, she said.
McMillen said she didn't want to go back to Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton the morning after the decision, but her father told her she needed to face her classmates.
"My daddy told me that I needed to show them that I'm still proud of who I am," McMillen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The fact that this will help people later on, that's what's helping me to go on."
The school board statement said it wouldn't host the event "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events" but didn't mention McMillen. District officials didn't return calls seeking comment Thursday.
Same-sex prom dates and cross-dressing are new issues for many high schools around the country, said Daryl Presgraves, a spokesman for GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a Washington-based advocacy group.
"A lot of schools actually react rather than do the research and find out what the rights of these students are," said Presgraves.
In 2002, a gay student sued his school district in Toronto to allow him to attend a prom with his boyfriend. A judge later forced the district to allow the couple to attend and stopped the district from canceling the prom.
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said a bill he's introduced in Congress would make it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian school students. He said at least 10 states have such laws, and his bill is modeled after those.
"This situation with the prom is a perfect example of why we need to protect students from discrimination. In this case it's a prom. It other cases, it's getting beaten up or killed," Polis said.
The school district had said it hoped a privately sponsored prom could be held.
Southside Baptist Church Pastor Bobby Crenshaw said he's seen the South portrayed as "backwards" on Web sites discussing the issue, "but a lot more people here have biblically based values."
Itawamba County is a rural area of about 23,000 people in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. It's near Pontotoc County, Miss., where more than a decade ago school officials were sued in federal court over their practice of student-led intercom prayer and Bible classes.
Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old senior at Itawamba County Agricultural High School, reacts to a message on her cell phone while her aunt, Dana Stweart, left, watches at McMillen's father's house in Fulton, Miss., Thursday, March 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Matthew Sharpe)
Michael McMillen, Constance McMillen's father, expresses his support of his daughter, along with Constance's aunt, Dana Stewart, center, and her father's girlfriend, Ashli Pass, right, in Fulton, Miss., Thursday, March 11, 2010. Itawamba County Agricultural High School recently canceled prom after Constance McMillen expressed her desire to bring a same-sex date and wear a tuxedo. (AP Photo/Matthew Sharpe)
The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn't host the April 2 prom.
"Somebody said, 'Thanks for ruining my senior year.'" McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton.
The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend, who also is a student at the school, and wear the tuxedo.
The district's decision Wednesday came after the ACLU demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it said it violated students' rights. The ACLU said the district violated McMillen's free expression rights by not letting her wear a tux.
McMillen said she never expected the district to respond the way it did.
"A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they had already spent too much money on the prom" to cancel it, she said.
McMillen said she didn't want to go back to Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton the morning after the decision, but her father told her she needed to face her classmates.
"My daddy told me that I needed to show them that I'm still proud of who I am," McMillen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The fact that this will help people later on, that's what's helping me to go on."
The school board statement said it wouldn't host the event "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events" but didn't mention McMillen. District officials didn't return calls seeking comment Thursday.
Same-sex prom dates and cross-dressing are new issues for many high schools around the country, said Daryl Presgraves, a spokesman for GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a Washington-based advocacy group.
"A lot of schools actually react rather than do the research and find out what the rights of these students are," said Presgraves.
In 2002, a gay student sued his school district in Toronto to allow him to attend a prom with his boyfriend. A judge later forced the district to allow the couple to attend and stopped the district from canceling the prom.
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said a bill he's introduced in Congress would make it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian school students. He said at least 10 states have such laws, and his bill is modeled after those.
"This situation with the prom is a perfect example of why we need to protect students from discrimination. In this case it's a prom. It other cases, it's getting beaten up or killed," Polis said.
The school district had said it hoped a privately sponsored prom could be held.
Southside Baptist Church Pastor Bobby Crenshaw said he's seen the South portrayed as "backwards" on Web sites discussing the issue, "but a lot more people here have biblically based values."
Itawamba County is a rural area of about 23,000 people in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. It's near Pontotoc County, Miss., where more than a decade ago school officials were sued in federal court over their practice of student-led intercom prayer and Bible classes.
Mackenzie Phillips now says sex with father was not consensual
Mackenzie was seen leaving her home and was picked up in a limo. She was accompanied by her black pet pug and seemed to be in a good mood as she smiled as she walked to the limo. Mackenzie has recently been in the headlines as she was allegedly raped as a child and had an incestuous relationship with her father.
Mackenzie Phillips says she no longer believes that having sex with her musician father was consensual.
Phillips, 50, shocked the showbiz world when she wrote in her autobiography last year that she had a sexual relationship with John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.
Phillips claimed in her book that it began the night before her first wedding when she was 19.
Now Phillips says has totally re-evaluated it.
Well, you know it is a very difficult word and was a very difficult word for me to wrap my mind around when I was writing the book,” she told CNN talkshow host Larry King.
I kept thinking ‘I am so not comfortable with this word’ as it did not seem to tell the right story.
But for want of a better word, I used the word ‘consensual’.
I have since been schooled by hundreds of thousands of survivors around the world and country that there is really no such thing as consensual incest.”
Asked about her half-sister Chynna Phillips, who has just been in rehab to treat anxiety, Mackenzie said: “She is doing great. She is home with her family and I feel like she did a great thing for herself and for all of us. I support her the way she supported me.”
Teenager who accuses teacher of affair 'took drugs and made up other relationships'
A 16-year-old pupil schoolboy who is alleged to have had sexual intercourse with his teacher took drugs, drank heavily and claimed to have also had a relationship with his social worker, a court heard.
Teacher Theresa McKenzie had sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old Photo: ANDREW PRICE
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also accused his brother of raping him when he was eight and had an "addiction" to internet pornography.
He is alleged to have had a 10-month relationship with Theresa McKenzie, 39, the deputy head of a special needs school when he was 16 and 17.
She is facing seven counts of sexual activity with a child while in a position of trust as a teacher but says the allegations against her had been made out of malice.
However, in the six months up until July 2008 she either called or texted him on 600 occasions and the jury at Chester Crown Court has been read notes she wrote the boy addressing him variously as “Sweetheart”, “Babe” and “Gorgeous”.
Under cross examination yesterday, the boy, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, emotionally disturbed behaviour and oppositional defiant disorder, said the pair started their sexual relationship in his English teacher's car in the car park at Runcorn station before catching a train to London.
He told the court they also had full sex and oral sex in a number of locations including the British Library and a residence in Manchester.
He was asked by defence barrister Tim Roberts QC whether he had mentioned it to friends.
"I said she was a good teacher, but didn't tell them that there was anything sexual between us," he said.
"I didn't want them to know that we were an item.
"I wasn't scared about being found out, but at the time I didn't want it to end. And I loved her, I guess."
The boy, who at times snapped at Mr Roberts when he asked him questions, stormed out of the court on one occasion when asked to look at a collection of photographs of the defendant.
The court heard that he claimed his brother, a teacher, had sexually assaulted him when he was eight and that his brother's wife had performed oral sex on his in a supermarket lavatory. His brother was investigated by the police but no charges were brought.
When he was at the Cheshire school he told another teacher he had had sex with a former teacher in London but said in court that he had made it up.
