worried about DD/DS being molested on plane? plane has more chance of crashing!

[ManfredMann]

www.theotherglassceiling.com/2014/05/sexism-paternalism-flying-high-what-are.html

give the blokes a break !

Utter fool, please stop and help if you can. There have been too many examples of children getting hurt because adults felt awkward about helping - I think 3 adults saw James Bulger crying and obviously in distress but didn't feel able to do anything.

But I can understand why men feel they can't risk it. And that is so terribly sad.

Thanks. To be honest, whether to help or not would never have crossed my mind before but after reading this thread it has cast a seed of doubt.

Ive learnt a lot on MN and have found that men are the source of much concern due to the high numbers of abuse/rapes etc. it seems we aren't a particularly safe class so perhaps men should revert to being 'seen but not heard' ?

How depressing

Nobody is saying all men are unsafe for children, and all women are safe. Only you have said that Spero.

But statistically, men are more likely to sexually abuse and sexually harass girls and teenagers, than women are.

I know the nuance of the above statement seems to be hard for you to understand. So I fully expect to be accused of saying that only men sexually abuse children.

Utterfool - Of course you help a child in distress.

And utterfool, most violence, rape and sexual abuse is committed by men, often against girls and women, but also against other men. That is a fact. Men who are not violent, should be stepping up and camapigning and educating other emn and especially boys, not to be violent. There are lots of women doing work in this area, men need to be involved too.

I have never said all men are unsafe. I am saying that it is a dangerous corollary to this panic at paedophiles on planes that you are actually teaching your children that ALL men pose a risk, this depriving them of the opportunity to understand what is really risky.

Nor do I have a problem with nuance. But cold hard facts are also necessary.

So I ask again - what proportion of the general male adult population do you say are likely to sexually abuse children?

A few years ago DH and I were walking past our local primary school about 15 minutes after home time. The school let children leave by a side gate onto a small road.
There was a boy on the road crying. I stopped to ask him what the matter was. He said that the school had sent him out but there was no one there to collect him.
I took him up to the door that he came out through and told him to go back in and find a teacher and that I would wait for him.
DH didn't know what he would have done had I not been there. How would it have looked a lone male leading a child off? Very different to me I expect.

of course you help a child in distress

I think the exasperated 'of course' here is a bit harsh. If a parent is upset by a strange male even sitting next to their child at all, in full view of other passengers on a plane, or other viewers in a cinema, it's not a stretch of the imagination at all to think that the same parent would be suspicious of a man trying to help.

eg mum is struggling with baby in buggy and toddler runs off around the corner but takes a wrong turn and is lost. Toddler standing crying, man in van (just to use the most scary example) pulls over, leans across passenger seat, opens door and calls out to child to ask if he's ok. Just at that moment, mum rounds the corner in a panic and sees, in her mind, a man trying to entice her child into his van. Would you want to be that man? I wouldn't.

I'm the least likely person to see a paedophile on every corner and even I would panic and assume the worst if I was that hypothetical mum.

No parent is upset by a child sitting next to a male stranger on a plane. Just as I am not upset if I have to sit far away from an exit on a plane. But where I can, I will take small actions to minimise risk such as an unaccompanied child sitting next to a female, or on a plane sitting near an exit.

These small things harm no one, so I think it is silly not to do them.

And I would not assume a man was trying to entice a child away. Stranger child abductiosn are incredibly rare.

The NSPCC say 1 in 20 children have been sexually abused Spero. Nobody knows how many adults have sexually abused children, but it is safe to say that it is not the odd one or two.

Turgid

If society is such that children are moved away from men in public places then this contradicts your assertion that I should help a child in distress.

You can't have it all ways round and teach children they need to minimise risk, whilst at the same time expecting men to help distressed children.

yes, but rather than that equating to each of those victims having a different abuser, surely it's more likely that each abuser has many victims? Which makes it a lot harder to estimate number of perpetrators than number of victims.

by which I mean the number of perpetrators is likely to be significantly smaller than the number of victims.

Turgid: I posted about being molested by a woman on a plane. I was 27 at the time. The cabin crew let her get very drunk very quickly on the plane and she started trying to grab my breasts and put her hand up my skirt.

Women are not necessarily safe.

If you get on a plane without pre allocated seating and choose yourself to sit next to a woman, or a white person, or a thin person or whatever, then you do have free choice.

If you ask the airline, a corporate body, to assist you in this seat selection then you are bringing in discrimination. Also, you are impacting on others - examples upthread have been cited where female posters were moved from their preferred seats for this. Frankly I'm amazed airlines are legally allowed to do this - thinking of the recent eu law whereby women can't get cheaper car insurance any more even though there is a far greater and well established statistical difference in risk in that instance. I suppose if the man who is moved always, albeit unwittingly, gets a "better" seat out of the deal, that might keep it legal.

If we're going to say that we must put the child next to the most statistically safe passenger it could get much worse. Insurance companies go into this kind of thing a lot.

You should probably keep the poor child away from middle-income, self-employed, baptist, vegetarians - statistically speaking.

It gets worse still. Every now and then someone will try to make something of the fact that more black people are in prison than white (proportionally speaking).

Now a bit of thought will tell you that this isn't because of their skin colour at all, but still it means that a black passenger is statistically more likely to have a criminal record than a white one.

So.. "excuse me sir, but I need to move you away from this child because you are black. You do understand that we must do everything to improve the odds that we can".

At some point you have to face up to the fact that it's paranoia, not caution.

Paranoia and prejudice.

The 'unaccompanied minor' threads come up quite regularly on here and I always feel for the parents who have to send their children unaccompanied on long haul flights because of family setup/schools /unusual circs/custody even though they aren't sure the child is equipped to deal with it.

We are all agreed that we need to empower our children in these situations.

But this can't be achieved overnight, and some dc are going to be much older than others before they can cope.

Its quite an unusual situation, we're talking about children who may not have even walked to school/got the bus to a friends on their own yet.

But they are expected to travel on a flight which may be 10 hours+, possibly strapped in with the seat belt sign on, low lights and no option to move or get off or use a mobile.

So given the quite unique circumstances and the duty of care the airlines have, I would expect them to do everything to minimise risks (even small ones) and parents to do everything they can to prepare their offspring.

Its interesting what doctrine said about choosing your seat. Of course, on a long haul flight, the passenger can't do that. The airline makes the choice which I suppose is why they are doing this. I'm surprised too that they are legally allowed to following the insurance changes. My guess is that its not an 'official' policy, just something that airlines do.

My understanding is that UM were situated together near the air stewards/stewardesses and where possible together with families. Although I thought this was more about them being looked after and having a more enjoyable flight.

Person, the fact that someone's DH was asked upthread to swap seats with her does seem to be official. I assume the window seat may well have been his allocated seat but they'd swapped between them as couples are wont to do.

There was a (Dutch?) man a few years back who sued BA for sexual discrimination after they insisted he swap seats with his pregnant wife so that he didn't end up sitting next to an unaccompanied teenager. He had refused, as he said his wife needed/wanted the bulkhead seat. There was a bit of a barney about it and apparently the cabin crew said he would be removed from the flight if he did not switch seats. So he did, but subsequently sued them. I believe it was settled out of court.