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rfmcdonaldVia Jonathan Edelstein's Head Heeb, I found this outline of the first testimony in the infamous sexual assault trials. The British ITV channel has two articles covering the first phase of the trials, the former hostile and the latter more friendly. The Scotsman goes into more detail:
The Head Heeb has an extensive archive related to the various legal battles waged by the Pitcairn Islanders to alternatively reject British authority over their island and pass off what happened as something both consensual and an integral part of island culture.
If these allegations are true--and I suspect that they are--what the whole affair surrounding Pitcairn Island sexual assault trials demonstrates, very clearly, is that tradition can and is enthusiastically used as an excuse for all manner of barbarisms. Unconditional respect for culture is not compatible with unconditional respect for individual people. If I have to choose, I'll take the people every time.
“Even as a teenager, [current Mayor] Steve Christian was a prominent and influential figure within his peer group. He was the leader of the pack.
His alleged victim, speaking via a video link from the New Zealand city of Auckland, broke down several times during her testimony.
She said as a young girl, of 11 or 12 years, she was taunted on the island for being a “half-caste,” and that she had been targeted and raped by Christian on four occasions. During the first attack, she said she was being held down by the defendant and two other men.
The woman said there was no one she or her parents could turn to on the island after the rapes. Under cross examination she said it was the norm on Pitcairn to keep quiet. Defense lawyers suggested other witnesses would likely contradict the woman’s claims that she was bullied at school and that sex simulation games took place at island gatherings.
Just a handful of islanders sat in their community hall, that has been converted into a court complex, to watch the case.
“I think they sense that they want to kind of keep away from it a bit and not really be involved in all of the details,” Ray Coombe, a visiting pastor told TVNZ.
[. . .]
On Tuesday, a group of women residents on the island came to the defense of the seven charged men, claiming the cases had been blown out of proportion and that the victims may have been coerced into testifying.
The Head Heeb has an extensive archive related to the various legal battles waged by the Pitcairn Islanders to alternatively reject British authority over their island and pass off what happened as something both consensual and an integral part of island culture.
If these allegations are true--and I suspect that they are--what the whole affair surrounding Pitcairn Island sexual assault trials demonstrates, very clearly, is that tradition can and is enthusiastically used as an excuse for all manner of barbarisms. Unconditional respect for culture is not compatible with unconditional respect for individual people. If I have to choose, I'll take the people every time.
