Pope really worried about the damage rape scandals have done to the Catholic Church

The Prada Pope made some revealing comments, which were reported in yesterday's Guardian, revealing his true concerns about the priests who committed countless rapes in the States during the nineties.

"It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the Church in general and for me personally that this could happen," Benedict said aboard a special Alitalia airliner, nicknamed Shepherd 1.

Yeah, because when I read about priests raping little kids, my primary concern is for the Church and for the Pope. My heart is bleeding for those guys. Fuck those whingeing victims who have cost us so much money in compensation, and damaged our reputations!

But he does have a point, the child abuse scandals did damage him personally, as there is an increasing body of evidence which suggests that he was involved in trying to cover up the scandals.

Iowa caucus day

I just wanted to share an interesting article I found about Mike Huckabee on the Guardian website. Huckabee is one of the leading Republican candidates, and looks set to do well in the Caucus today. However, his record on women's rights is diabolical, as Kira Cochrane describes. She points out that whilst his refusal to be drawn on whether or not women should act as ministers is not in itself a big issue, it reveals a great deal about his unwillingness to discuss issues of equality.

One of the things which worries feminists the most though, is his release of rapist Wayne Dumond, nearly 25 years early, despite having received letters from Dumond's victims begging him not to release him. Dumond went on to rape several other women and murder at least one. He died whilst awaiting trial for these crimes.

In general, I don't feel that incarcerating people for great lengths of time is necessarily an answer to anything. I genuinely believe that even the worst criminals can be rehabilitated to the extent that they are able to enjoy a relatively free life. However, what I'd really like to call Huckabee out on here is his hypocrisy. He is a man who supports jail as a punishment for wrongdoing. He is a man that supports the death penalty. Why, then, go against all of your supposed beliefs to release a man who has committed serious and violent crimes, and is likely to commit them again?

But most concerning of all is Huckabee's complete disregard for women's reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. I can't really say it better than Cochrane here;

Staunchly opposed to abortion (which he has compared to the Holocaust), one of Huckabee's first acts as governor was to block Medicaid, the health scheme for people on low incomes, from funding an abortion for a 15-year-old with learning disabilities who had been raped by her stepfather. This went directly against federal law, which requires states to fund abortions in cases of rape.

It is the sheer, unbridled cruelty of this decision that gives the lie to Huckabee's claims that he cares for the vulnerable. If there is anyone more vulnerable than a disabled teenage rape victim, I certainly can't think who it might be. Who hearts Huckabee? Only fools or misogynists.

Cochrane is right in her description of this decision as cruel. Clearly, Huckabee is unable to empathise with anyone who has a uterus. Fingers crossed that Huckabee is not the next American President!

Don't punish men for the evils of sex slavery?

This article is an interesting one. It starts well, with Henry Porter acknowledging that the current laws in this country, which criminalise the woman selling sex, but not the man buying it, are unfair and wrong. He then goes on to outline some of the ways in which countries like New Zealand and Canada have tried to change this, as a response to changing attitudes. So far, so good.

However, this is unfortunately where things start to unravel. Denis MacShane MP plans to takcle the serious problem of sex trafficking in this country by trying to introduce new amendments to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which would allow Police to prosecute men found paying for sex in certain designated areas. Porter outlines this in his article. However, he goes on to say that we should be very sceptical of MacShane's motives, because he may well be anti-prostitution! Therefore, we can't believe anything he tells us about the problem of sex-trafficking, and we should disregard any changes which he tries to make to reduce the number of trafficked women suffering in this country, because basically, he is just trying to stop prostitution! (Or something like that).

MacShane and his supporters may have a strong moral revulsion for the sale of sex, but they insist that their approach is a strictly practical one to deal with trafficking. What they cannot say is that this amendment contains a tacit admission of the government's failure. There are already laws to deal with trafficking and enslavement and it may be that MacShane's figure of 25,000 trafficked women is hugely inflated. In a letter to the Guardian last week, Professor Julia O' Connell Davidson of the University of Nottingham called it preposterous. She pointed out that in the police Operation Pentameter last year 515 establishments were raided and 84 victims of trafficking were found. At this rate, there would need to be 150,000 establishments for MacShane's figure of 25,000 to reached.