"And you had sex with your social worker?" the defence lawyer asked. "I told that to Theresa. I wanted to big myself up, literally."
He also admitted he had lied about girlfriends in London and Manchester, as well as having sex with a woman in her 30s, and a prostitute in Switzerland.
Asked why he invented all the stories, he said: "I wanted to make myself look good. I was at a special needs school and I didn't look good."
The teenager told Chester Crown Court he had injected heroin, smoked cannabis, drank 13 to 14 litres of cider a week and taken two overdoses of his prescription drugs.
"You were accessing pornography on the internet and you were fantasising about having a relationship with your teacher, weren't you?" Mr Roberts asked him.
"Yes", the boy replied.
The youngster said he blamed McKenzie for him getting excluded from school.
"I smoked cannabis in the lavatories on purpose," he said.
"I had not one friend in the whole school. I couldn't speak to any of the other teachers.
"If she wouldn't have started a sexual relationship, maybe I wouldn't have fallen in love with her. It is her fault."
McKenzie denies the charges and the case continues.
Better health means better sex life
Better health translates into better sex lives, with healthy people more likely to engage in sex and to express an interest in sex. This association holds firm into middle-age and later life as well, according to a recent U.S. study.
Human sexuality is increasingly recognised as an important aspect of health and quality of life throughout an individual's life with sexual activity being associated with health benefits and longevity. Physical health is significantly correlated with sexual activity and many aspects of sexual function, independent of age. To examine the relation between health and several dimensions of sexuality and to estimate years of sexually active life across sex and health groups in middle aged and older adults, researchers looked at two different samples of people: one involving over 3,032 adults aged 25 to 74 years, and another with more than 3,005 adults aged 57 to 85. An equal number of men and women were in each group.
It was found that men were more likely to report positive experiences with sex than women. This gender gap was most noticeable among 75-to-85-year olds, with 38 percent of men, compared to 16 percent of women, reporting being sexually active. Almost 71 percent of men in this age group reported a good sex life, versus only half of the women.
Moreover, sexual activity, quality of sexual life, and interest in sex were positively associated with health in middle age and later life. Sexually active life expectancy was longer for men, but men lost more years of sexually active life as a result of poor health than women. The study also found that people with partners were more likely to be having sex and more men than women reported having partners, especially in later life.
The above findings indicate that as one ages, better health means better sexual life though further research is needed to evaluate the potential impact of sexually active life expectancy projection on individual health behaviour.
Human sexuality is increasingly recognised as an important aspect of health and quality of life throughout an individual's life with sexual activity being associated with health benefits and longevity. Physical health is significantly correlated with sexual activity and many aspects of sexual function, independent of age. To examine the relation between health and several dimensions of sexuality and to estimate years of sexually active life across sex and health groups in middle aged and older adults, researchers looked at two different samples of people: one involving over 3,032 adults aged 25 to 74 years, and another with more than 3,005 adults aged 57 to 85. An equal number of men and women were in each group.
It was found that men were more likely to report positive experiences with sex than women. This gender gap was most noticeable among 75-to-85-year olds, with 38 percent of men, compared to 16 percent of women, reporting being sexually active. Almost 71 percent of men in this age group reported a good sex life, versus only half of the women.
Moreover, sexual activity, quality of sexual life, and interest in sex were positively associated with health in middle age and later life. Sexually active life expectancy was longer for men, but men lost more years of sexually active life as a result of poor health than women. The study also found that people with partners were more likely to be having sex and more men than women reported having partners, especially in later life.
The above findings indicate that as one ages, better health means better sexual life though further research is needed to evaluate the potential impact of sexually active life expectancy projection on individual health behaviour.
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Supply and demand: Karachi's 'call girls
Britain's colonial legacy in Pakistan left a thriving but dark commercial sector in the country's capital, Karachi. Massoud Ansari investigates the city's desperate marketplace that trades in young women…
“Could you deflower a girl?" Madam Rabia asks one of her regular clients. "She has been rotting at my place for the last couple of weeks, with no potential customers…”
She wants to put the 14-year-old girl to work in Karachi's commercial sex market as soon as possible.
Rabia, popularly known as "Bhabi" in the Karachi circuit, demands 20,000 rupees for a night with her new recruit and guarantees the girl’s virginity personally.
“The market is down these days, otherwise she is worth at least 50,000 rupees,” she laments.
Rabai describes the girl as a “tithli" (fairy) and gives details of her age, figure, features and complexion. After some haggling, a deal is struck at 15,000 rupees, with an additional two thousand rupees thrown in as a “mithai for nath utrai” (tip for deflowering). The next day, the girl is delivered.
Far from being an exception, this is the typical manner in which hundreds of young girls enter the profession of commercial sex in the city to become "call girls."
Over the years, Karachi, the economic jugular of the country, has become one of the major "mandis" (markets) for commercial sex in Pakistan, where girls as young as 14 can be purchased from 300 rupees upwards, depending upon the client, the service demanded, the location, and the girl’s physical attributes.
As economic recession in the country deepens, many girls from different parts of Pakistan are thronging to Karachi where the market is comparatively better than in other nearby regions.
Salma, an 18-year old call girl, says: “In Lahore we can scarcely find enough business, but if we work only four weekends a month in Karachi, it fetches us twice the amount we would normally earn, despite working day and night…”
A wide variety of girls can be found in Karachi’s commercial sex market. They belong not only to local communities originating from different parts of the country, but also comprise women of foreign nationalities. According to the Society for Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), some 200,000 Bangladeshi women have been trafficked into Pakistan in the last 10 years alone.
“Many of these girls are minors who are forced into the sex trade from surrounding countries; the majority of them end up in Karachi,” says the report.
Besides Bengali girls, women from the Central Asian States, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Burma can also be found marketing themselves in the capital.
Prostitution was formalised for the first time in the Indian subcontinent by the British government in the mid-18th century. The British colonialists enacted special laws, created "red light" areas and assigned the task of protecting women sex workers to law-enforcing agencies. Municipalities overlooking the sex districts were given the responsibility of collecting taxes and providing health and sanitation services to the brothels.
As an independent Muslim state, Pakistan does not officially allow prostitution. Unofficially, however, the practice is prevalent all over the country, with the majority of the clientele ironically comprised of politicians, bureaucrats, police officials and army personnel; in short, the very people who are supposed to legislate and implement laws against the sex trade.
Until the late 1970s - when General Zia-ul-Haq embarked upon a drive to "Islamise" Pakistani society, closing down brothels to the public, red light areas - as a legacy of British rule - continued to be institutionalised.
A local sociologist explains: “With the closure of brothels to the public, the prostitutes - whose profession is often passed from generation to generation - dispersed to the cities’ residential areas to earn their livelihoods. With the passage of time, girls from impoverished families also came to join them.”
The motivating factor for most call girls in Karachi today is the considerable amount of money they can earn in the profession. Some maintain they were compelled to enter prostitution because their families had no breadwinner left after the death or remarriage of the household father, while others cite poverty resulting from divorce.
