Teens won't need to prove they're in school to acquire driver's licence
Toronto Sun, By ANTONELLA ARTUSO, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF, November 4, 2006
The Dalton McGuinty government has backed away from a controversial provision in
its anti-dropout legislation that would have required teens to prove they're
still in school to get a driver's licence.
As originally written, Bill 52 forced teenagers under the age of 18 to show
proof of attendance at school or an approved training/co-op program when
applying for a G1, G2 or full driver's licence.
Under amendments introduced this week, judges will be given the power to strip
truants of their driving privileges.
KENNEDY'S LEGISLATION
Former education minister Gerard Kennedy introduced the legislation -- which
raises the legal dropout age to 18 from 16-years-old -- at a high-profile media
conference last December.
At the time, the government pitched driver's licence refusal as an effective
enforcement tool.
Conservative MPP Frank Klees said yesterday that parents, students and educators
appearing at public hearings for Bill 52 were united in their condemnation of
the driver's licence penalty.
"It was referred to as punitive, as counter-productive, as impossible to
administer," Klees said.
The government tried to save face by giving judges the right to strip licences,
but very few truancy cases ever make it to court, Klees said.
As it now is written, the bill is virtually unenforceable, Klees said.
Valerie Poulin, a spokesman for Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, said the
government listened to its education stakeholders and made changes to address
their concerns.
Stripping a student of a driver's licence will not be done lightly, she
said."We're basically making it the ultimate last resort," she said.
Of the 281 truancy charges laid in 2003/04, fewer than six resulted in a
court-ordered fine, she said.
After Plymouth case shocked the nation, police say number of women abusing children
The Guardian UK and The Observer
4 October 2009
Researchers from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF), a
child protection charity that deals with British female sex
offenders, said its studies confirmed that a "fair proportion" of
child abusers were women. Donald Findlater, director of research and
development, said results indicated that up to 20% of a conservative
estimate of 320,000 suspected UK paedophiles were women.
MORRISTOWN, N.J. — A 35-year-old seventh-grade teacher was charged with having sex with one of her students at least 20 times at the teacher's home.
Jodi Thorp, 35, surrendered to authorities Monday on charges of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors claim she had sex with the boy at her Mendham home between June 2001 and September 2002. The boy is now 15.
A married primary schoolteacher was jailed for 15 months yesterday after admitting having sex with an underage
teenage boy.
Hannah Grice, 32, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of indecent assault on the boy, who was aged
14 and 15 at the time of the offences.
Sentencing her at Stafford crown court, Judge John Shand told Grice, from Cannock, Staffordshire, she had abused
her position of trust.
"Cases such as this are, of course, made worse by the fact that you were a member of the teaching profession," he
told her. "You should have been very sensitive indeed to child welfare issues." Grice was also ordered to register
as a sex offender for 10 years. Read More ..
VANCOUVER - Canada's largest study into the sexual exploitation of street
kids and runaways has shattered some myths about who the abusers might be
- with the most surprising finding being that many are women seeking sex
with young males.
"Some youth in each gender were exploited by women with more than three
out of four (79 per cent) sexually exploited males reporting exchanging
sex for money or goods with a female," said Elizabeth Saewyc, associate
professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia and principal
investigator for the study conducted by Vancouver's McCreary Centre Society.
"I must admit it wasn't something we were expecting."
PITTSBURGH (AP) - A western Pennsylvania mother has been charged with
giving her 13-year-old daughter drugs and alcohol so the woman's
boyfriend could impregnate the girl without her knowing, police said
Thursday.
Shana Brown, 32, is no longer able to have children but wanted to
have a baby with her current boyfriend, Duane Calloway, said Uniontown
Police Detective Donald Gmitter. The pair decided to drug the girl so
Calloway, 40, could have sex with her, he added.
"There's some sick people on this case," Gmitter said.
Brown has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child,
turned herself in Thursday and was being held in the Fayette County
jail, police said. Brown's attorney did not return a call for comment.
Calloway faces several counts of attempted rape. He was arrested
Wednesday and remains in jail. It was not immediately clear whether he
had an attorney.
The three attacks occurred in Brown's home in Uniontown, about 50
miles south of Pittsburgh, according to the criminal complaint.
Because we assume women never commit child sexual abuse, we treat one who is accused with disproportionate disgust
The Guardian, UK
June 11, 2009
About 20 years ago, I gave a talk about sexual abuse to the RAF.
At the end, a young airman came up to me and said, "It's not just
men, you know," before hurriedly walking away. That pulled me up
sharp. Up till then, like most people working in the area of sexual
abuse, I'd always assumed the abusers were men.
This just isn't so. We can't be sure of the precise prevalence of
sexual abuse by women, as there hasn't been enough research into the
subject. Academics have just assumed it doesn't happened. But
conservative estimates suggest that 5% of girls and 20% of boys who
have reported being abused have been abused by women.
From my own research - I have had 800 cases reported to me - I
believe the more likely figure is that it is 20% of all sexual abuse
that is done by women.
It is women themselves who have done most to propagate this
conspiracy of silence. It has almost become a feminist axiom that it
is men who are to blame for abuse and that if women are in some way
implicated, it is only because they have somehow been forced or
controlled into doing so against their will. Again, this turns out
to be completely incorrect: 75% of the cases reported to me involved
women acting on their own.
Read More ..
Mainichi Daily News, Sakai, Osaka, Japan, November 26, 2006
SAKAI, Osaka -- A woman accused of cutting off her newborn son's private
parts in 2004 was ordered Monday to spend five years behind bars.
The Sakai branch of the Osaka District Court convicted Shizue Tamura,
27, a resident of Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, of inflicting bodily injury.
"The way she committed the crime was unprecedented, inhumane and
cruel," Presiding Judge Masahiro Hosoi said as he handed down the ruling.
Prosecutors had demanded an eight-year prison term.
Read More ..
Females Convicted of Sexual Assault automatically get
lighter sentences
The mother of one victim said after Bromiley was jailed: "If I could
get hold of her I'd kill her. She stole my son's childhood and he's now
in a terrible state and has threatened suicide. She got away lightly and
should have got at least 10 years."
Judge David Hale explained that he was constrained
by the law which only allows for specific charges to be brought when the
offender is a woman. Had she been male, he said, the sentence would have
been in double figures.
He said: "As a house mother you were in charge of children who were
mentally and educationally disadvantaged and you took your own advantage
of them for your own needs and sexual pleasure. This is the worst case of
a woman abusing children in her care any court in the land has had to face."
Read More ..
The Men's Project "Men
of Courage"
1st Ontario Provincial Conference on Male Sexual Victimizations.
It was held March 17-18, 2008
Sheraton Centre Hotel
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Men's Project, an Ottawa / Cornwall registered charitable service
provider with the assistance of a grant from the Ministry of the Attorney General, hosted
this conference.
About The Men's Project
From what was initially a volunteer run initiative, The Men's Project has
grown to become one of Canada's leading counselling and educational agencies
for men and their families, and in particular for all male survivors of
sexual abuse committed by males and females.
The Men's Project has witnessed incredible expansion of their funded services,
their
fee-for-service programs, and their training and consultation services.
Their mandate is "helping men
and their families build better lives".
Read More ..
