To think amount of Roma and Traveller children withdrawn from school underage needs to be cracked down on?

[Jane379]

Two things have made me think about this.

One was the recent thread on Venezuela Fury, Tyson's daughter. Her situation appears slightly different as apparently she did receive tuition online but it made me look into the wider situation.

I know there has been improvement, and that many Roma & travellers families don't do this. But it shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Yes, some who do may homeschool their kids properly, but how many?

There needs to be more regulation of homeschooling.

Why do Roma & traveller kids often slip through the net? Is it sometimes linked to families moving around so children move from one LA to another?

There' nothing wrong with kids preferring to pursue technical options than academic, or living the travelling lifestyle. But school would give them a chance to choose.

Neither the rapes nor the sentencing were because the boys were travellers, and fwiw I find it horrific that anyone is implying that travellers are more likely to rape.

The judge said his sentence reflected the very low IQ of the perpetrators, their age, and the fact that there wasn't a knife used to threaten. As I understand it, some sexual activity was consensual and consent was withdrawn when the boy/s started filming. I think the low sentence possibly was intended to reflect the very limited understanding of consent that at least one of the boys had. It was rape, but he didn't understand it as such.

I think the sentencing makes no sense and is really unjust - I feel for those poor girls who will definitely feel that what happened to them was effectively unpunished and therefore in essence "allowed". But there's no reason to think it arose from fear of traveller retaliation. It's symptomatic of a justice system that lets down rape victims all the time, at every stage.

I think ybvu, why inflict badly behaved kids with no respect on the others? It drags everybody down, their education is sacrificed because all the teachers' efforts are on dealing with abysmal behaviour. I've seen it first-hand what it's done to my daughter.

Shouldn't you earn your place at a school not just academically but primarily through respecting other people? The UK couldn't care less about personal or parental accountability it seems.

What an appalling comment. You are talking about children FFS.

There is no good reason for such a lenient sentence. It is shameful. We agree on that it seems!

But where did I imply that travellers are more likely to rape? I did not say that.

Not you, the OP did when she said their ethnicity "may be" incidental.

To our way of thinking, it is a choice to move far away or not have extended family living nearby, and set your lives up so you may not be able to help each other, but have better things or individual lives through doing it.
It is also a choice to set your lives up to have fewer children but more comfortable lifestyles. Your society encourages these things and to be independent of each other and depend on lots of different systems of insurance.

It works out for some of you, and not for others. It seems like a lottery to us.

It is as you say "legitimate." Anything that goes against it, is often see as 'illegitimate.'

We have made different choices about how to live and the contract of insurance we have with each other. We also have ideas of what might be 'legitimate' or 'illegitimate.
Many of us pay a price for that system, just as we think many of you pay a price for yours.

Every child has a legal right to education. Are you really suggesting that shouldn’t be the case?

What would you like to know?

• English romantic gypsy woman

Not an Irish traveller

Part of the reason my mother didn't have a wider support network to help with my grandfather's care is because he moved far from his own family as a young man to escape his abusive father. Or was my elderly great aunt supposed to move all the way down from the northern isles to look after him? Was my uncle supposed to give up on university and move back to somewhere he couldn't afford to live and couldn't find a job? Probably not since he's a man. And I doubt their help would have stopped him from.needing to go into care eventually. Wait no, how did you put it? "Put into 'homes' to die lonely and uncared about."

You really have no fucking idea.

What is an English Romantic Gypsy please?

My parents didn't want me. My partners parents didn't want him. We cared for both sets for 20 or so years ( from a distance) It wrecked my health.

I'm not entirely convinced that Traveller Cuture is all that.

I'm sorry you had this experience. It sounds awful and so hurtful.

You don't need to be convinced of anything about traveller culture. You're not expected to participate in it.

But when a person claims that when we do things differently it makes us selfish then we have every right to defend ourselves.

Totally agree, and I'd never judge or criticise someone for getting professional care for an elderly relative with dementia.

