Entries Tagged 'violence' ↓

The recent 63rd United Nations Department of Public Information NGO Conference held in Melbourne focused on improving women and children’s health.

“Advancing global health is essential to the Millennium Development Goals, and you are essential to advancing global health,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The central concern of Mr. Ban’s opening remarks was the need to improve women’s and children’s health “the area where we are most behind”.  Simple measures could make a huge difference, he told the gathering, whose activism the United Nations not only valued, but depended upon.

On the agenda was a workshop hosted by Australia on the harms of alcohol misuse. Conducted by Rev. Tim Costello Director of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER Foundation), the discussion and workshop concentrated on identifying community driven solutions to alcohol misuse.

The Alcohol Education & Rehabilitation Foundation (AER) is a unique, independent, not-for-profit organisation with a goal to change the way we drink.

AER Foundation Chairman Cheryl Bart said: “Alcohol misuse has been identified as a priority issue by the World Health Organisation, yet a policy response remains noticeably absent from our own political agenda.”

“We can no longer ignore the significant human and financial cost of alcohol-related harms, which impact upon the physical, mental and social wellbeing of drinkers and people around them. The $36 billion cost of alcohol-related harms demonstrates to government the urgent need for reform in this area” he added.

Research has found that young people and women are at greatest risk of harm from others misuse of alcohol. In Australia every year 24,000 women are victims of alcohol related domestic violence assaults and 20,000 children are victims of alcohol-related child abuse.

Professor Ian Webster of the AER Foundation said, “Much more needs to be done to support our young people, particularly young women, to prevent them from being negatively affected by our current problematic drinking culture.”

A report funded by the AER Foundation, conducted by the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI) at Curtin University, Perth revealed voluntary restrictions on the sale of alcohol in the town of Norseman WA, led to a 17.5% reduction in assaults, a 60.5% fall in alcohol related hospital admissions and a 10% decrease in per capita consumption of alcohol.

The report entitled, Don’t Wake Up Angry No More – The Evaluation of the Norseman Voluntary Liquor Agreement, measured the impact of voluntary alcohol restrictions put in place in the town of Norseman with a population of 857 individuals, 12% of whom are Aboriginal people.

The AER Foundation workshop shared internationally significant findings from its major new research report: The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others, Beyond the drinker: Alcohol’s hidden costs*.

“We need to change the way we drink. Australia is a very fortunate nation, yet we squander our good fortune by continuing to sideline the preventative health agenda. Enough is enough,” said Ms Bart.

Alcohol misuse is a significant contributor to a range of health and social issues, including violence, crime, child abuse and mortality, in both developed and developing countries.

The AER Foundation workshop will focus on the disproportionate effect of alcohol misuse on children, young adults, women and Indigenous people.

*The study was commissioned by the AER Foundation to assess harm caused by the heavy drinking of others. It draws on existing and newly developed data, including a national survey of more than 2,600 Australians aged 18 or older conducted in 2008.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: AER Foundation. UN Department of Public Information NGO Conference.

There is an increasing trend for fashion houses to glamorise death. The obsession with beautiful dead women has seen a number of recent ad campaigns idolise death, murder and suicide in women’s fashion. Young girls are being told that you can even look sexy when you are dead.

Taking the theme of ‘dead women are sexy’, Gucci recently featured a new ad campaign shot in Marrakech which showed models lying lifeless in the desert sand.

More disturbingly are the more graphic ads which further suggest that the model’s demise has been the result of male violence. Ads like Duncan Quinn show a man in a smart suit who has clearly strangled a woman. She is wearing nothing but sexy underwear and is lying motionless on the bonnet of a car.

Another ad by Dolce and Gabbana (later banned in Italy) featured a woman being pinned down by a man while a group of men looked on (waiting their turn?) the scene looked like a gang rape, and yet it was actually selling shoes.

Author of Getting Real and Generation Next speaker, Melinda Tankard Reist is a long standing campaigner for the portrayal of sexualisation and violence against women in the media to be banned.

“All these images and messages make a mockery of global campaigns to stop the abuse of women. They feed violence, fuel violence and contribute to an environment which every day becomes more dangerous for women and girls” she said.

Now to suicide – The South Korean fashion label Lewitt recently engaged American photographer Ryan McGinley to make a video promoting their brand of clothing.

