Schoolgirl raped after skipping school, drinking with boys

A
14-year-old schoolgirl paid a hefty price for playing truant and taking part in a drinking session with some friends she ended up being raped.

The Form Two pupil from Keningau district, some 160km from the city, had decided to skip school with three other girls and a male student on Friday.

Boys pretend to be possessed to rape girls

Four boys who pretended to be possessed by gods in order to trick a teenage girl into perfoming sex acts on them have been charged in court.

The victim, who was 14 years old then, was told she would receive divine punishment if she did not carry out the wishes of the alleged attackers, reported The Straits Times.

One of the attackers was only 12 at that time.

Indians pay surgeons to turn girls into boys

Madhya Pradesh state government is investigating claims that up to 300 girls were surgically turned into boys in one city after their parents paid about £2,000 each for the operations.

Women's and children's rights campaigners denounced the practice as a "social madness" that made a "mockery of women in India".

India's gender balance has already been tilted in favour of boys by female foeticide – sex selection abortions - by families who fear the high marriage costs and dowries they may have to pay. There are now seven million more boys than girls aged under six in the country.

Campaigners said the use of surgery meant that girls were no longer safe even after birth.

The row emerged after newspapers disclosed children from throughout India were being operated on by doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.

Doctors confronted in the investigation claimed that girls with genital abnormalities were being sent to the city's clinics to be "surgically corrected" and that only children born with both male and female sexual characteristics were eligible for the procedure. But campaigners said the parents and doctors were misindentifying the children's conditions to turn girls into boys.

The surgery, known as genitoplasty, fashions a penis from female organs, with the child being injected with male hormones to create a boy.

Dr V P Goswami, the president of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics in Indore, described the disclosures as shocking and warned parents that the procedure would leave their child impotent and infertile in adulthood.

"Genitoplasty is possible on a normal baby of both the sexes but later on these organs will not grow with the hormonal influence and this will lead to their infertility as well as their impotency. It is shocking news and we will be looking into it and taking corrective measures," he said. "Parents have to consider the social as well as the psychological impact of such procedures on the child."

India's National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights ordered the Madhya Pradesh government to investigate the claims and produce its findings within 15 days.

Ranjana Kumari, of the Centre for Social Research and one of India's leading campaigners against female foeticide, said the surgical transformation of girls into boys without their informed consent was a sign of India's growing "social madness".

She said she despaired that education had failed to stop the growing rejection of baby girls in India.

"The figures are getting worse. In 2001 there were 886 girls born to every 1,000 boys in Delhi. Today there are only 866. The more educated and rich you are, the more there is killing of girls," she said.

"People don't want to share their property or invest in girls' education or pay dowries. It's the greedy middle classes running after money. It is just so shocking and an outright violation of children's rights."

The government needed to address the problem by stressing the spiritual value a girl or woman brought a household in Hindu culture. "In India we say God resides in that house where there's a woman but that has evaporated because of all this greed. We need to emphasise the spiritual wealth a girl brings to a family, but we also need to support them with financial subsidies and jobs," she added.

IF YOU LIKE THIS POST AND WEBSITE PLEASE VISIT OUR

FACEBOOK PAGE HERE AND CLICK “LIKE”

For more information, please click here

Outrage as Malaysia Sends “Effeminate” Muslim Boys to Anti-Gay Camp

The Malaysian authorities are at the center of an increasingly heated row after it emerged that 66 Muslim boys identified by teachers as “effeminate” had been dispatched to a special camp to discourage them from becoming gay.

In an incident that highlights the difficulties faced by gay people in a country where homosexuality is officially illegal and homophobia widespread, educators in the conservative eastern state of Terengganu sent the children aged 13-17 for counseling on so-called masculine behavior and self-development.

 They also received religious guidance and physical education sessions. “[The camp] is to guide them back to the right path in life before they reach a point of no return,” Razali Daud, the state’s director of education, told the Associated Press. 

“Such effeminate behaviour is unnatural and will affect their studies and their future.” It is the first time Terengganu officials have organized such a camp, but they have previously arranged programs to promote Muslim morality and have offered free honeymoons for couples set to get divorced – with the hope of rekindling romance.

