And yeah...give them the VOICE so we can enshrine this sort of crap in our Constitution
An Australian judge ruled that a 50-year-old Aboriginal man’s statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl is not a serious crime, but traditional culture. But feminists say violence against women is a result of relatively recent history.
NORTH QUEENSLAND, Australia (WOMENSENEWS)–A state judge defended an Aboriginal man’s right to have sex with an underage girl as a 40,000-year-old traditional practice and has set off a national debate over the role of culture in practices that deny women autonomy.
A Northern Territory judge ruled in October that a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl “knew what was expected of her” and “didn’t need protection” when a 50-year-old man committed statutory rape against the girl and shot a gun into the air when she complained about it. The man was later revealed to have been convicted of slaughtering his former wife. Expert testimony submitted by an anthropologist in the case called the man’s arrangement with the girl “traditional” and therefore “morally correct.”
The girl’s parents had “promised” her as a wife to the man, Jackie Pascoe Jamilmira, at the girl’s birth, in return for a portion of Pascoe’s fortnightly government allowance. The girl resisted his advances, so he punched her, “put his foot onto my neck” and raped her, according to her statement to the police. When the girl’s family was unable to protect the girl, police took Pascoe, brandishing a shotgun, into custody.
Later, when the girl refused to speak to prosecutors, the judge pressed rape charges against Pascoe anyway. Government-sponsored legal aid lawyers provided Pascoe’s defense, netting him a nominal 24-hour-sentence on appeal. Several high-ranking government officials nodded with approval when the appeal judge upheld Pascoe’s defense, explaining that while Pascoe knew he had done something wrong in the eyes of Western law, his conduct was “Aboriginal custom” and part of his culture.