It featured Australian model Abbey Lee Kershaw and was apparently inspired by Alice in Wonderland. However the clip depicts Kershaw jumping from a tall building rather than falling down something. Her climb to the top of the building, hesitation before jumping and free fall as she tumbles down over the building all feature multiple changes of wardrobe.

But Alice in Wonderland wasn’t climbing a very tall building with the intent of throwing herself off, oh no, she fell down a rabbit hole and it was an accident.

Adolescent psychologist and Generation Next speaker Dr Michael Carr-Gregg commented that it seemed like an odd concept for promoting fashion to young women in a country that boasts one of the world’s highest female suicide rates. Odder still, given that seven models have committed suicide in the last 2 years (4 by jumping), including South Korea’s Daul Kim who committed suicide in November 2009.

The data showed that 18.7 out of every 100,000 South Korean women committed suicide in 2008 while suicide rates in other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries remained stable (source: World Health Organisation 2008).

Julie Gale, founder of Kids Free 2B Kids suggested calling for a protocol where these themes are not used. Just like newspapers have an ethic of not reporting suicides. She went on to say that the Advisory Group on Body Image set up by Youth Minister Kate Ellis in March 2009, should be looking into advertising which depicts acts of self harm such as suicide as glamorous and something to aspire to.

At the time of the launch she said “The Advisory Group will help to develop a new Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image, and provide advice to the Government on a national response.”

“Young Australians are telling us loud and clear that they are concerned about negative body image and the impact that it has on them, their friends and the community,” said Ms Ellis.

“This is a very complex issue and the Government believes the most affective approach is to work in partnership with the media, health sector, fashion industry and young people themselves to develop a national approach to tackle negative body image in a coordinated and targeted way.”

Melinda Tankard Reist, when talking about suicide and body image said “now Lindsay Lohan, soaked in blood, is showing us you can still sell yourself as a sex object while threatening to kill yourself.”

She added “self harm is the highest cause of hospital admission for girls aged 13 to 19 in Australia. Should it be treated so lightly? Should it be seen as something you do if you want to be seen as hot and sexy? Branding yourself with blood as some kind of artistic statement?”

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. Melinda Tankard Reist. Kids Free 2B Kids (Julie Gale)

At the centre of popular culture lies popular (pop) music, it has always been the music of the next generation, as young people come into their own they begin to express themselves through their clothes, interests, friends and music.

In modern times, the mass media has become a major instrument for the spread and dissemination of popular-culture to young people.

In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, John Storey equates pop culture with Mass Culture. This is seen as a commercial culture, mass produced for mass consumption. This definition can also be applied to today’s music industry and the phenomenon that encompasses it.

Popular music is present almost everywhere, and it is easily available through the radio, ipods, the Internet, and new technologies, allowing adolescents to hear it in diverse settings and situations, alone or shared with friends. They use music in their process of identity formation, and their music preference gives them a means to achieve group identity and integration into the youth culture.

Much of the music today no longer has sexual innuendos where the imagination joins the dots. Today the lyrics are graphic and vulgar, this is seen in songs by artists like Lady Gaga “I’m educated in sex, yes … I wanna take a ride on your disco stick”, or Katy Perry with “Sex on a beach. We get sand in our stilettos. We freak and we’re cheap”.

The content of pop music is highly sexualised and seems to know no bounds. Music by R ‘n’ B singer Rihanna is considered by some experts in the music industry to be soft porn.

Music producer Mike Stock (part of Stock, Aiken and Waterman) thinks children are at risk from the pop stars who peddle porn. He has condemned raunchy clips as “sexualising” children.

“The music industry has gone too far,” he said, “99% of the charts is R ‘n’ B music and 99% of that is soft pornography.

“Kids are being forced to grow up too young. Look at the videos, I wouldn’t necessarily want my young kids to watch them. It’s not about me being old fashioned. It’s about keeping values that are important in the modern world. These days you can’t watch modern stars like Britney Spears or Lady Gaga with a two-year-old.”

Research has found that nearly 42% of songs contain very explicitly sexual language. Lyrics revolve around topics such as sexual promiscuity, rape, death, homicide, suicide, and substance abuse. Rap music in particular often carries messages of violence, racism, homophobia and hatred towards women as well as drug, tobacco, and alcohol use – all of which are glorified.