Also would expect the same in return - not to be called a baby factory or seen as abused and uneducated and a bad mother because I make choices for myself and my kids that don't completely conform to mainstream culture and values. Not saying you did that, but there's been a lot of it here!

Totally agree, and I'd never judge or criticise someone for getting professional care for an elderly relative with dementia.

That's good, clearly not everyone feels that way.

Bit like what I and others have been doing throughout this thread.

First you reacted to me answering questions honestly about the difficulties of being openly homosexual in our community, by saying it was 'disgusting in this day and age' that we tolerate homosexuality but don't encourage open homosexuality within the community.
By your rules it makes us homophobic. OK, that's your rules on that and how you feel.

Second if you'd actually taken any notice of what I posted, you would see women in our community (and men when it's a male) don't find it all some terrible struggle because we have chosen to organize our community so that it it isn't. We support each other.

But you just ignored that, and actually claimed it was all otherwise and made us even worse than your previous judgement on us!
So as you say "when someone claims that when we do things differently it makes us selfish then we have every right to defend ourselves."
It's exactly what you did.

My patience snapped and I bit back. I'm sorry, I should have worded it better.
I just wrapped it all up together, and I shouldn't have.

I'm genuinely sorry for what your mother went through. It is very sad, and I obviously touched a nerve.

I didn't say everyone who put their elderly into care was leaving them to die lonely and uncared about. I criticized your society as a whole for doing it and allowing it.
It does really shock us and we stereotype your society for it, regardless of if you all do it or not, just as yours is shocked by some of what we do and stereotype us for it ,regardless of if we all do it or not

Nobody wants them in school once they hit a certain age they are uncontrollable and the parents don’t care or support
a whole family of them nearly closed a school by me

Nobody? At all? And who is them?

It's the standard sentence for non Traveler boys under 17 who rape, too.

No one raised a song and dance over the recent cases with the supposed £26 fine (it's a court fee not a fine) and Youth Rehabilitation Orders, or suggested it was because the judges were afraid of retaliation.

It's awful what ever race any of them are, especially for their victims, but it's standard.

Wow. I didn't know that. I think that's shocking as a standard sentence for rape. And I'm opposed to putting children in prison, but something more than that sentence seems necessary.

What recent cases are you referring to that got a £26 fee?

I agree there's huge double standards about the validity of certain cultural practices and norms. And about whether and how people are allowed to defend them.

I have to go, but one was Teeside. They all have to pay a £26 fee if they get a rehabilitation order. An organization was claiming it was a fine and all the crime was worth.

No, I said that to me shunning for allowing a relative to go into a care home is even worse than shunning for being gay. This is after you insulted people (which include my family) who put their family members into care.

And I stsnd by saying that shunning people "being openly homosexual" is disgusting. And it's not just homophobic by my rules (and btw I'm not sure what rules I'm supposed to have written) but by definition.

Like I said, my mum had no choice about putting her dad into care. She looked after him as long as she was physically able to the cost of her own health and relationship with her children. It's not a problem with "our" society, it's the nature of aging and disease. If anything the problem was that she felt guilted into not letting him go into a hone sooner, or wasn't given enough help by the state sooner.

Yes it is a huge problem when young boys are riding dangerously on illegal off road bikes or electric scooters. We have this all the time where I live. The Police catch a few but can’t cope with so many. They often have younger children with them on the bikes, no protective clothing, no helmets. They put other road users at risk doing wheelies in the middle of the road, speeding etc. They often have their parents following on quad bikes- they allow their children to do this. Children who look about 1O are taking part in these horse chariot races, weaving in and out of the traffic, being a nuisance and a danger to themselves.

Ok. Like I said, though, it's not just traveller boys who do this.

And what about the rest of what I said?

A lot of houses and businesses are owned by travellers round here, so don’t think that many are in poverty
Litter and excrement . No excuse for leaving shit! Rubbish can be bagged and taken to official tips .