735
Dutch Olympian who raped a 12-year-old girl ‘is not a paedophile’, official says
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
735 points (97.3% liked)
World News
38970 readers
2379 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Dunno if I'd call 16 "surprisingly high", here in America, at least, it's 18. To the extent anyone thinks we should change it (it's not a common point of discussion, except that there's legal inconsistency between ages of consent for sex, smoking, drinking, driving, owning firearms, etc.), they think it should be 21. We also have Romeo and Juliet laws, which protect relationships between minors and people of very close ages (such as between 17 yrs and 18 yrs) from the same level of punishment as an adult assaulting a minor.
It's 14 in Germany? Yuck.
The age of consent in America is not 18 everywhere. It is set by each state and ranges from 16-18. From Wikipedia:
While the unrestricted age of consent is between 16 and 18 in all U.S. states, the laws have widely varied across the country in the past. In 1880, the ages of consent were set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7.[104] The ages of consent were raised across the U.S. during the late 19th century and the early 20th century.[105][106] By 1920, 26 states had an age of consent at 16, 21 states had an age of consent at 18, and one state (Georgia) had an age of consent at 14.[104] Small adjustments to these laws occurred after 1920. The last two states to raise their age of general consent from under 16 to 16 or higher were Georgia, which raised the age of consent from 14 to 16 in 1995,[107] and Hawaii, which changed it from 14 to 16 in 2001.[108]
Why shouldn't it be 14. With 14 you're old enough to stand trial so you're old enough to decide who you want to fuck. There's staggered protections, though:
Technically 13/14 relationships are illegal, but courts apply Radbruch's formula to throw those cases out.
Generally, you don't get charged as an adult until you're 18 in America, so, not applicable.
I'm having difficulty parsing this first dotted point... Here, we don't generally prosecute minors who have relationships with each other, as while the law (and culture) does discourage that, it's primarily there to protect minors from sexual exploration by adults; hence our "Romeo and Juliet" laws, which protect relationships between minors and adults of similar age (such as for people born within 2 years of each other, but this varies by state).
The rest of this seems nonsensical to me, even America's laws around adulthood (16, 18, 21) are more clear-cut. I think there's a very fundamental difference in how law is conceptualized here, so I can't really understand how or why you would have a law saying 14 years is old enough for sex, but 18 for porn, but 21 for prostitution, as a premise.
Romeo and Juliet laws do exist for many states, but not for all states, and the adoption of these laws is relatively recent. For instance Connecticut and Indiana only passed them in 2007.
No, they're not, ohmygod :D
You have an actual federal government, but yet most of the States have different and sometimes conflicting laws.
The EU doesn't have a central government, as it's composed of sovereign nations (US states are not sovereign), and we still try to standardise as much legislation and regulation as possible.
How is it legal for literal children to have firearms? How is a 16-year old old enough to drive a car, but not to have a beer or sex? How is an 18-year old old enough to determine whether they want to literally risk their lives in war, but aren't old enough to have a single beer?
It's like your dating system; it's all over the place.
Don't talk about nonsense, my American friend.
Being charged as a minor is still getting charged. The offences you stand trial for are the same, it's the sentencing that differs. So if it was illegal to have sex with a 14yold, and then two 14yolds were having sex, we'd have to put them both on trial for sexual abuse of the other because they're both criminally mature. Under 14yolds cannot be tried.
Because having sex and earning money with sex are two very different kinds of things. Kids are also old enough to buy shovels and dig holes doesn't mean we let them work in the mines. They can have and earn money (within reasonable parameters, think doing paper rounds or working a trade in the context of learning a trade) and spend it, they cannot take on debt or future obligations (like a mobile contract which you can't cancel on short notice and such).
Oh, and maybe this is worth pointing out in contrast to the US: We actually have sex ed and none of that abstinence only BS which obviously doesn't work, look at your teen pregnancy rates.
I wholeheartedly agree about abstinence-only education being an absolute failure of a policy, though I should also point out that it's a state policy, and states outside of the deep-south generally have at least basic sex-ed, and some states are fairly comprehensive.
Funny enough, when living in Tennessee, it was the class teaching the course, because the teacher was unable to tell us about condoms, how to use them, or where to discretely get them for free. She didn't stop up us, I think because she wanted the class to know, but wasn't allowed to teach us proper sex-ed by law.
I do also think there's a meaningful difference between juvenile criminal law and adult criminal law, in that we treat children's ability to make informed decisions differently than that of adults'.
14yolds can make informed decisions the question is whether they bother to do so, not whether they have the capacity. The main difference in Germany is a) specialised judges and b) sentences and sentencing institutions which capitalise on the fact that youth are still very malleable. While ordinary prison guards are social workers and adults can be absolutely bone-headed and set in their ways, correctional youth institutions have an army of pedagogues and psychologists running circles around the kids, forming them.
I think there's a difference in average maturity between US teenagers and European teenagers. I moved to the states when I was 20 and was shocked about how childish some of my new peers seemed. And I remember also being completely surprised I couldn't even lift my dad's case of beer into his trunk (he's a wheelchair user). The cashier flipped out when I picked it up.
Why tough. It's not like you are a child mentally by age 17 years 11 months 29 days and then BOOM birthday happens and your mind becomes mature all of the sudden.
We assume that kids grow to adults in their teenage years. And we grant them our trust and support them to make decisions for themselves, more and more so.
To me, trying to criminalize sex for teenagers has about the same effect as outlawing abortion. It will still happen, it will just be much less safe.
I want my daughter to be able to come to me about questions and if she decides she's ready to engage on sexual acts, and be able to do it at home where she's safe and comfortable and not in a car or outside or a public toilet. I don't want her to risk getting an STI because she is afraid of buying condoms or asking questions. Her feeling that she is "committing a crime" will not make her safe.
I also want to point out: rape, incest etc are obviously still illegal. And let's be clear here - sexual assault in minors is awful, but/because it is assault. There is explicitly no consent there. These cases very often happen by grown ass adults that the children know - family members or close family friends. I doubt that a 14 year old will willingly agree to have sex with her dad or uncle - no matter whether this is legal or illegal.
It's 14 in Germany but apparently parental consent is needed, otherwise it's 16.
I think this comment has gotten the most responses out of any I've made in the time I've been on this platform. It's also the comment with the most negative reaction.
I'm sorry, I understand there are significant cultural differences between Europe and America, but my conscience demands that I dig in my heels with this one: The age of consent must be at least 18 (with much lighter penalties for minors, and exceptions for near-age relationships, the aforementioned "Romeo & Juliet Laws), if not a little higher, as high as 21. I do agree that American law is distressingly inconsistent, and there are some states (notably southern/Republican-controlled states) where the age of consent and marriage is disgustingly low. I comdemn them as well.
My foot is down. 18. No lower. In fact, for every negative reply from some European defending this morally repugnant practice, I'm adding another year!