Generation Next speaker and adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said the classification system needed to be toughed to stop the “skankification of this generation”.

“Mike Stock is right – it’s amazing that the Senate inquiry a few years ago actually recommended that the TV stations review the classifications, but when they redid their Code they didn’t change a single word,” he said.

Kids Free 2B Kids director Julie Gale said research has found sexualised video clips can impact on children’s self-esteem after just ten minutes exposure.

“The recommendation of the Senate inquiry two years ago should be followed through, they should not be in children’s prime viewing hours,” she said.

The Senate’s report Sexualisation of children in the contemporary media, published in June 2008 recommended that broadcasters review their classification of music videos specifically with regard to sexualising imagery.

Australian recording artist Kate Ceberano has also said artists needed to take more responsibility, “Artists need to be responsible for how they use sex to sell their products. There’s a fine line between beauty and hard core.”

In November 2009 the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement on the “Impact of Music, Lyrics, and Music Videos on Children and Youth”

Research by the AAP showed that popular music effects schoolwork, social interactions, mood and affect, and particularly behaviour. Exposure to violence, sexual messages, sexual stereotypes, and use of substances of abuse in music videos might produce significant changes in behaviours and attitudes of young viewers.

It is estimated that over 60% of young people watch music videos on a regular basis, with 7% of these watching them before they go to school.

In studies performed to assess the reactions of adolescent boys exposed to violent rap music videos or sexist videos, participants reported an increased probability that they would engage in violence, a greater acceptance of the use of violence, and a greater acceptance of the use of violence against women than did participants who were not exposed to these videos. Researchers also found an association between music-video–watching and promiscuous sexual behaviours.

The American Academy for Pediatrics recommended that the music-video industry produce videos with more positive themes about relationships, racial harmony, drug avoidance, nonviolent conflict resolution, sexual abstinence, pregnancy prevention, and avoidance of promiscuity.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: American Academy of Pediatrics. They Sydney Morning Herald

70,000 Australians are reported victims of alcohol related assaults every year
24,000 women are victims of alcohol related domestic violence assaults
20,000 children are victims of alcohol-related child abuse

The Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER Foundation) recently commissioned a new report The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others, which has just been published.

The AER is a unique, independent, not-for-profit organisation with a goal to change the way we drink.

The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others report was carried out by the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research in Melbourne. It offers an insight into how individual acts of alcohol misuse affect both families and communities.

Young Australians bear the brunt of the negative effects of drinking by others, with young women suffering the most when a person they were in a relationship with misused alcohol.

According to The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others report, young people aged 18-29 years were three times more likely to be affected by the drinking of someone they knew compared with older people and they were also twice as likely to be affected by strangers.

AER Foundation Director Professor Ian Webster said: “We often talk about young people as being part of the problem when it comes to alcohol-related harms. But we now know that they are one of the most vulnerable groups in our community when it comes to the impact of others’ drinking.”

He added “Much more needs to be done to support our young people, particularly young women, to prevent them from being negatively affected by our current problematic drinking culture.”

As part of the report, the Alcohol’s Harm to Others survey* also found that young people aged 18-29 years were more likely to experience harm from the drinking of strangers by:
• Being forced or pressured into sexual activity
• Being physically abused
• Encountering trouble or noise related to a licensed venue
• Having to avoid places where drinkers are known to hang out
• Being involved in a traffic accident
• Being verbally abused and threatened
• Getting into a serious argument
• Feeling unsafe in a public place and public transport
• Having their property or personal belongings damaged

Nearly 75% of both men and women aged 18-29 years who had been negatively affected in the last year by the drinking of a family member or friend said they also had to spend time looking after that person as a result of their drinking (cleaning up after them, driving them somewhere, caring for them or their children).

The survey found that 46% of young women who lived with a drinker would need to care for that person as a result of their drinking habits. They were also likely to experience verbal abuse from that person, which could also lead to cases of domestic violence.

The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found that younger men were more likely than women to experience verbal and physical abuse, while both younger and older women were more likely to be put in fear by someone affected by alcohol.

“We need to be asking what we can do to ensure that the whole community is protected from these harms. Now more than ever alcohol policy development is supported by a sound evidence base that shows which strategies are effective in reducing alcohol-related harms.” said Professor Webster.