Now, I don't have any exact figures regarding the numbers of people who are trafficked in this country, so whilst I can't comment on the accuracy or inaccuracy of the figures discussed, I would like to call Henry Porter out on some shocking journalistic sloppiness. In the same paragraph, whilst he points out that the government is failing to tackle trafficking effectively (which actually, I agree with), he also then quotes Police statistics to demonstrate why it is that we should not believe MacShane's statistics. I thought you just said that the government is failing? Therefore, why are you using Police statistics to advance your argument against MacShane, when you yourself acknowledge that these are unlikely to reflect the scale of the problem in this country?

So we must conclude that the government does not view the act of buying sex is wrong in principle. This is a shaky position to start from if we are about to introduce yet another criminal offence, because it will be clear to everyone that the exchange that takes place between a man and a woman and a man and a man is exactly the same. The same levels of revulsion, pleasure, release, exploitation, abuse, regret and despair may exist in both transactions, yet only in one will an offence be committed.

I don't view the act of buying sex as being wrong in principle. However, this is a ridiculously simplistic way of looking at things. It is naive, and frankly stupid, to claim that selling sex is simply a choice which someone has chosen to make, and so the person buying sex has no culpability. You must look at the reasons behind why people buy and sell sex. Do men need sex? Of course not. Sex is a positive and enjoyable part of life, but men do not have an entitlement to sex, simply because they want it. However, if one is impoverished, trafficked, a drug addict, or otherwise disadvantaged, then money is a necessity. Therefore, the exchange of money for sex is not a fair transaction, made without any kind of duress. The prostitute is in a position where to refuse sex would result in great hardship and suffering. The man is in a position where to not buy sex would result in walking around feeling a bit sexually frustrated for a while. Not the same thing.

Actually, I agree with Porter's final point here, although I don't agree with his reasoning, because I think that either it should be illegal to buy any kind of sex, or it shouldn't be. This part of the law would add unnecessary confusion and complication to the law.

There is clearly a feminist drive to this measure. Nothing wrong in that perhaps, but it does account for the singular bias of the MacShane proposal. Columnist Joan Smith has suggested that critics responded hysterically to it because they have a vested interest in a man's right to buy sex from a woman. That is hardly fair. The objection is not that it deprives men of the ability to exploit women, but that it is ill thought out.

The same feminist voice would no doubt argue that every woman has a right to dominion over her body in matters such as abortion. It follows that a woman has the right to sell sexual services and, if that is true, someone has the right to buy those services. You cannot allow the principle of sale without at the same time consenting to purchase.

So Mr Porter, we start to see your true colours! This is an article ostensibly about legal reforms intended to reduce the number of people who are trafficked in Britain each year. Yet, you rebut any suggestions that one of your concerns about making buying sex illegal is that it would no longer allow you to exploit vulnerable women with impunity. In order to support this point, you use the example of abortion as a way in which feminists argue that women should have bodily autonomy. Of course, I agree with you, and I agree with the fact that in an ideal, egalitarian world women should be free to decide to sell sex for money. But we are not discussing those women Mr Porter. We are looking at these legal reforms through the lens of a country which has increasing numbers of women trafficked into it each year. At this stage, I don't think anyone is able to advocate for a 'perfect' law. We need to introduce reforms which will allow prostitutes the protections which they need, and punish the people responsible for perpetuating the cycle.

Your final point "You cannot allow the principle of sale without at the same time consenting to purchase", is particularly interesting. Again, I agree with you. Are you then arguing that men who have sex with women who are unable to consent are guilty of rape? After all, if women are in a position whereby the are not able to agree to any sort of transaction freely, and you have sex with them, then you are not buying something which they have offered of their own free will. You are raping them.

And what is payment? Most often, it is cash or a credit card, but payment comes in other forms - holidays, goods, jewellery, advancement, property. Many shy from an openly acknowledged transaction; some are candid about a business arrangement in which the parties hope to emerge with profit or satisfaction. We would like it to be otherwise perhaps, but that is the way of the world.

