Just Like Home

As always, click on the title for the story link.

Australia is doing some soul searching after a horrendous rape case has come to light. The case centers around a 10 year old child who was gang raped by 9 teens and adults. And, that's not the shocking bit . . . the judge in the case didn't give the men involved prison time because she found that the child "probably agreed" to have sex. Never mind that she was too young to legally give consent in their system. Never mind that their justice system first became aware that she was being sexually abused at the age of seven and has mental disabilities. Never mind that the oldest person, and quite possibly the ringleader, was previously listed as a child predator in Australia.

What is interesting about this case, to me, is that until the case made it to the media, no one even bothered to care that there was a serious miscarriage of justice. The prosecution didn't appeal the sentence until after the media got the story . . . and well after the time limit for filing an appeal expired. Social workers, judges, pretty much everyone involved in the case is now doing the big scramble to cover their own asses.

Adding to the national soul searching is that this girl came from an indigenous community. And, from the article the issues faced by Australia's indigenous peoples sounds eerily like those faced by the American indigenous peoples. Abject poverty without investment in infrastructure to create opportunities, drug and alcohol abuses, and serious lack of access to the national justice system.

It's time that nations realize that all their citizens deserve equal protection . . . . not just to be paraded in native costume for cameras.