He concluded “Significant policy reform is required in alcohol taxation, advertising and sponsorship restrictions, and limiting the availability of alcohol to protect young people.”

The report found the hidden cost of harms caused by someone else’s drinking brings the total economic impact of alcohol misuse in Australia to $36 billion annually, more than double previous estimates.

*Alcohol’s Harm to Others is a national survey completed in 2008 of more than 2,600 Australians aged 18 years or older conducted by Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: Alcohol Education & Rehabilitation Foundation

The online classified ads website Craigslist set up by American Mr. Craig Newmark, which has classified advertisements all around the world including Australia has been accused of posting ads that sell sex. The ‘adult services’ section on his website is used by many people who deal in human trafficking and pimps who place ads which sell young people for sex.

One such girl (MC), aged only 17 years of age said ”I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28-year-old man,” she wrote. ”I am not an exception.”

According to police and anti-trafficking activists the internet has now become the number one way to sell women for sex. It’s fast and easy for pimps and reasonably safe for those who pay for sex; they can now browse online from the comfort of their own home rather than combing the streets.

Of all the online sites that offer “adult services,” Craigslist is one of the most popular. It is regularly used by about 50 million Americans who can buy everything from antiques to toys and ads that provide service, jobs and gigs.

There online adult services ads make it the target of a nationwide campaign against internet prostitution. This campaign is being led by FAIR Fund, a Washington based non profit organisation that works to protect young people who are at high risk or have been exploited via human trafficking and sexual violence.

Andrea Powell, head of FAIR Fund called Craigslist ”the Wal-Mart of online sex trafficking’’ and added “most of the young women we’ve worked with who have been exploited online talk about Craigslist.”

The revelations by girls who appear in these ads include the account of AK, who said she had been sold for sex by the hour at truck stops after running away from home.

After pressure and threats of legal action from prosecutors in 43 US states, Mr. Newmark has agreed to monitor the ads, however this is proving both difficult and a conflict of interest for Craigslist as the ‘adults services’ section of the website brings in about $U36million in revenue each year, with each ad costing $U10 to place, that is a lot of ads.

Connecticut’s attorney-general called for Craigslist to shut down its ”adult section” completely.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: The Washington Post, FAIR Fund

420 million Internet porn pages
4.2 million Porn websites
68 million daily porn search engine requests

Playboy used to be synonymous with all that was porn. Scantily clad women with “come hither” looks. Even Cosmopolitan was considered “risqué” with its sealed sections.

According to Gail Dines, the porn around today has very little to do with sex and everything to do with degrading women, violence and profit. It seems there are no boundaries which cannot be crossed as men become desensitized to even the cruellest, humiliating, sadistic and brutal material.

Gail Dines, regarded as the world’s leading anti-pornography campaigner, has just published a new book Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. It exposes why the porn available to our teenagers today is destroying their chances of a healthy long lasting relationship later in live.

“We are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel, violent porn,” she says, “and given what we know about how images affect people, this is going to have a profound influence on their sexuality, behaviour and attitudes towards women.”

The porn today explores feelings of hate, fear, disgust, anger, loathing and contempt. Every sex act is designed to deliver the maximum amount of humiliation. Whether it is choking her or violent intercourse, the aim of porn sex is to demonstrate how much power he has over her. These images are now common place on the net and are shaping the way men think about sex, relationships and intimacy.

Dines found that many men believed that porn sex was what women wanted, and they became upset and angry when their sex partner refused to look or behave like their favourite porn star.

“I have found that the earlier men use porn,” says Dines, “the more likely they are to have trouble developing close, intimate relationships with real women. Some of these men prefer porn to sex with an actual human being. They are bewildered, even angry, when real women don’t want or enjoy porn sex,” she said.

During her research for the book, one student told her “I love porn and I try out the sex on my girlfriend, but she isn’t interested. I dumped the last girl I was with because she wanted to keep the sex straight. That’s not for me. If women don’t want to try different things, then I am not interested.”

Research statistics on porn access by boys over the internet is staggering:

• 30% of 13 year old boys view porn on a regular basis
• 30% 14- to 16-year-olds saw sexual images online by the age of 10 years old
• 81% of teenage boys polled looked at porn online at home, and
• 63% could easily access it on their mobile phones.