What are you saying here Henry Porter? Are all women who rely on men for financial support prostitutes? Does that make going off to buy a fuck from a trafficked woman ok because you believe that you indirectly pay your wife for sex? Maybe you feel resentful about the leeching bitches who steal mens money, but if you grew a brain and looked around you, you might understand why women become financially dependent on men. Women get paid 17% less than men for the same work. If they are married, or (shock-horror) have a family, then they are less likely to be hired in the first place, because they are perceived to not be committed enough to the job. In most relationships, women do the majority of the child-care and other domestic duties, which allows men more time to focus on their careers. Furthermore, supporting your wife does not mean that you are entitled to fuck her whenever you want. Since 1991, getting married does not mean that you can rape your wife with impunity.

Tougher penalties might be an answer but let's not forget that the police already have powers to deal with every aspect of prostitution, from kerb crawling to enslavement. Instead we need to tackle what drives so much prostitution - poverty and drug addiction. It is right that newspapers are beginning to refuse adverts for escort and massage services but as the cabinet ministers who recently admitted to drug use know full well, making the demand for drugs illegal does little to stop supply.

Denis MacShane may be well-intentioned but his amendment is bad and confusing law because it seeks to remedy a failure by police and immigration officials - which may not even exist - by attacking the choice made by two consenting adults.

So, despite earlier claiming that the government's current policies are failing, you now support your argument that buying sex should remain legal with the the point that the police have all the powers they need in order to be able to deal with prostitution, "from kerb crawling to enslavement". Coherent, consistent, and well thought-out I must say!

To go back to my earlier point, if women are deeply impoverished or addicted to drugs, then they are not able to make a free choice about whether or not to engage in prostitution. In a choice between having sex with a man and being able to eat/shoot up, or not having sex with him, but starving/suffering horrendous withdrawal symptoms, I think I know which option I would choose. However, that does not mean that I am making a free choice to be a prostitute or to have sex. Actually, there are a million other things I would like to do far more. Therefore, it is not a "choice between two consenting adults" that we are discussing here.

I find that I am often very conflicted about my feelings about prostitution. On one hand, I do think that it should be up to women to decide what to do with their bodies, and of course this extends to selling sex. However, this argument is frequently used as a get-out clause by people like Henry Porter who want to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the realities of life for the majority of prostitutes in this country. There are a small minority of women who do freely make the choice to be prostitutes, but as Henry Porter himself acknowledges, the vast majority of prostitutes in this country are there because of poverty or drugs. As I have already argued, this is not a free choice, and these women need to be protected rather than criminalised. Men (and indeed women) do not have an entitlement to sex. Therefore, if one of the things which we have to do in order to protect vulnerable prostitutes from exploitation is to make the buying of sex illegal, which means that punters will no longer be able to exploit people with impunity, then we should take that step. After all, we all have the right to live lives free from exploitation.

Shorter Redwood: "If you know a man, you cannot say no to sex"

The Daily Mail often has some gems on its pages, but this article deeply shocked me. John Redwood, a Tory MP, has, on his blog which I linked to, said the following;

...none of us want men to rape women, but there is a difference between a man using unreasonable force to assault a woman on the street, and a disagreement between two lovers over whether there was consent on one particular occasion when the two were spending an evening or night together. Labour’s doctrine of equivalence has led to jury scepticism about many rape claims, in situations where it is the man’s word against the woman’s and where they had agreed to spend the evening or night together. Young men do not want to have to take a consent form and a lawyer on a date, just as young women have every right to go on a date and to say “No”, having it respected.

OK, so basically, if your boyfriend/husband rapes you (incidentally, 'rape' means having sex without the consent of the other party - it has nothing to do with strangers and dark alleys), you are up shit creek. The police won't believe you anyway, and it is going to be impossible for you to persuade a jury beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant raped you.

I don't have all the answers. But I do know a couple of things. Firstly, the circumstances surrounding the act should have no effect on the culpability of the man. Whether the rape occurs in the context of a marriage of 15 years, or a so-called "stranger rape", it is the fact that the woman did not consent which matters. There is a massive flaw in the Sexual Offences Act here, which allows for the jury to take "all the circumstances" into account when assessing whether or not the defendant had a "reasonable belief in consent". This could technically result in men who have been brought up with a very misogynistic father for example, and who believe that all women should consent to sex immediately and without question, being found not guilty of rape, whilst, on the same set of facts, a man who is well aware of rape laws, the fact that women can (and do) refuse sex, could be found guilty. Obviously, this is unfair. The test should be an objective one, and the clause including "all the circumstances" should be removed from the statute.

