To be disgusted that Dr Christian Jessen considers some kinds of child rape to be morally excusable on cultural grounds

[frankexchangeofviews]

I’ve just seen this exchange between ‘tv celebrity’ doctor Christian Jessen and an other Dr who is a spokesman for the Green Party on twitter. Are they saying what I think they are saying? Child’s marriage is recognised as a crime worldwide that needs to be stopped , not condoned on the basis of cultural relativism. Maybe they think african girls don’t mind as much???? Or are happy to be mothers at 13. I can’t get my head around it at all.

It's always been a difficult issue - is our current Western culture here in the UK perfect in its time or was it better when I married when rape in marriage did not exist or the other way round in 50 years will people think it wicked and immoral that eg women work part time or that anyone works full time or whatever the thing of the day might be.

It is that issue of whether there are absolute always right moral values which are unchanging through time or whatever we move eve closer to a better perfect morality (or even away from what was a better one) and who decides?

On this "And some girls were drawn in to informal relationships specifically because their older partners would buy them gifts and food. That doesn't make it good for them. That just makes it exploitative." - sadly that is Telford today too and well done to the MP who exposed that (and indeed of course Rotherham too)

I appreciate that there are many, many problems facing young women and girls in poverty in places like Nigeria, as pp have pointed out.

And yes - trying to stamp out child marriage might seem impossible/ a drop in the ocean.

Yes, it's a complex situation in some ways. But in others it's very simple.

This thread was started in response to a specfic minimising comment from a misogynistic man. And it is right to challenge him. And it forcing 12 year old girls into marriage and motherhood is wrong.

The tweet was abhorrent because it showed a totally misogynistic agenda; it assumed that how we label those men is what's important here.

Who cares if we, in this country, call them paedophiles or not? It doesn't alter the experience of the girls who are their victims in their country.

And as for being sensitive to other cultures... Yeah, right. It isn't their country's culture. It's MALE culture. It's not built by the women of those countries and it does not serve those women.

I am not sure it always is men. In a lot of cultures the culture is maintained and driven by women actually. Of course both the men and women probably should be told aspects of their culture are wrong and Western culture is "better" - we've been doing that since the missionaries told the natives to cover up their loins years ago and told them that sex outside of marriage was a sin. We seem now to have decided in the Uk that actually those more ancient cultures are superior to Christianity as regards free love and free sex but only as long as you have reached your 16th birthday. We are pretty arbitrary and not consistent around Western nations. The Catholic code of canon law for example has age 14 (raised to that in 1917) as the age for marriage or higher if the land you are in has a higher age. Spain had 14 I think until recently. Utah has 15 if a court orders it but normally 16 now. Saudi has no age limit. It does vary a lot all over the planet including on all kinds of interseting moral issues like can you have sex with your cousin, can you marry your cousin etc etc.

I'm sure lots of women do maintain the culture of child marriage, in the same way that women in our culture help to drive misogynistic elements of our culture (body shaming etc)

But ultimately these cultures (including our own) have been driven by men's desires. Women have been trained very, very well to maintain the systems.

I've had run-ins on Twitter with that other "doctor". He is a vile misogynist who actively trolls women, harassed them and insults any woman who refuses to agree with him.

He should be struck off if he is a doctor for his behaviour as it goes against the GMC code of ethics. I doubt has a doctor though because he spends all his time on Twitter sprouting pure and utter horseshite

A4710Rider

As far as I am concerned, no one spoke out, at all, ever, at least not until the very end...

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/30/rotherham-girls-could-have-been-spared-ann-cryer

There was another female MP whose name I just can't remember at the moment - perhaps another poster might know it - who complained constantly ten years before that. She was vilified and abused, and couldn't get anyone to listen. I'm fairly sure she was Labour.

From what I can read from Barbarian is saying (and it agrees with what I have seen in the various communities I've worked in with significant poverty), EVERYONE is making choices within the range of what's possible for them, in their situation.

Sadly, in some circumstances getting married at 12 or 13 is a more attractive choice than remaining unmarried.

If you have the choice between a 'blesser', as they're called here in South African poor urban communities (older man who gives you mmoney/clothes/food etc in return for sex), or dropping out of school through lack of what he provides, which do you choose?

OF COURSE no-one should have to make that choice. OF COURSE they are being exploited.

But you might decide (as many girls do) to have the 'blesser' and continue with your education - and to have your own boyfriend of your own choice in parallel. Because without an education you have no chance of ever being in a position to be financially independent enough to leave behind being exploited.

And not all men are in a position to make independent choices either. Be humiliated, an outcast, possibly be beaten and/or raped because you are assumed to be homosexual? Or agree to marry the 12 year old and have sex with her just as all your friends and family do?