In essence, the today’s teenagers have access to hardcore porn 24 hours a day.

Porn culture doesn’t only affect men. It also changes “the way women and girls think about their bodies, their sexuality and their relationships,” says Dines.

“The more porn images filter into mainstream culture, the more girls and women are stripped of full human status and reduced to sex objects. This has a terrible effect on girls’ sexual identity because it robs them of their own sexual desire.”

Images have now become so extreme that acts that were almost non-existent a decade ago have become commonplace, including oral and anal penetration.

For the producers of porn it is not about sex; it is all about money and the profits. Dines spent 3 days at an Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas during 2008, she interviewed many porn producers and found that their interests lie not in bodily contact but purely in the profits, niche markets, and bulk mailing. Nobody talked about sex, just his or her business plan for increasing revenue. 

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: New York Post

We read the story – about an 11 year old girl in the US, Jessi Slaughter, who received a tirade of threats after posting a video of herself on YouTube.

We saw the pictures – the freeze frame of what looked like a traumatised child in her bedroom in floods of tears.
 
On the surface it looked like she was the victim of yet another case of cyber-bullying led by a group of ‘trollers’ – people who use the internet to deliberately provoke reactions by baiting their victims.

“How can we let this happen to an innocent young child?” we all said!

Jessi’s post is at Watch Haters… Piercing… StickyDrama =D here see all 4 minutes and 36 seconds of her rant – but be warned despite the fact Jessi is only 11 years old, the language is extremely graphic.

She has an attitude which is way beyond her years and completely defies logic or a sense of reality. She tells her ‘haters’ to “suck her nonexistent p…s. Suck it and get AIDS and die,” and ends her video post with “it’s a big f*** to all those haters, OK”.

It seems that her actions invited negative attention and provoked a backlash. Perhaps she was not aware that posting a video, filled with expletives, onto the internet would create such commotion. It reinforces the importance of parental supervision regarding teenage activities on the net, it also highlights the need for education about the harmful effects of new media in school as well.

Leading adolescent psychologist, Generation Next speaker and author of “Real Wired Child” Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, points out that “parents need to understand that there are potential dangers in life not just in the technology but also in young people’s inability to always predict the consequences of their actions.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Public Education and Media Education states that “the American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes that exposure to mass media (i.e., television, movies, video and computer games, the Internet, music lyrics and videos, newspapers, magazines, books, advertising, etc) presents both health risks and benefits for children and adolescents.”

They feel that educating both young people and parents is very important and that “media education has the potential to reduce the harmful effects of media. By understanding and supporting media education, pediatricians can play an important role in reducing the risk of exposure to mass media for children and adolescents.” (American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Public Education. Media Education. Pediatrics. 1999;104:341–3).       

Her behaviour seemed aggressive and quite bizarre; being under the impression that she was some kind of celebrity with fans.

“You hater bitches, you’re just jealous of me because I’m more pretty than you. More people like me, I have more fans, yeh and all that shit” I’m perfect and you’re not. No one can be this pretty with no make-up on… Just stop hating on me. I’m just a normal girl who’s perfect in every way.” 

So where were her parents in all this and why were they not aware of their daughter’s behaviour? Her mother said she doesn’t use the computer and hasn’t seen the clip, while her father added to the furore by posting a rant of his own.

Dr Helen McGrath – a contributor to the Commonwealth Government’s Cyber-safety Joint Committee commented that it was unrealistic to expect parents to keep an eye on their children 24/7 and that the burden lay with schools to give young people the tools to look after themselves.

“It really comes back down to making sure they understand what they’re getting into,” she said.

However Professor Matt Warren, the head of Deakin University’s School of Information Systems said a “child isn’t ethically aware of what they’re doing,” they are too young to understand the implications of what they are “getting into”.

He added “parents will be concerned about their child going out all hours, but they don’t care about them staying on the internet all hours.”

If ever parents needed a reason to censor their children’s internet activities, Jessi Slaughter is it. 

Cyber bullying is a real concern and for more information you can access either:

Cybersmart   or  Cybersafetysolutions

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: news.com

There are growing concerns within the medical profession that young people are mixing high caffeine ‘energy’ drinks with alcohol. The affects are disastrous and has led Steve Hambleton, vice president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), to speak out.