Secondly, the Police should be compelled to investigate all allegations of rape. They should not be allowed to simply "no-crime" cases which they think will be too difficult to investigate, or for women that they simply do not believe. The Police are not the jury here, it is their job to investigate allegations of any crime.

Thirdly, I think that a national campaign to raise awareness of what rape is, how often it is committed, and that the victim is never responsible for what happened, even if she was flirting and wearing a short skirt, is vastly overdue.

John Redwood, you are a detestable disgusting man, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Feministing has more.

Simon Hughes, answer me!

I have written two letters to Simon Hughes lately, one in September, and one in November. He has not replied to either.

Here they are:

1) Abortion
Dear Mr Hughes,

I am writing to you because I am concerned about the attempts of Nadine Dorries MP to restrict women’s access to safe and legal abortion, by reducing the time limit. I appreciate fully that the issue of abortion is a matter of conscience.

However, it is exactly because it is such a difficult and complex issue that I feel that women should be free to make the choices most appropriate to them and to their own personal circumstances. Furthermore, I think it important to remember that women who are desperate to access abortion will do so, and it is preferable to everybody that they should be able to do this both legally and safely.

Women must be allowed to have full autonomy over their own bodies. Indeed, it is grossly inappropriate for Parliament to attempt to pass restrictive legislation on this matter, given that it would be impossible for them to take each and every woman’s unique circumstances into account. Ultimately, these decisions must lie with individual women. In my opinion, it is the duty of Parliament to facilitate this freedom of choice by investing in women’s health care and education, and allowing women to make informed decisions about their own bodies.

A far more effective and “woman-friendly” way to attempt to reduce the already tiny number of late-term abortions in this country (about 1.6% I believe), would be to make access to early abortion on the NHS much simpler and quicker. Furthermore, GPs who conscientiously object to abortion should be compelled to make this stance clear, so that women’s ability to utilise abortion services are not hampered by an obstructive GP.

As a young woman myself, I feel very privileged to live in a country where it is possible to access abortion. However, I feel that these abortion laws must be reviewed, and it should be possible for women to access abortion without having to cast aspersions on her mental health, as she is currently forced to under UK law.

Making these positive changes to abortion laws in this country; improving access to abortion services, obliging GPs to state whether or not they support a woman’s right to choose, and removing the outdated caveat to our abortion laws which states that women’s mental health must be at risk before they are eligible for abortion, would make a massive difference to many women, and I believe, would further reduce the number of late-term abortions which are carried out.

I look forward to your response.

2) Rape
Dear Simon Hughes

I am writing to you because I am increasingly concerned about the low rate of conviction for rape in this country. Obviously, it is a difficult crime to prove, and I understand this. Furthermore, I understand that it is not the place of politicians to criticise the judiciary. However, there are some problems with the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which make it much harder for juries to convict rapists, and allows many perpetrators of this terrible crime to walk free. As an MP, you have a responsibility for the content of this Act, and I would like to put the following criticisms to you:

1) The definition of “consent” under s. 74 of the Sexual Offences Act is vague, and has led to a degree of confusion in court, particularly regarding the ability of a victim to consent to sexual intercourse when intoxicated. I think a larger section outlining the effect of intoxication on the ability of a person to consent to sexual intercourse needs to be included in this Act, so that the law is absolutely clear in this area.
2) S. 1 (2) of the 2003 Act is very problematic. The ability of the court to look at “all the circumstances” leading up to, and including the sexual act itself, means that this test of “reasonable belief” is not an objective test, as it should be, but a subjective test. This means that the jury are allowed to hear evidence from the defence that the victim was wearing a short skirt, or had been behaving flirtatiously, or that the victim had consented to sex with the defendant on a previous occasion. None of these are relevant factors in the ability of the victim to consent, nor should it affect the defendant’s “reasonable belief” in the victim’s consent. At the moment, we have a situation where a person’s ability to consent or not depends on their previous sexual relationships with the defendant and others, what they were wearing, and whether or not they have behaved flirtatiously in the past. Obviously, this is neither fair, nor good public policy. Furthermore, we have a situation where the victim is denied justice on the basis that the defendant is of low intelligence, has poor communication skills, or is young, for example.
Instead of having this test, which allows the defence to cast aspersions on the moral character on the victim (and usually means that the CPS will not take a case to court in the first place), the test should be whether or not the “reasonable person” would have believed that the victim was consenting to sex. This is a much fairer test, because it requires the jury to look only at the established facts of the case, and does not permit the defence to try to make allowances for the individual defendant, with the aim of an acquittal.