The age of consent here is 18 - it's also one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to child rape.

The majority of the world's population live in situations where their choices are extremely limited, and mostly involve trying to survive as best they can - what is the least worst option?

If you really want to do something about it, support organisations that work with locally based partners to educate, challenge from within, and provide genuine choices and alternatives (and those that pick up the pieces).

One of the organisations I worked with was supporting a 18 year old who was pregnant after being raped, and had agreed (under pressure from her family) to marry the rapist.

She was offered an alternative - a refuge, support to report the rape etc. She didn't want it. She would have been ostracised from her family and community. It wasn't what any of us wanted for her - but who gets to decide what is 'better' for her? At what point is she allowed make that decision?

If she had been 6 months younger (still aged 17) should we have involved child protection services? What if she then denied everything she had told the support worker, and cut off contact with our organisation (a pregnancy/early years mental health support service)?

If we are talking about the cultural response to poverty here then I'd point out it doesn't serve the men, either. And, in Nigeria at least, much of the culture we see now was built by the British, or is a destortion of traditional culture by colonialism, and more recently by the exploitative trade by the west.

distortion

Not denying for a second that colonialism is partly to blame. Who was driving that, I wonder? The men, or the women?

I think its intresting how this conversation has developed.

People have given opposing views, disagreed, posted their experiences and talked about the issue in a wider setting. Issues such as the girls options, education, of being the first wife.

If this was the conversation the doctots had had, none of us would have been angry.

(Apologies for the derail of what has been very intresting)

Had to post this - courtesy of Sandy Draws Badly in twitter😄

The country used as an example in the tweet is Niger, not Nigeria.

Not that it makes a diffference to the content of the debate.

The issue that makes the Dr sexist is that he critiques the question only on grounds of cultural colonialism and doesn’t consider any sexual politics, patriarchy etc.

He only looks at mem’s behaviour and men’s responses, from a male POV. Not from the pov of the health and happiness interests of the woman.

So much stupidity on this thread. It’s embarrassing. Please, people learn to read and understand what you are reading before typing and looking like an idiot. Please quote exactly where they say it’s perfectly ok and not wrong at all.

Goodness me you have missed the point haven’t you 😄Your embarrassing yourself here im afraid.

HE's discussing the tricky question of how acceptable it is for one society to impose its own cultural norms on another. we might consider it deplorable that girls can be married so young, but how much right we have to demand that another society change its ways is difficult. age of consent to sex/ marriage has varied enormously throughout history. the age of consent to marriage was twelve for girls and fourteen for boys in medieval Europe for instance, and as recently as the Victorian era twelve was still the age of consent for girls in England. I think age of consent was still thirteen in Spain until quite recently.
I remember a case some years ago in which a twelve year old English girl had married her Turkish boyfriend and gone to live with him in Turkey. THere was a frightful row about it here and the girl was forcibly repatriated to England I think. But in Turkey they seemed to accept it as quite normal.

frankexchangeofviews It is you that has missed the point and very obviously so. Continue thinking you are correct though, you’ll only be embarrassing yourself.

JUst looked it up and it seems fourteen is age of consent to marriage in Turkey, not twelve. I suppose that's why they were able to repatriate the girl. whether she was happy about it I can't recall.

I remember a case some years ago in which a twelve year old English girl had married her Turkish boyfriend and gone to live with him in Turkey. THere was a frightful row about it here and the girl was forcibly repatriated to England I think. But in Turkey they seemed to accept it as quite normal.

Even with the parents' blessing some might say that the state has a duty to protect the rights of its citizens. Similar in principle to preventing trips abroad for FGM purposes, if the state was step in and prevent that.

I think that forcing another country to change its laws over its own citizens on its own lands is another matter though.

It has always been a fascinating moral issue - are there absolute moral rights and wrongs or do those change?

Secondly I agree with people above who say it is not black and white in the sense of men bad women good. Very often men too are part of their own culture and not the big bad wolf. Even if you look at the Pitcairn litigation (read the judgments if you're ever bored) no one had ever told them what the law was and it was always regarded as fine there to have sex after puberty so was it illegal that they did - mighty colonial Uk jailed the men by the way.

Forcing another country to change its laws over its own citizens in other lands gets us right to heart of some of these issues. Eg I think capital punishment is always wrong. I believe it is morally wrong that US and indeed UK get involved in rendition without trial, murder abroad without trial etc (lots of people don't agree with me). Plenty of people think murder of babies in the womb should be a crime and it is in many countries - are we more backward by not protecting the 9 month foetus who happens to have down's syndrome or are we more advanced to allow those "murders" under our law?

IronMans Nowhere does he condone it or say it's okay Couldn't have put it better myself.