One call girl in Karachi claims: “My entire family depends on my income. My father died and I have to give at least 10,000 rupees every month to support my mother and the rest of my family. I’m divorced and have only a high school education. One of my friends told me about the money I could earn from prostitution and introduced me to "Auntie Shamim.” The girl shares 40 per cent of her income with her "business auntie" in return for her contacts, shelter and protection.
While some of the girls start out on their own, the majority of them enter after coming into contact with a pimp. When a new girl enters any den, the incumbent workers show her the ropes and how to behave with the house clients.
Each girl, however, is responsible for striking their own deal with the pimps. While some share 40 to 50 per cent of their income with these touts, others prefer to work under a fixed monthly amount.
In return, pimps provide police protection, shelter, and bear their day-to-day expenses, including food and cigarettes.
A young call girl from Sahiwal, said: “My parents have "rented" me out for three months to Goga Bhai (a high-profile pimp in Karachi) for one lakh rupees (100,000).”
However, she says has no complaints about living with the man because she is treated well. “I don’t have to have sex with him, which is normal at other places. He treats me like a brother!”
Once a girl is employed, she cannot refuse to oblige her pimp who will sell her on to as many clients as he wants. Pimps more often than not retain all the money the girls earn in tips, which are particularly forthcoming during dance performances or "mujras."
The majority of call girls learn to dance because they can earn more money.
Annie Noureen, a sex worker in Karachi, says: “The ones who don’t know dancing hardly get any tips, but if we do, our clients, when they get drunk, shower us with all the money they have in their wallets…”
The optimum period in a call girl’s life is a short one, and usually only lasts until they have crossed their teens.
A pimp said: “When the girl is young, she is like a cheque that one can cash even on Sundays, but when she begins to age, she is akin to rotten fish. It becomes hard for her to meet even her monthly expenses. Those with dancing skills, however, have some bonus years in which to attract customers in this marketplace."
The most astute call girls in Karachi work in tandem with their pimps for between six to eight months, after which time they strike out on their own to become suppliers.
A case in point is "Auntie" Shamim. A one time call girl, she is today one of the best-known pimps in Karachi’s higher social strata.
In the initial years, Shamim had to work very hard not only for herself but also in order to cultivate enough contacts to begin her own operations with at least five girls in her employ.
Soon after she entered the world of commercial sex, Shamim bought herself a mobile phone and circulated her number among her clients.
“It’s all a game of contacts; the more connected you are, the better the business," Shamim says. "The day I realised I had enough contacts, I started my own business…”
Now, Shamim boasts of having a select clientele among Karachi's high and mighty. Her cell phone scarcely stops ringing in the evenings as she cruises the city’s upmarket localities, dropping girls at various given addresses.
The explosion in cell phones across the country have solved manifold problems for pimps and prostitutes.
Shahid, a local pimp, explained how mobile phones are essential for those in the business, chiefly because they ensure anonymity. “The police lost 80 per cent of the amount they used to extract from us through blackmail and extortion,” he says.
“Once our whereabouts are known, we can easily be trapped by the police and they create lot of problems for us, including demanding free services from these girls as well as regular "bhatta" (extortion).”
Incidentally, many of the pimps switched to pagers during the suspension of mobile phone operations in Karachi by Benazir Bhutto’s government, which was directed at disrupting the communication network of terrorists and anti-state elements.
In order to avoid detection by law-enforcing agencies, call girls frequently shift apartments. A Karachi police official, says: “It’s very difficult to track them down because they live for barely six months at any one place before shifting on to another.”
Moreover, sex workers prefer to live in commercial areas where they can blend into the crowd and escape detection.
In order to hire a call girl in Karachi one has to be personally known to her or her tout. If this is not so, then acquaintance with someone who has connections with a supplier is essential. When contact has finally been made, rates are conveyed and the girl is supplied. Once the pimp is familiar with the new contact however, acquiring services becomes far less convoluted in future.
“Pimps have no problem dropping girls off at your place, but they avoid obliging people without references for fear that they may be walking into a police trap” says a regular client.
The modus operandi states a pimp will arrive at a client’s door after the initial contact has ben made, accompanied by a few well-groomed young women. The client offers them tea or cold drinks in order to take his time and choose the one he wants for the night. Questions are asked of them, and at times they are even physically harassed during the course of selection. However, because it is their bread and butter, the women usually make no protest. After the choice has finally been made, the client pays the pimp in advance. The pimp then leaves the house with the rest of the women and returns in the morning to collect the remaining girl.
A call girls’ clientele is varied and includes both young and old men, serving and retired bureaucrats, politicians, feudals and businessmen. Most of the women consider an invitation by Sindhi feudals the most lucrative assignment as they are said to be the most generous paymasters of all. A source discloses: “Sometimes feudals even call these girls on "udhar" (deferred payment) and pay them later when their crop is sold.”
Entertaining young men meanwhile, is usually deemed the least desirable job. Samia, a young girl in her teens recalls a particularly harrowing encounter: “Once when I went on call, there were six young men drinking alcohol in the drawing room. When they became drunk, one of them took me inside the room. After he was finished, the next wanted to sleep with me. I co-operated. To my utter dismay, the third demanded his turn. When I refused, they abused me verbally and pushed me around. I was weeping and begging them to stop but they showed me no mercy and came at me like animals. They said that as they had purchased my body for the night they could do with me whatever they wanted. By the time I returned home in the morning, I was such a wreck that I was unable to work for at least a week…”
The sociologist implores the feelings of the girls to be considered and "how they sleep with people of different age groups, all with different temperaments, the fat and the slim; the educated and the uneducated; some of them violent, others nice; the black, wheatish and the whitish; the experienced and the inexperienced.
“It's like a mercenary killer or a thief who finds it difficult to commit the crime in the beginning, but becomes hardened after the second and third times,” argues Manzoor Kohiyar, a Sindhi short story writer.
Most call girls, however, drink alcohol or smoke hashish on the job and say that when they finally sleep with their clients, they are devoid of feeling and offer only their bodies to them.
Suraya Parveen, who is known as "Gurya," speaks from seven-years experience as a call girl. She says: “Initially, the work used to really upset me but when I accepted the bitter reality that I had to do this, I just tuned my mind accordingly. Now there is no question of being happy or sad because normally I don’t think about what they do with me…”
However, one regular customer maintains: “I normally pay these girls extra money and request them to pretend as though they have an emotional connection with me. I cannot enjoy sex until then.”
Some men bluntly claim they prefer call girls to girlfriends. A senior bureaucrat known as “Rangeela Badshah” in his circle says: “If you have a girlfriend, you spend a lot of money taking her out for meals or for shopping. She will start demanding that you marry her and if you refuse, she is quite liable to blackmail you, claiming pregnancy or other such shenanigans.”
According to sources however, many businessmen and even some bureaucrats have a somewhat different modus operandi for buying sex. They purchase or rent ‘offices’ and place advertisements in newspapers along the lines of “lady secretary needed” and attract many girls from impoverished families who, if willing, are hired solely for sexual services.
One businessman, who discreetly rented an office in Karachi’s Saddar area for his trysts, said: “In sleeping with call girls, one runs the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV, Hepatitis B and C among others. But when you're hiring a girl solely for yourself, there is less risk of getting infected.” His ‘secretary’ however, lasts only as long as his desire for her after which she is unceremoniously fired and an advertisement for a new one placed. “I have been doing this for over a decade and have so far had no difficulty in picking up women this way,” he adds.
