By Scott Sayare
'Obviously, this affair is not going to encourage victims to declare themselves' - (New York Times) A French jury handed down light sentences and acquittals in a closely watched gang-rape case late Wednesday, prompting outrage from women’s advocacy groups and consternation from government ministers.
Fourteen men were accused of participating in repeated rapes of two teenage girls in the housing projects of Fontenay-sous-Bois, outside Paris, from 1999 to 2001. The victims, now 29, reported being surrounded and raped by as many as two dozen aggressors at once.
Ten of the 14 defendants, all minors at the time the crimes were said to have occurred, were acquitted Wednesday. More worrisome to critics, however, were the relatively light sentences for the four men who were convicted of gang rapes: two were given a year in prison; the third, six months; and the fourth, a suspended sentence. Under French law, minors convicted of gang rape can receive terms as long as 10 years in prison. …To Read More….
My Take- I find this to be more than a little disturbing. Men who will rape women will murder women. A man who rapes a woman has no mercy. What is most disturbing are those who are expected to enforce the laws undermine those laws. What are people supposed to do? What is the alternative? Anarchy!
These women were raped by their abusers and abused by the system. The word civilized carries the basic meaning of being "fit to live in a city". When the traditional foundations needed for stable moral social behavior disintegrate there is no civilization. So then, do women have more rights, or less protection, less respect, less safe havens and lesser concern about all of this by society as a whole? The so-called civilized world is turning into an emotional and social 'dark ages', with all the nightmares that entails.
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