Monday 19 March 2007

Protecting Children

The petition is entitled save our precious children from all the evil paedofiles and the explanatory notes say
"We need laws and legislation that once the police have caught any paedofile, and they are found guilty they are then locked up for the length of their life. We need harsher sentences and life should mean life with no appeal. Our children should not be abused in any way - they should all have a happy life without evil peering round the corners of our streets."

To be honest, while I don't particularly agree with the sentiment in its entirety (or the spelling, for that matter), I'm most taken by the idea that there are "evil" paedophiles and "precious" children - the implication being that the non-precious children need not be protected from anyone, and that the precious children only need to be protected from the evil paedophiles, not the non-evil ones!

As far as anything else goes I shall merely point out that the petitioner has fallen for the hype; that the same proportion of children are subjected to sex abuse and to stranger sex attacks as ever were, and that the vast majority of sex attacks on children are by people known to them.

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