Other than the girls ferried around by pimps from place to place and those who pose as ‘secretaries,’ women offering sex for sale can also be found at certain boutiques and beauty parlours in the city. As in the case of regular call girls, potential customers initially need a reference to avail their services. A visitor to one such beauty parlour on Tariq Road discloses: “I went there for the first time with a friend of mine who was a frequent client and as I’m known to them now, I have no problem going there any time.”
Sources reveal that the owner of the beauty parlour usually charges 1,000 rupees for a complete body massage lasting up to thirty or forty minutes. Clients can select their masseur from six to eight young women in their 20s. Co-operative ones give their customers more than a massage. “Most of them let you fondle their bodies in order to make tips at the end of the job,” says another visitor to beauty parlours. However, if the customer also wants sex, the price tag can be somewhere between two to three thousand rupees.
In an increasingly materialistic society, values have become skewed, and practices once considered taboo avoid the censure that was once their due. In many cases, politicians act as procurers in return for political favours such as lucrative ministries while businessmen resort to the practice to clinch business deals. A group of policemen and bureaucrats in Sindh justify their habit of procuring call girls in return for favours from important government officials as being in sync with the “new world order.” According to a source, the logic behind this is simple: “Market say lee, aur market main day dee” (Pick it up from the market and hand it over in the market). Karachi’s higher echelon localities are dotted with lavishly decorated houses and apartments where these VIPs are entertained. The bedrooms in these houses feature not only comfortable beds, sometimes waterbeds, but often boast full-length mirrors along the walls as well as on the ceiling.
According to sources, when a no-confidence move was launched against Benazir Bhutto in 1989 during her first tenure, many PPP-backed MNAs from Punjab and NWFP were shifted to Karachi. Playing host to them was another MNA from Sindh, who was instructed to ensure that their stay in the city was as comfortable as possible. One source said: "During their sojourn, which lasted over two weeks, most of them were supplied with a new girl and a bottle of scotch every day.”
At times, however, riotous parties replete with alcohol and call girls have resulted in mayhem. Two years ago, in the famous "Babli case," the deputy commissioner of Mirpur Khas district threw a "mujra" to which he invited a number of senior and junior bureaucrats. A scuffle broke out when two senior bureaucrats wanted to sleep with the same girl. When she escaped from their clutches and fled, one of them asked the police to pursue her vehicle. In the course of their pursuit, the police fired at the vehicle and the girl, Babli, a well-known dancer from Hyderabad sustained serious bullet injuries. Subsequently, when the incident was reported in the press, the DC, SDM and other officials involved were suspended and an official inquiry was ordered by the provincial government.
A considerable number of bureaucrats, politicians and others with power and pelf have their “keeps” as well. A source says: “In return for fixed monthly expenses, the “keep” is available on call to the man in question.” There have been instances when clients have become serious in their affections and married their regular call girls. However, according to Sheereen, a local call girl: “Usually, the men are dissuaded by pressure from family and friends who advise them against it on the grounds that marrying such a girl would be a stain on their family honour.” Sheereen herself has had two serious liaisons, both of which came to naught.
Commercial sex was at its height until the late ’90s, but the severe economic downturn in the country over the last few years has had a negative impact on this business as well. Says a young sex worker named Shazia: “In the good days, we were so busy we barely had time to return or at times even answer our clients’ calls, but now we often make calls to them ourselves to offer our services. It’s a hardly a break even situation these days.”
Many pimps, meanwhile, have turned to peddling young girls to attract otherwise reluctant customers. According to reports, 20 per cent of the prostitutes in Pakistan are children under the age of 16. It is estimated that in Asia, over one million children are involved in the sex trade often under conditions no better than slavery.
Ms. Tahira, a ‘madam’ who has been operating in Karachi for the last decade, said: “Every man who comes asks for younger and younger girls. The demand for them means that the young ones fetch more money and get more clients per day.”
Most analysts recognise poverty as a crucial factor in driving women towards an occupation such as prostitution. This factor, compounded by their low status in this society, results in a lethal combination that marginalises women and ensures their continuous flow into this profession. Caught in a vicious cycle from which few escape, it renders them even more vulnerable to exploitation and victimisation.
One analyst commented: “In this institution, the body is that of the women and the pleasure derived from it is totally that of men.”
“Could you deflower a girl?" Madam Rabia asks one of her regular clients. "She has been rotting at my place for the last couple of weeks, with no potential customers…”
She wants to put the 14-year-old girl to work in Karachi's commercial sex market as soon as possible.
Rabia, popularly known as "Bhabi" in the Karachi circuit, demands 20,000 rupees for a night with her new recruit and guarantees the girl’s virginity personally.
“The market is down these days, otherwise she is worth at least 50,000 rupees,” she laments.
Rabai describes the girl as a “tithli" (fairy) and gives details of her age, figure, features and complexion. After some haggling, a deal is struck at 15,000 rupees, with an additional two thousand rupees thrown in as a “mithai for nath utrai” (tip for deflowering). The next day, the girl is delivered.
Far from being an exception, this is the typical manner in which hundreds of young girls enter the profession of commercial sex in the city to become "call girls."
Over the years, Karachi, the economic jugular of the country, has become one of the major "mandis" (markets) for commercial sex in Pakistan, where girls as young as 14 can be purchased from 300 rupees upwards, depending upon the client, the service demanded, the location, and the girl’s physical attributes.
As economic recession in the country deepens, many girls from different parts of Pakistan are thronging to Karachi where the market is comparatively better than in other nearby regions.
Salma, an 18-year old call girl, says: “In Lahore we can scarcely find enough business, but if we work only four weekends a month in Karachi, it fetches us twice the amount we would normally earn, despite working day and night…”
A wide variety of girls can be found in Karachi’s commercial sex market. They belong not only to local communities originating from different parts of the country, but also comprise women of foreign nationalities. According to the Society for Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), some 200,000 Bangladeshi women have been trafficked into Pakistan in the last 10 years alone.
“Many of these girls are minors who are forced into the sex trade from surrounding countries; the majority of them end up in Karachi,” says the report.
Besides Bengali girls, women from the Central Asian States, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Burma can also be found marketing themselves in the capital.
Prostitution was formalised for the first time in the Indian subcontinent by the British government in the mid-18th century. The British colonialists enacted special laws, created "red light" areas and assigned the task of protecting women sex workers to law-enforcing agencies. Municipalities overlooking the sex districts were given the responsibility of collecting taxes and providing health and sanitation services to the brothels.
As an independent Muslim state, Pakistan does not officially allow prostitution. Unofficially, however, the practice is prevalent all over the country, with the majority of the clientele ironically comprised of politicians, bureaucrats, police officials and army personnel; in short, the very people who are supposed to legislate and implement laws against the sex trade.
Until the late 1970s - when General Zia-ul-Haq embarked upon a drive to "Islamise" Pakistani society, closing down brothels to the public, red light areas - as a legacy of British rule - continued to be institutionalised.
