Putting child protection first

When a group of young people are asked to think imaginatively about how to prepare for an occasion, say the Pope's visit, it is inevitable that some ideas will be sillier and more offensive than others. The ideas thrown up by junior Foreign Office staff showed every sign of being the result of a brainstorming session that concluded shortly before the pubs shut. And, as such, they should have been filed under D for dustbin rather than being circulated to Whitehall and Downing Street staff where it was virtually certain that they would be leaked to the media. Those who played the situation for laughs by suggesting that the Pope be asked to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and launch a range of Benedict-branded condoms may well have thought their suggestions hilarious. But they have helped to shift the emphasis from the need to help countless thousands of children abused by clergy to a government apology to the Vatican. The government had no choice over this, since Britain's Catholics are likely to have seen the suggestions as an attack not simply on those who have raped children but on their faith itself. Putting a religious minority in a situation of feeling that the articles of its faith are under attack actually undermines the fundamentals of a tolerant secular society. It is something that Muslims in Britain and in various European countries have been experiencing for some time, with proposals to ban certain modes of dress and architecture.

Worse, to put the government into a position where it has to apologise to the Vatican means taking the pressure off the priority of putting exploited children's interests first. The widespread problem of sexual assaults on children by a minority of Catholic clergy is only part of the problem. More aggravating has been the systematic cover-ups that took place in several countries, where paedophile priests were simply moved to another parish and frequently continued their crimes with a new set of victims. The culture of cover-up and denial was so endemic as to suggest that failure to put an end to this perversion of the church's teachings and of the law of the land stretched to the highest echelons of the organisation. The number of child victims who saw their evidence ignored or disbelieved attests to an even greater treachery than the original betrayal of trust by their abusers. In giving the lie to the victims and protecting the abusers in the name of defending the reputation of the church, the hierarchy acted immorally and illegally. Those who abused children and those who conspired to cover up their crimes should not simply be subject to internal church procedures. They should face charges in criminal courts and attract due retribution in line with the normal sentences handed out to those who rape children. The Catholic church's stipulation of clerical celibacy must not be used as an excuse for abnormal and criminal behaviour. Many people see forced celibacy as unnatural, but that is a matter for the church itself. Non-Catholics have a right to demand punishment of the wrongdoers, compensation for their victims and future protection for children. But this must not stray into demonisation of an entire faith, the overwhelming majority of whose adherents will have been horrified by the shameful treatment of defenceless children.

Sex mis-education?

How can there be so many lunatics opposed to sex education? Apart from anything else, what makes them think a lesson about sex is going to make kids go out and immediately have sex? It's education about it, not an instruction to get it done before dinner break. Maybe they should demand an end to history lessons as well on the grounds that "I don't want my 14-year-old learning about Napoleon as he's too young to invade Italy." Mark Steel is a comedian, a columnist for the Independent newspaper, and a socialist and activist in Britain. He's the author of two collections about contemporary Britain, It's Not a Runner Bean: Dispatches from a Slightly Successful Comedian and Reasons to Be Cheerful--as well as Vive la Revolution: A Stand-up History of the French Revolution. A law has been devised making sex education compulsory. But now, after "extensive lobbying" from the priesthood, an amendment's been added that religious schools will still be able to teach their own unique Biblical version. For example, according to Ed Balls, Schools Secretary, the schools "can still teach contraception is wrong, but they can't refuse to teach it."

So that's an improvement, I suppose. The Catholic teacher can demonstrate putting a condom on a banana, saying, "First, we expel the air, then place it over the end, then we remember that if you do this for real, you'll face an eternity in unimaginably agonizing molten lava searing through your pores as you scream in soulless anguish while demons submerge you in relentless unbearable horror, then right the way along, nice and snug, and we're done. Now you try." If the only rule is that they have to teach about sex, but it doesn't matter if it's in any way true, the religious schools might as well teach anything they like. They could tell the class: "Copy down these facts: 1) Doing it from behind makes your tongue fall out. 2) Masturbation causes earthquakes. 3) Every time you get an erection, you poke an angel's eye out."