He has called for an open debate involving health experts and spear headed by government to discuss the merits of ‘energy’ drinks. His concerns are that some of the violence and drink driving associated with Saturday nights may be attributed to a mix of highly caffeinated drinks and alcohol.

Mr Hambleton said “it may well be giving intoxicated people more confidence, we are worried about them getting in a car and driving… and it may actually be leading to extra violence.”

Caffeine is an addictive substance which acts as a cardiac and central nervous system stimulant. The risk of withdrawal symptoms from long term consumption of low doses is higher in children than adults (FSANZ). As there is inconclusive evidence about a safe level for children, the sale of caffeinated beverages is not allowed in schools and preschools.

Typically an ‘energy’ drink contain around 160 – 300mg of caffeine per 500 ml serve, compare this to coffee which as 40-80mg per cup or tea which has about 30mg.

Apart from its addictive nature, caffeine can also have adverse effects such as insomnia, nervousness, rapid heart rate, hypertension, anxiety and hyper activity which when combined with alcohol, have the ability to destabilise a person and give them a heightened and distorted sense of confidence.

In addition, withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, tiredness, anxiety and irritability are likely to occur with a reduction in caffeine intake.

Dr Hambleton continued “I think we’ve certainly got to have a rethink about how we use it and the role of caffeine in our society,” he said.

“There seems to be a very big push for these caffeinated drinks and of course there’s a lot of caffeine in some of these energy drinks…  if you mix that with alcohol, well it can be a dangerous mix” he added.

The issue of ‘energy’ drinks in schools was also raised by Dr Hambleton who said “we know that there’s an interference with kids concentration at school. I think it’s time we had a look at this again.”

The government has already raised concerns about ‘energy’ drinks being supplied to children and they are banned from sale in schools.
 
A fact sheet (developed by SA Health in partnership with DECS for the Right Bite strategy) outlining the adverse affects of caffeinated drinks including difficulty concentrating, trouble sleeping, nervousness, headaches, anxiety, physiological dependence to caffeine and anxiety was circulated in some  high schools at the beginning of the year.

The Right Bite strategy takes an educative approach to providing healthy food and drink choices in schools and preschools. While there are no set guidelines relating to students bringing ‘energy’ drinks, individual schools are encouraged to develop whole of school strategies in consultation with their school community, based on accurate information and with regard to student health and wellbeing.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: Australian Medical Association. DECS

25% of students are bullied at school
95% of students are bulled more than once

A new study just released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that there is compelling evidence that young people who indulge in bullying at school go on to participate in further anti-social behaviour as they get older. This includes taking drugs, criminal acts and violent tendencies.

“Those who bullied in adolescence were three to four times more likely to be involved in anti-social behaviour and physical violence by their early 20s,” Dr. Lodge said.

“It seems that once they’re on this trajectory or pathway, it’s something that stays with them into adulthood.”

On the other hand, young people who have been victims of bullying are more likely to suffer from depression, higher absenteeism, lower academic achievement, physical and somatic symptoms, anxiety and depression, social dysfunction, and alcohol abuse in later life.

“What we found with the victims is that once they were established in this role, abuse was likely to continue,” Dr. Jodie Lodge said.

“They also experienced a number of social adjustment problems during adolescence and by their early 20s, were more likely to have higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress.”

Adolescent psychologist and Generation Next speaker, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said “we know bullying has been linked with self-harm and attempts at suicide so it’s a very, very serious issue and we need to address it.”

In Australia, there is currently no agreed definition for bullying; however, the most commonly cited definition is the ‘repeated oppression, psychological or physical harm, of a less powerful person by a more powerful person or group of persons’ (DEST 2006).

Bullying often occurs because of differences between the bullies and the victims, such as culture, ethnicity, age, ability or disability, religion, body size and physical appearance, personality, sexual orientation, and economic status (Rigby 2009).

The researchers found that bullying differs between males and females; both engaged in verbal abuse and insults with boys taking it to a physical level by becoming physically violent while girls tended to operate on a more indirect/covert psychological and emotional level, through social isolation and smear campaigns (texting, SMS and cyber bullying).
 