A local sociologist explains: “With the closure of brothels to the public, the prostitutes - whose profession is often passed from generation to generation - dispersed to the cities’ residential areas to earn their livelihoods. With the passage of time, girls from impoverished families also came to join them.”
The motivating factor for most call girls in Karachi today is the considerable amount of money they can earn in the profession. Some maintain they were compelled to enter prostitution because their families had no breadwinner left after the death or remarriage of the household father, while others cite poverty resulting from divorce.
One call girl in Karachi claims: “My entire family depends on my income. My father died and I have to give at least 10,000 rupees every month to support my mother and the rest of my family. I’m divorced and have only a high school education. One of my friends told me about the money I could earn from prostitution and introduced me to "Auntie Shamim.” The girl shares 40 per cent of her income with her "business auntie" in return for her contacts, shelter and protection.
While some of the girls start out on their own, the majority of them enter after coming into contact with a pimp. When a new girl enters any den, the incumbent workers show her the ropes and how to behave with the house clients.
Each girl, however, is responsible for striking their own deal with the pimps. While some share 40 to 50 per cent of their income with these touts, others prefer to work under a fixed monthly amount.
In return, pimps provide police protection, shelter, and bear their day-to-day expenses, including food and cigarettes.
A young call girl from Sahiwal, said: “My parents have "rented" me out for three months to Goga Bhai (a high-profile pimp in Karachi) for one lakh rupees (100,000).”
However, she says has no complaints about living with the man because she is treated well. “I don’t have to have sex with him, which is normal at other places. He treats me like a brother!”
Once a girl is employed, she cannot refuse to oblige her pimp who will sell her on to as many clients as he wants. Pimps more often than not retain all the money the girls earn in tips, which are particularly forthcoming during dance performances or "mujras."
The majority of call girls learn to dance because they can earn more money.
Annie Noureen, a sex worker in Karachi, says: “The ones who don’t know dancing hardly get any tips, but if we do, our clients, when they get drunk, shower us with all the money they have in their wallets…”
The optimum period in a call girl’s life is a short one, and usually only lasts until they have crossed their teens.
A pimp said: “When the girl is young, she is like a cheque that one can cash even on Sundays, but when she begins to age, she is akin to rotten fish. It becomes hard for her to meet even her monthly expenses. Those with dancing skills, however, have some bonus years in which to attract customers in this marketplace."
The most astute call girls in Karachi work in tandem with their pimps for between six to eight months, after which time they strike out on their own to become suppliers.
A case in point is "Auntie" Shamim. A one time call girl, she is today one of the best-known pimps in Karachi’s higher social strata.
In the initial years, Shamim had to work very hard not only for herself but also in order to cultivate enough contacts to begin her own operations with at least five girls in her employ.
Soon after she entered the world of commercial sex, Shamim bought herself a mobile phone and circulated her number among her clients.
“It’s all a game of contacts; the more connected you are, the better the business," Shamim says. "The day I realised I had enough contacts, I started my own business…”
Now, Shamim boasts of having a select clientele among Karachi's high and mighty. Her cell phone scarcely stops ringing in the evenings as she cruises the city’s upmarket localities, dropping girls at various given addresses.
The explosion in cell phones across the country have solved manifold problems for pimps and prostitutes.
Shahid, a local pimp, explained how mobile phones are essential for those in the business, chiefly because they ensure anonymity. “The police lost 80 per cent of the amount they used to extract from us through blackmail and extortion,” he says.
“Once our whereabouts are known, we can easily be trapped by the police and they create lot of problems for us, including demanding free services from these girls as well as regular "bhatta" (extortion).”
Incidentally, many of the pimps switched to pagers during the suspension of mobile phone operations in Karachi by Benazir Bhutto’s government, which was directed at disrupting the communication network of terrorists and anti-state elements.
In order to avoid detection by law-enforcing agencies, call girls frequently shift apartments. A Karachi police official, says: “It’s very difficult to track them down because they live for barely six months at any one place before shifting on to another.”
Moreover, sex workers prefer to live in commercial areas where they can blend into the crowd and escape detection.
In order to hire a call girl in Karachi one has to be personally known to her or her tout. If this is not so, then acquaintance with someone who has connections with a supplier is essential. When contact has finally been made, rates are conveyed and the girl is supplied. Once the pimp is familiar with the new contact however, acquiring services becomes far less convoluted in future.
“Pimps have no problem dropping girls off at your place, but they avoid obliging people without references for fear that they may be walking into a police trap” says a regular client.
The modus operandi states a pimp will arrive at a client’s door after the initial contact has ben made, accompanied by a few well-groomed young women. The client offers them tea or cold drinks in order to take his time and choose the one he wants for the night. Questions are asked of them, and at times they are even physically harassed during the course of selection. However, because it is their bread and butter, the women usually make no protest. After the choice has finally been made, the client pays the pimp in advance. The pimp then leaves the house with the rest of the women and returns in the morning to collect the remaining girl.
A call girls’ clientele is varied and includes both young and old men, serving and retired bureaucrats, politicians, feudals and businessmen. Most of the women consider an invitation by Sindhi feudals the most lucrative assignment as they are said to be the most generous paymasters of all. A source discloses: “Sometimes feudals even call these girls on "udhar" (deferred payment) and pay them later when their crop is sold.”
Entertaining young men meanwhile, is usually deemed the least desirable job. Samia, a young girl in her teens recalls a particularly harrowing encounter: “Once when I went on call, there were six young men drinking alcohol in the drawing room. When they became drunk, one of them took me inside the room. After he was finished, the next wanted to sleep with me. I co-operated. To my utter dismay, the third demanded his turn. When I refused, they abused me verbally and pushed me around. I was weeping and begging them to stop but they showed me no mercy and came at me like animals. They said that as they had purchased my body for the night they could do with me whatever they wanted. By the time I returned home in the morning, I was such a wreck that I was unable to work for at least a week…”
The sociologist implores the feelings of the girls to be considered and "how they sleep with people of different age groups, all with different temperaments, the fat and the slim; the educated and the uneducated; some of them violent, others nice; the black, wheatish and the whitish; the experienced and the inexperienced.
“It's like a mercenary killer or a thief who finds it difficult to commit the crime in the beginning, but becomes hardened after the second and third times,” argues Manzoor Kohiyar, a Sindhi short story writer.
Most call girls, however, drink alcohol or smoke hashish on the job and say that when they finally sleep with their clients, they are devoid of feeling and offer only their bodies to them.
Suraya Parveen, who is known as "Gurya," speaks from seven-years experience as a call girl. She says: “Initially, the work used to really upset me but when I accepted the bitter reality that I had to do this, I just tuned my mind accordingly. Now there is no question of being happy or sad because normally I don’t think about what they do with me…”
However, one regular customer maintains: “I normally pay these girls extra money and request them to pretend as though they have an emotional connection with me. I cannot enjoy sex until then.”
Some men bluntly claim they prefer call girls to girlfriends. A senior bureaucrat known as “Rangeela Badshah” in his circle says: “If you have a girlfriend, you spend a lot of money taking her out for meals or for shopping. She will start demanding that you marry her and if you refuse, she is quite liable to blackmail you, claiming pregnancy or other such shenanigans.”
