Ah the the classic list of blame the victim excuses
"she dressed older than her age"
"wearing make-up"
"fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s"
"She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground"
She was eleven.
She was brutally raped by up to 18 adolescent and adult men.
The familiar plea:
“These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”
The blame right on the girls mother
“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?”
This poses the question
What were the fathers of the boys thinking when they raised such beasts?
Rape is not the victims fault, it is the fault of the aggressor[s].
The video led the police to an abandoned trailer, more evidence and, eventually, to a roundup over the last month of 18 young men and teenage boys on charges of participating in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in the abandoned trailer home, the authorities said.
I cannot get my head around the logic that an eleven year old can be in some way blamed for instigating such an attack, I don't care what she is wearing, how old she looked and dressed they have no bearing on the incident whatsoever.
The mere fact that people can think this way shows why rapists can walk free, that the boys involved can somehow be pardoned for being vicious perverted thugs.
Rape is never the victims fault, nobody asks for it and that is the fundamental truth of the matter.
If anyone needs watching it the rapists and not where the victim is walking nor who she/he has talked to during this time. As soon as you start blaming the victim you start pardoning the predators.
Updated by LaFeminista at Wed Mar 9, 2011, 01:43:22 PM
H/T TomP
Tell the New York Times to issue a published apology for their coverage of this incident and publish an editorial from a victim's rights expert on how victim blaming in the media contributes to the prevalance of sexual assault. No one ever deserves to be raped and no victim should ever be told it was their fault. New York Times, we expect better. We demand better.
http://www.change.org/...
Updated by LaFeminista at Thu Mar 10, 2011, 01:37:47 AM
Just two things.
1] I was surprised by the way in which the article referred to the girl by using ugly quotes whereas more the tone was neutral when referring to the accused.
2] I'm not sure of the pertinence of these quotes to the story itself except to in some way down play the crime.
The article was skewed in favor of the accused by the overall tone and nothing positive was written about the girl.
Updated by LaFeminista at Thu Mar 10, 2011, 01:41:19 AM
A Letter published in the NYT today
http://www.nytimes.com/...