Many other criminal offences contain an objective test, which is considered much fairer. The Offences Against the Person Act for example, which has high tariffs, including life for s. 18 offences, has a lower requirement still. For conviction on s. 47 and s. 20 offences (as well as s. 18 in the alternative), the defendant must merely be reckless as to the level of harm which they have caused (i.e Simple assault, battery, or ABH).

Therefore, I feel that the argument about the concern that juries may convict innocent men of rape is unjustified, and is contradicted by another statute, which has high tariffs, but a lower mens rea element.

I would be very interested to know your opinion on this matter, which is of grave concern to many people in this country.

Please write back! Or I will come and see you in your surgery and ask you, firstly, why you don't think that replying to your constituents is important, given that you work for us and are accountable to us. Secondly, I will ask you for your considered opinions on abortion, and thirdly, I will ask you if you think that the Sexual Offences Act 2003 is working.

Rape victim, aged 10, "probably agreed to have sex"

Oh. My. God. I don't know a great deal about the Australian legal system, but I know that the reason that there are laws in place which state that children under a certain age do not have the capacity to consent. Therefore any sexual intercourse with them is rape. These laws are there in order to protect young people from being preyed upon by adults and (in some cases) older children.

Even if this 10-yr-old had consented to sex, her consent should mean nothing in the eyes of the law. Otherwise why do we have these laws in place?

This just makes me so sad, and simultaneously confirms why it is that I am a feminist. I can only hope that the victim manages to access the support she needs in order to rebuild her life, and that the judges and prosecutors involved are sacked.

Rape, Race and Prostitution; Campaigning for Justice in the 21st Century (Conference)

I recently started volunteering at Crossroads Women's Centre in London, and they put on this inspiring conference in honour of International Women's day. Despite harrowing stories of women's personal experience of rape and domestic violence, as well as racist attacks, I felt that this event was very positive. There was a genuine sense of support for the brave women (and men) who stood up to talk about their experiences. It was interesting also to see the links between rape, race and prostitution, and the ways in which women are particularly disadvantaged in these fields.

I think we have got a serious problem in this country. The police are not taking rape seriously enough, putting pressure on victims to withdraw their accusations, 'no-criming' cases, and failing to investigate others fully, which means that the CPS is then unable to take these cases to court and win. We are not protecting women. It is difficult to know what the solutions are, but I think that we need to start making a really big fuss about the statistic that there is a rape conviction rate of 5.3% here. As women, we have to start standing up for our right to be able to walk around alone, late at night, drunk and wearing a short skirt, and not fear rape, or if the unimaginable were to happen, we should not doubt that the police would work their hardest to find our attacker.

As for racism and prostitution, these are simply not talked about enough. We like to live in a fantasy world where racism doesn't exist, and if it were to happen, the police would 'deal with it'. The reality is somewhat different. A brave asylum seeker from Somalia told us her story of being violently attacked by her neighbour, who called her all sorts of horrendous names, and smashed her nose in. When she called the police to her house, they arrested her husband, and let her attacker get away. If this doesn't prove the institutional racism in the police, then I don't know what does.

I think that the most revealing thing that can be said about our attitudes towards prostitution is that it is still the prostitute who is criminalised, rather than the punters who perpetuate this cycle of abuse and humiliation (as it is for the vast majority of prostitutes in this country, who have a history of childhood abuse, drug addiction, or who have been trafficked.)

I can't claim to have any solutions to these problems, but I feel that the first course of action for us all should be to accept that these are still problems, which particularly women face, and are impeding their ability to contribute fully to society as they are fully entitled to do.