According to sources however, many businessmen and even some bureaucrats have a somewhat different modus operandi for buying sex. They purchase or rent ‘offices’ and place advertisements in newspapers along the lines of “lady secretary needed” and attract many girls from impoverished families who, if willing, are hired solely for sexual services.
One businessman, who discreetly rented an office in Karachi’s Saddar area for his trysts, said: “In sleeping with call girls, one runs the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV, Hepatitis B and C among others. But when you're hiring a girl solely for yourself, there is less risk of getting infected.” His ‘secretary’ however, lasts only as long as his desire for her after which she is unceremoniously fired and an advertisement for a new one placed. “I have been doing this for over a decade and have so far had no difficulty in picking up women this way,” he adds.
Other than the girls ferried around by pimps from place to place and those who pose as ‘secretaries,’ women offering sex for sale can also be found at certain boutiques and beauty parlours in the city. As in the case of regular call girls, potential customers initially need a reference to avail their services. A visitor to one such beauty parlour on Tariq Road discloses: “I went there for the first time with a friend of mine who was a frequent client and as I’m known to them now, I have no problem going there any time.”
Sources reveal that the owner of the beauty parlour usually charges 1,000 rupees for a complete body massage lasting up to thirty or forty minutes. Clients can select their masseur from six to eight young women in their 20s. Co-operative ones give their customers more than a massage. “Most of them let you fondle their bodies in order to make tips at the end of the job,” says another visitor to beauty parlours. However, if the customer also wants sex, the price tag can be somewhere between two to three thousand rupees.
In an increasingly materialistic society, values have become skewed, and practices once considered taboo avoid the censure that was once their due. In many cases, politicians act as procurers in return for political favours such as lucrative ministries while businessmen resort to the practice to clinch business deals. A group of policemen and bureaucrats in Sindh justify their habit of procuring call girls in return for favours from important government officials as being in sync with the “new world order.” According to a source, the logic behind this is simple: “Market say lee, aur market main day dee” (Pick it up from the market and hand it over in the market). Karachi’s higher echelon localities are dotted with lavishly decorated houses and apartments where these VIPs are entertained. The bedrooms in these houses feature not only comfortable beds, sometimes waterbeds, but often boast full-length mirrors along the walls as well as on the ceiling.
According to sources, when a no-confidence move was launched against Benazir Bhutto in 1989 during her first tenure, many PPP-backed MNAs from Punjab and NWFP were shifted to Karachi. Playing host to them was another MNA from Sindh, who was instructed to ensure that their stay in the city was as comfortable as possible. One source said: "During their sojourn, which lasted over two weeks, most of them were supplied with a new girl and a bottle of scotch every day.”
At times, however, riotous parties replete with alcohol and call girls have resulted in mayhem. Two years ago, in the famous "Babli case," the deputy commissioner of Mirpur Khas district threw a "mujra" to which he invited a number of senior and junior bureaucrats. A scuffle broke out when two senior bureaucrats wanted to sleep with the same girl. When she escaped from their clutches and fled, one of them asked the police to pursue her vehicle. In the course of their pursuit, the police fired at the vehicle and the girl, Babli, a well-known dancer from Hyderabad sustained serious bullet injuries. Subsequently, when the incident was reported in the press, the DC, SDM and other officials involved were suspended and an official inquiry was ordered by the provincial government.
A considerable number of bureaucrats, politicians and others with power and pelf have their “keeps” as well. A source says: “In return for fixed monthly expenses, the “keep” is available on call to the man in question.” There have been instances when clients have become serious in their affections and married their regular call girls. However, according to Sheereen, a local call girl: “Usually, the men are dissuaded by pressure from family and friends who advise them against it on the grounds that marrying such a girl would be a stain on their family honour.” Sheereen herself has had two serious liaisons, both of which came to naught.
Commercial sex was at its height until the late ’90s, but the severe economic downturn in the country over the last few years has had a negative impact on this business as well. Says a young sex worker named Shazia: “In the good days, we were so busy we barely had time to return or at times even answer our clients’ calls, but now we often make calls to them ourselves to offer our services. It’s a hardly a break even situation these days.”
Many pimps, meanwhile, have turned to peddling young girls to attract otherwise reluctant customers. According to reports, 20 per cent of the prostitutes in Pakistan are children under the age of 16. It is estimated that in Asia, over one million children are involved in the sex trade often under conditions no better than slavery.
Ms. Tahira, a ‘madam’ who has been operating in Karachi for the last decade, said: “Every man who comes asks for younger and younger girls. The demand for them means that the young ones fetch more money and get more clients per day.”
Most analysts recognise poverty as a crucial factor in driving women towards an occupation such as prostitution. This factor, compounded by their low status in this society, results in a lethal combination that marginalises women and ensures their continuous flow into this profession. Caught in a vicious cycle from which few escape, it renders them even more vulnerable to exploitation and victimisation.
One analyst commented: “In this institution, the body is that of the women and the pleasure derived from it is totally that of men.”
Sex and Pakistan vs. Rape and The World Media
There can be perhaps nothing worse than the misery of ignorance. To be attached to a body that does as it does, to be just a puppet in the forces of nature. Yet this is the fate of millions. People
can live in incredible fear of their bodies, instincts and desires. In a male preferred culture this fear is mixed with exultation at the power that society accords to the male gender, genitalia and identity. The male psyche becomes a pyramid of negativity, first the fear and near disgust at bodily functions, then the sense of power and on top of it all the maddening guilt. The guilt is often sublimated through a suffocating pseudo spirituality and multiple taboos about sexual practices. Since factual information is absent and hard to obtain, it cannot act as the conflict reducer. Information about sex in these societies is largely through porn or phobic beliefs, further increasing taboos and suspicion.
In a society that accords a supernormal place to sex, sex also becomes a weapon. Withholding or giving sex is a weapon. Rape or forcing sex on an unwilling participant becomes a weapon of revenge. Sex and power are forever linked in an ignorant society. For the longest time, repressing female sexuality has been a solution to balance the power struggle between the sexes and gain power for women. Clothing that covers and controls the female body has always been used in societies that are scientifically ignorant and do not provide access to contraceptive methods. This repression of female sexuality helps tip the balance of power towards women. They become the coveted, the desired, and the pure. Men are seen as the abnormally sexual, the unclean who are to be protected from or negotiated with for lifelong protection and fealty. The female takes the role of the victim and the male the aggressor. The rules of engagement are then simple. The female to be always controlled and kept separated from mingling with men till a lifelong mate is found. After that the female is under his control and protection from other men.
Change and Transition
In this familiar backdrop of social morality certain events trigger a media reaction to any news of rape or use of sex as a weapon. Firstly, women who do not accept the status quo/ the balance of power. Those who rebel against a system that represses their sexuality often see it as a lack of freedom. Women don’t want to give up their public freedoms just to be assured of lifelong support and protection from a mate. They want to renegotiate since the price is way too high for many. Secondly, the increasing number of catalysts to change—media, both printed and audio-visual acts as a catalyst. Ultimately women start believing that there is a better alternative out there namely, true love, social respect and sexual freedom.