Dr. Lodge, who presented the findings at a conference recently, said the study followed 1,000 young people at 3 points in their lives; when they were 12 years old, again at 13 years of age and finally once more when they had entered adult life at the age of 23 years old.

She concluded that bullies tended to perform poorly academically and were more likely to drop-out of school, while both bullies and victims suffered academic and social problems and generally had fewer friends.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: Australian Institute of Family Studies

A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald by columnist Miranda Devine was a hard read; the very subject matter curdled the stomach and made the insides squirm in an effort to escape it.

The subject matter was paedophiles and how easily they gain both the trust of parents and access to the innocent children that become their victims.

The other disturbing aspect of the article lay in the fact that society doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge and address the horrors of child abuse in order to help protect the next generation, the innocent children, who are falling victim to an sexual, physical, mental and emotional abuse.

As Miranda points out, ‘how did we arrive at a circumstance in which a 56-year-old man is convicted in the NSW District Court this week of sexually abusing eight children aged from 12 months to 14 years, videotaping thousands of unspeakable crimes, and barely a comment is made?”

The trial in question was that of David Shane Whitby whose reign of terror lasted more than a decade, in which time he video-taped his despicable acts against innocent children. In one video he allegedly said “I love to molest children …. I am a child molester and transvestite … I have molested so many children”.

The list of charges read like an ‘R’ rated horror story and included 73 counts of sexual intercourse with a child aged between 10 and 14 years old. It is small consolation that he will be sentenced in September.

A police officer who works in child protection said ”they were poor single mothers doing it tough and they were conned by a predator … Whitby will be remembered as the worst paedophile in Australia’s history, in terms of number of victims, number of crimes and the extremely sick nature of the crimes … No one in child protection has ever seen anything like this.”

Traditionally the ‘family’ has formed the threads of our social fabric and yet because of changes in society during the last 40 years the social fabric that holds our community together is being ripped apart by society itself.

Gone are the days when the family was made up of a working father and a stay at home mother. Couples are marrying later and having fewer families. Today the term ‘family’ can be applied to step-parents, single parents, blended families, defacto relationships and same sex parents.

In essence change is good and these new lifestyle choices are merely a response to the world we now live in, but are they also unwittingly undermining the strength of the ‘family’ on which our society is built?

In the UK Sir Paul Coleridge, a Family Court judge, caused controversy last year when he addressed the Family Holiday Association and suggested that the state of marriage should be upheld and that those who destroy family life should be held accountable.

He described what he sees in court as a ”never-ending carnival of human misery … I have witnessed the damage done [to children] by the endless game of ‘musical relationships’, or ‘pass the partner’, in which a significant portion of the population is engaged”.

Sir Coleridge’s views might be considered old fashioned by some, but he had a point when he said “surely the test of any social change is whether it enhances people’s lives or makes them more miserable. And this is where I take issue with the modern view of the family. If it is so successful, why are the statistics for separation so large?”.
 
“More significantly, why are the family courts overwhelmed with cases involving damaged, miserable or disturbed children? How do other children, caught up in less serious separations, really feel? Do they relish the endless changes of partner, or adapting to a new step-parent and step-siblings?” he added.

So the question remains; how can our children be protected in a world where predators can easily enter their lives because of the breakdown in family values? If their parents cannot protect them, then who can?

How, we might ask ourselves, can a man like Whitby get so close to these vulnerable children?  The answer is ‘easily’ when you look at the recent case of a father who was awarded custody of his daughter, despite the fact that he has a known history of heroin addiction and sex offences.

He was given custody simply because the mother was even less able to protect and take care of her daughter than he was, as she had a string of shoplifting, drug and prostitution related convictions to her name.

The magistrate reasoned that “the father provides calmer parenting with more clearly set boundaries than the mother does,” adding that “a history of inadequate supervision combined with heroin and marijuana use create a serious concern that (the girl) may be neglected by her mother”.

Joe Tucci of The Australian childhood Foundation said “children shouldn’t ever be placed in a situation where the rights of the parents . . . override their right to protection,” he said.

“The decision should be about whether a child is safe or not, not which parent is the better to look after them.

As Miranda Devine points out “it is the community’s responsibility to rebuild social norms destroyed through the social revolution of the past 40 years.”

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald. Speech by Sir Paul Coleridge.