There are no other subjects that schools would be allowed to teach with their own version of the truth. If a teacher told his class, "Some people believe the capital of Italy is Rome, but I've always said it's Nairobi in the North Pole," they wouldn't get an Ofsted report saying, "He might be teaching geography that's cobblers, but he's teaching it, and that's the main thing." Religious schools will probably try this trick with other lessons now to see what they can get away with, refusing to teach chemistry as they don't believe in sulphur, or announcing they won't teach the six times tables, as the Pope's had a vision that it's wrong. So we're left with differing methods of approaching sex education. One might be to acknowledge that we get desires that can be lethal at times, so it's probably for the best if we find ways of managing them safely and respectfully. Or there's the more traditional method, which is more along the lines of "You know those natural feelings you get--well, they're unnatural, so stop having them."

They might as well teach that God wants everyone to be cold, and if we feel a desire to shut the door in winter, we must fight the temptation, and we must go to the park in January in our swimming trunks, and if we shiver or reach for a coat, that's Satan at work, and we should discuss it with the priest. This might do less damage than teaching sex education that involves pictures of sexually transmitted diseases, and stories of the decrepit life that awaits anyone who submits to sexual temptation. Imagine the outrage if people in favor of sex education resorted to those tactics, by saying, "This is what happens if you stay a virgin all your life," and showing a picture of Ann Widdecombe. But somehow, it's when sexuality is most denied and suppressed that you find society most riddled with torment and horror--of abused children shipped out of the country to avoid embarrassment and hushed-up, illegal abortions, and all the things that God doesn't seem to mind as long as no one uses a condom.

But then, the government probably isn't bothered about the social implications of their policy, as long as the schools get good exam results. They won't mind if the Catholic school turns out a heap of screwed-up teenagers as long as they get A grades for correctly calculating the angles in the holy trinity. In any case, it's probably all irrelevant, as most schools manage to make lessons excruciatingly dull, whatever the subject. So it could be a sex education lesson about responsibility in relationships, using the problems of Ashley Cole, and by the end, everyone would be staring out of the window as the teacher bawled, "Come on, we ought to know this, what's wrong with Ashley's texts? Well, before he writes 'then make you scream like a hyena,' there should be punctuation. No wonder he's in trouble, now write it out as he should have done."

Attitudes to rape are forged by the state

The results of a survey this week about rape led to much media comment - and baffled reactions about the attitudes it recorded among people in Britain. According to the report by the Haven service for rape victims, 50 percent of the female respondents believed that victims should take some responsibility for their attack. Large numbers of men also believed that women who have been raped were to blame in some circumstances. Such attitudes are not a result of individual ignorance; they reflect a much wider view of women’s place in society and of systematic women’s oppression. There is a long history of the legal system, judges, police chiefs and politicians trivialising rape or suggesting that women are to blame for it. Until 1994 judges were obliged by law to tell juries that they should seek corroboration of the alleged crime as “women and small children tend to lie about these matters”. These ideas continue to dominate the courts. In 2007, a judge allowed a paedophile who allegedly molested an 11-year-old girl to escape jail when the judge ruled the victim had “welcomed” his advances. And today, although attitudes are officially more enlightened, it’s estimated that only 5 percent of women who are raped report it - just one in 14 reported cases result in a conviction.

As recently as last September, figures gained after a Freedom of Information request showed that some police forces failed to record over 40 percent of rape complaints. Police in Durham said they only ruled five out of 130 rape allegations were not in fact crimes. Yet a further 83 cases were never officially recorded in the first place. Many of the newspapers that affected surprise at the recent survey consistently portray women as mindless objects who are to be judged solely on their looks and then “won”. For some people that encourages the attitude that women are things to be “bought” - or seized. Others newspapers blamed women in different ways. The Telegraph blamed the “uninhibited ‘ladette’ culture” for “fuelling a disturbing new ambivalence towards the crime of rape, particularly among women”. The Mirror’s columnist Sue Carroll managed to use the report to attack Muslims: “A survey tells us half of women think rape victims are to blame for the crime because they wear short skirts or accept a drink. “Who on earth did they ask, women in burqas?” She went on to say that the issue was “mired in confusion” because of the views of “hardline feminists” and that it is “downright stupidity” to be “someone prevaricating over whether to say ‘no’ in a man’s bed”.

Is it any surprise, when such ideas are put forward as “common sense”, that many people end up blaming people who have been raped? The continuing struggle for women’s emancipation involves an absolute assertion that, in all circumstances, no means no—and that rape victims need support, not scapegoating.