The third reason for heightened media awareness of rape cases is the increasingly available factual information about human biology, this information reduces the fear of taboos in the larger society and the taboos lose meaning and power. For example, for men not having children is not seen as a sign of lower than average virility and for women desire for sex is not thought of as taboo.
This change directly threatens the previously accepted male oriented balance of power in society. The male feels that he is losing social status and power. Over time he has become almost proud of being the bad guy in this social set-up but there is little direct benefit to the male in this transition phase. Here he is still the ‘bad’ guy who has been raised to believe in the morality that he can literally buy a ‘good’ woman with a regular job but fewer and fewer women are ‘good.’ Especially, the more desirable women are becoming ‘bad’. His alternatives for finding ‘good’ women are fewer and he also feels cheated because the social status of being male has lost its perks—in the emerging moral code he could have had some fun before being saddled with a ‘good’ woman and several children. For the man trapped in the older moral code, suddenly the world is becoming an all-together immoral place, where the women have betrayed him and have also stopped supporting his identity as the powerful male.
The Morality of Rape
Rape has never been recognized as a crime in ignorant and primitive societies. It has always been accorded as the privilege of a man to assert his status and sense of manhood or power. Raping your enemy’s women—or raping the women of a land after conquest is a sort of ritual. At the heart of this ritual is the belief that doing so will annihilate your enemy. The reasoning is fairly simple. Rape quite often leads to children. These children are no longer the enemy tribe—in a nutshell your enemy will not survive since the new generation are now of your blood. Historically, the sub-continent has had a continuous history of invasions and conquests. Rape is almost a historic custom.
Pakistan is in a transition phase, where sexual taboos are slowly making way for more female sexual freedoms. Information is replacing fear and suspicion and men are losing the higher social status that they have enjoyed. However, Pakistan to this day has a very primitive moral code that works in a fairly primitive society that every now and then looks at itself in a different moral mirror—especially the parts of society that are ashamed of their primitive moral code and want change. These parts of society are often the ‘haves’ who travel, read and think that the grass is greener on the West side of the world. Why ‘think?’ Isn’t it so?. Perhaps this is a cruel choice of words—isn’t there a universal human rights code, a rulebook that defines what is humane? Isn’t Pakistan abrogating that rule book? Isn’t there Amnesty International? The modern Avatars of what is good and righteous, the institutions that are trying to replace indigenous cultures and religions with a universal truth? These Avatars every so often talk about human rights abuses in places like Pakistan, compile reports and write to governments. Shouldn’t the world’s poor and ignorant listen to these new Avatars, suddenly emancipate and abolish the moral codes they were reared on? All of it now, this second.
Rape is recognized and punished as a criminal offense in a society where:
1. Women’s reproductive functions are not considered unclean. Whereas, in a primitive society, women are banned from prayer and public areas during menstruation.
2. Women mingle in public places without escort, whereas in a primitive society women are valuable property at best.
3. Women choose their own mate, whereas in a more primitive society they accept their mates.
4. Women’s clothing is more a matter of personal choice rather than high social pressure. Clothing is a complex issue, however in such a society women generally do not face intense public or family pressure in making choices.
5. A wife can choose whether or not to have sex with her husband or what kind of sex.
6. Female children are celebrated.
Rape cannot be considered a crime in Pakistan or punished or acknowledged because neither of the above conditions is true in the larger fabric of society. When that will be so, is a question to ask the activists. Whenever that happens it will be because of the efforts of the local people.
The International Media’s Reactions
The West has greatly humane laws but it has its contradictions.
The question is:
Where is Amnesty International when serial killers pick up prostitutes and slowly dismember them from the slums of the developed world? Why is not the terrible moral code of the US or Canada or UK ever discussed in newspapers, a moral code that makes medical care, old parents and children appear to be a waste of time and money?. Why are the developed world’s leaders never asked about teenage pregnancies, child sex, drugs and female prostitution by the less developed world’s news hacks? How about asking, Mr Bush, what is your comment on divorce rates, steadily increasing cancer, the ozone hole, the Kyota treaty and ad nauseum?
Where is the world’s conscience when the crime happens in the West? Why do large corporations fund large NGO’s to protect the miserable women of the East? There are lots of desperately poor women out here who battle without family or social support to raise children. Why is every rape in Pakistan front-page international news? And why are the West’s heinous crimes only local news?
Why?
Perhaps, it is so because Pakistan treads a very difficult political fault-line that will affect global politics for decades. Perhaps because Pakistan is considered to be in the hub of the action between the new world and the old. Perhaps because it exists in a time warp in the middle of the Islamic moral code, the Christian moral code and the indigenous culture of Hinduism. Because the powers that be don’t know what real Pakistani ideology is and they would like to tip it more favourably towards its own side through legislation that conforms to the majority of the world. In a nutshell, the world public is unsure about what Pakistan is all about. Editors’ like decisive news e.g., rape and bombing that show Pakistan’s true colours more often. Rape, bombs and terror in Pakistan will be the stuff that newspapers talk about because no editor in the world has decided that Pakistan is OK. The safe image of ‘us poor but creative Indians making a living’ is not Pakistan’s. The safe image of ‘us hardworking Chinese—open a factory?’ is also not Pakistan’s lot. The fact that Pakistan is about meat curries and sleepy afternoons just hasn’t made it to the world’s conscience.
Somehow the overall good of the Western system has convinced us all. The world has passed a judgement and it favour’s the West’s choices and moral reasoning regardless of the inevitable contradictions and flaws.
Instead Pakistan’s contradictions do not tip positively towards creating a safe image. Somehow the fantastic contradictions between the fashion designers, the novelists and Mukhtaran Mai all come out with an overarching negative image. There is a magnetic pull in the story of the suave President and the crazy legislation amid the backdrop of the Taliban and Al-Quaida. Pakistan to the world means drama, violence and thugs. It has shock factor and oomph. It has story power. That is why it is the best of times to be heard and yet the worst of times to shout.
Is the Government of Pakistan listening to the drum rolls? It has a cue and an audience, but does it have a story that relegates rape to a backseat? On a less serious note, perhaps Pakistan needs a newsworthy female foreign diplomat. Are there any takers? But, please. No white dupatta.
can live in incredible fear of their bodies, instincts and desires. In a male preferred culture this fear is mixed with exultation at the power that society accords to the male gender, genitalia and identity. The male psyche becomes a pyramid of negativity, first the fear and near disgust at bodily functions, then the sense of power and on top of it all the maddening guilt. The guilt is often sublimated through a suffocating pseudo spirituality and multiple taboos about sexual practices. Since factual information is absent and hard to obtain, it cannot act as the conflict reducer. Information about sex in these societies is largely through porn or phobic beliefs, further increasing taboos and suspicion.
In a society that accords a supernormal place to sex, sex also becomes a weapon. Withholding or giving sex is a weapon. Rape or forcing sex on an unwilling participant becomes a weapon of revenge. Sex and power are forever linked in an ignorant society. For the longest time, repressing female sexuality has been a solution to balance the power struggle between the sexes and gain power for women. Clothing that covers and controls the female body has always been used in societies that are scientifically ignorant and do not provide access to contraceptive methods. This repression of female sexuality helps tip the balance of power towards women. They become the coveted, the desired, and the pure. Men are seen as the abnormally sexual, the unclean who are to be protected from or negotiated with for lifelong protection and fealty. The female takes the role of the victim and the male the aggressor. The rules of engagement are then simple. The female to be always controlled and kept separated from mingling with men till a lifelong mate is found. After that the female is under his control and protection from other men.