Mr Razali said the camps were voluntary and no boys were forced to attend. At the end of the four-day camp, teachers and parents will monitor and continue advising them, he said. “It is not an overnight cure,” he said. “We can’t force the boys to change, but we want them to know what their choices are in life. Some effeminate boys end up as a transvestite or a homosexual, but we want to do our best to limit this.” 

Malaysia’s Women’s Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil told local media the program broke the law and should be banned. “It is in clear violation of the Child Act,” she said. “The experience of being singled out on the basis of perceived characteristics is an extremely traumatizing experience, particularly for adolescent teens.”

 Gay rights activists say the incident highlights the challenge they face as they struggle for equality. Pang Khee Teik, the co-founder of a Malaysian sexual rights awareness group, said the camp was outrageous. “If we don’t do anything to stop the rot of homophobia, I worry it may get worse,” he said.

Gay Malaysians say they face discrimination from policies such as a law that makes gay sex punishable by 20 years in prison. While the so-called anti-sodomy law is not commonly enforced, it has been selectively used. The most high-profile such case relates to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is on trial on charges of having sex with a male former aide. 

Mr Anwar, who is married with six children, insists the charge was fabricated to smear his reputation. The government denies this. It is the second time he has been so accused. He was charged in 1999 and sentenced to nine years in jail, then freed on appeal in 2004. In the latest twist, he is accused of appearing in a video of a man having sex with a woman. He says it is an attempt to frame him.

For more information, please click here

Dean of Elite Boarding School Gets 9.5 Years for Sex with Four Boys – As Young as 13

The former dean at an exclusive $40,000-a-year boarding school was today handed a nine-and-a-half year sentence for sexually abusing four students.

Robert Reinhardt, former dean of the Gunnery school, was handed the sentence after making a plea deal

Robert Reinhardt, who worked at The Gunnery school in Washington, Connecticut, will also have to register as a sex offender after prison and serve 30 years of probation.

Victims’ relatives hugged and cried as Reinhardt, who had been free on bail, was led out of the Litchfield Superior Court in handcuffs.

The 46-year-old pleaded guilty in April to three counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of risk of injury to a minor, charges that carry up to 40 years in prison combined.

However he received the nine-and-a-half year sentence in a plea deal.

‘I’m sorry for all the events that have occurred,’ Reinhardt said without elaborating. It was his only statement inside the courtroom.

Reinhardt had insisted on his innocence and took the plea deal only to avoid a much longer prison sentence that could have been imposed if he went to trial and was convicted, his lawyer, William Dow III said.

Four former students said Reinhardt abused them while they attended the school, often at his on-campus apartment.

The first abuse dated as far back as 2002 when Reinhardt invited one boy to go to the boathouse where hugging, kissing, and oral sex took place.

The student tried to end the relationship, but Reinhardt warned the teenager he had control over grades, and could ‘out him’ as a gay man,  Assistant State Attorney Terri Sonneman had told the court in a previous hearing.

A boy, now 18, had 70 sexual encounters with Reinhardt when he was a 13-year-old freshman in 2007. Another victim was molested six times and two involved oral sex.

Sonnemann told how Reinhardt would invite the boys over to his apartment in one of the school’s dormitories.

The teen would then lie on a couch and place his head in Reinhardt’s lap. The dean would then begin to rub the shoulders of the victim, working his way to the victim’s genital area.

One victim said in April that he was stunned and upset by the plea bargain because he thought Reinhardt would be serving much more prison time, his lawyer said.

Prosecutors said the other three victims also wanted a more severe sentence but accepted the plea deal because it spared them from having to testify in public at a trial.

Reinhardt resigned from the school in June 2009 after the allegations surfaced and was arrested two months later.

He had been on the faculty at the school since 1996 and was named dean in 2006. He had been living most recently in Telford, Pa., about 30 miles north of Philadelphia.

The Gunnery, a residential school in the rolling hills of western Connecticut, was founded in 1850 by outdoorsman and abolitionist Frederick William Gunn.

There were 270 students this year at the school, which costs more than $40,000 per year for boarding students.

For more information, please click here