Change and Transition
In this familiar backdrop of social morality certain events trigger a media reaction to any news of rape or use of sex as a weapon. Firstly, women who do not accept the status quo/ the balance of power. Those who rebel against a system that represses their sexuality often see it as a lack of freedom. Women don’t want to give up their public freedoms just to be assured of lifelong support and protection from a mate. They want to renegotiate since the price is way too high for many. Secondly, the increasing number of catalysts to change—media, both printed and audio-visual acts as a catalyst. Ultimately women start believing that there is a better alternative out there namely, true love, social respect and sexual freedom.
The third reason for heightened media awareness of rape cases is the increasingly available factual information about human biology, this information reduces the fear of taboos in the larger society and the taboos lose meaning and power. For example, for men not having children is not seen as a sign of lower than average virility and for women desire for sex is not thought of as taboo.
This change directly threatens the previously accepted male oriented balance of power in society. The male feels that he is losing social status and power. Over time he has become almost proud of being the bad guy in this social set-up but there is little direct benefit to the male in this transition phase. Here he is still the ‘bad’ guy who has been raised to believe in the morality that he can literally buy a ‘good’ woman with a regular job but fewer and fewer women are ‘good.’ Especially, the more desirable women are becoming ‘bad’. His alternatives for finding ‘good’ women are fewer and he also feels cheated because the social status of being male has lost its perks—in the emerging moral code he could have had some fun before being saddled with a ‘good’ woman and several children. For the man trapped in the older moral code, suddenly the world is becoming an all-together immoral place, where the women have betrayed him and have also stopped supporting his identity as the powerful male.
The Morality of Rape
Rape has never been recognized as a crime in ignorant and primitive societies. It has always been accorded as the privilege of a man to assert his status and sense of manhood or power. Raping your enemy’s women—or raping the women of a land after conquest is a sort of ritual. At the heart of this ritual is the belief that doing so will annihilate your enemy. The reasoning is fairly simple. Rape quite often leads to children. These children are no longer the enemy tribe—in a nutshell your enemy will not survive since the new generation are now of your blood. Historically, the sub-continent has had a continuous history of invasions and conquests. Rape is almost a historic custom.
Pakistan is in a transition phase, where sexual taboos are slowly making way for more female sexual freedoms. Information is replacing fear and suspicion and men are losing the higher social status that they have enjoyed. However, Pakistan to this day has a very primitive moral code that works in a fairly primitive society that every now and then looks at itself in a different moral mirror—especially the parts of society that are ashamed of their primitive moral code and want change. These parts of society are often the ‘haves’ who travel, read and think that the grass is greener on the West side of the world. Why ‘think?’ Isn’t it so?. Perhaps this is a cruel choice of words—isn’t there a universal human rights code, a rulebook that defines what is humane? Isn’t Pakistan abrogating that rule book? Isn’t there Amnesty International? The modern Avatars of what is good and righteous, the institutions that are trying to replace indigenous cultures and religions with a universal truth? These Avatars every so often talk about human rights abuses in places like Pakistan, compile reports and write to governments. Shouldn’t the world’s poor and ignorant listen to these new Avatars, suddenly emancipate and abolish the moral codes they were reared on? All of it now, this second.
Rape is recognized and punished as a criminal offense in a society where:
1. Women’s reproductive functions are not considered unclean. Whereas, in a primitive society, women are banned from prayer and public areas during menstruation.
2. Women mingle in public places without escort, whereas in a primitive society women are valuable property at best.
3. Women choose their own mate, whereas in a more primitive society they accept their mates.
4. Women’s clothing is more a matter of personal choice rather than high social pressure. Clothing is a complex issue, however in such a society women generally do not face intense public or family pressure in making choices.
5. A wife can choose whether or not to have sex with her husband or what kind of sex.
6. Female children are celebrated.
Rape cannot be considered a crime in Pakistan or punished or acknowledged because neither of the above conditions is true in the larger fabric of society. When that will be so, is a question to ask the activists. Whenever that happens it will be because of the efforts of the local people.
The International Media’s Reactions
The West has greatly humane laws but it has its contradictions.
The question is:
Where is Amnesty International when serial killers pick up prostitutes and slowly dismember them from the slums of the developed world? Why is not the terrible moral code of the US or Canada or UK ever discussed in newspapers, a moral code that makes medical care, old parents and children appear to be a waste of time and money?. Why are the developed world’s leaders never asked about teenage pregnancies, child sex, drugs and female prostitution by the less developed world’s news hacks? How about asking, Mr Bush, what is your comment on divorce rates, steadily increasing cancer, the ozone hole, the Kyota treaty and ad nauseum?
Where is the world’s conscience when the crime happens in the West? Why do large corporations fund large NGO’s to protect the miserable women of the East? There are lots of desperately poor women out here who battle without family or social support to raise children. Why is every rape in Pakistan front-page international news? And why are the West’s heinous crimes only local news?
Why?
Perhaps, it is so because Pakistan treads a very difficult political fault-line that will affect global politics for decades. Perhaps because Pakistan is considered to be in the hub of the action between the new world and the old. Perhaps because it exists in a time warp in the middle of the Islamic moral code, the Christian moral code and the indigenous culture of Hinduism. Because the powers that be don’t know what real Pakistani ideology is and they would like to tip it more favourably towards its own side through legislation that conforms to the majority of the world. In a nutshell, the world public is unsure about what Pakistan is all about. Editors’ like decisive news e.g., rape and bombing that show Pakistan’s true colours more often. Rape, bombs and terror in Pakistan will be the stuff that newspapers talk about because no editor in the world has decided that Pakistan is OK. The safe image of ‘us poor but creative Indians making a living’ is not Pakistan’s. The safe image of ‘us hardworking Chinese—open a factory?’ is also not Pakistan’s lot. The fact that Pakistan is about meat curries and sleepy afternoons just hasn’t made it to the world’s conscience.
Somehow the overall good of the Western system has convinced us all. The world has passed a judgement and it favour’s the West’s choices and moral reasoning regardless of the inevitable contradictions and flaws.
Instead Pakistan’s contradictions do not tip positively towards creating a safe image. Somehow the fantastic contradictions between the fashion designers, the novelists and Mukhtaran Mai all come out with an overarching negative image. There is a magnetic pull in the story of the suave President and the crazy legislation amid the backdrop of the Taliban and Al-Quaida. Pakistan to the world means drama, violence and thugs. It has shock factor and oomph. It has story power. That is why it is the best of times to be heard and yet the worst of times to shout.
Is the Government of Pakistan listening to the drum rolls? It has a cue and an audience, but does it have a story that relegates rape to a backseat? On a less serious note, perhaps Pakistan needs a newsworthy female foreign diplomat. Are there any takers? But, please. No white dupatta.
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