Post #450468 by christiki295 on Wed, Apr 29, 2009 10:05 AM

OMG! What a terrible, horrible story:

"In December 1999, several Pitcairn girls claimed that they had been sexually assaulted by a visiting New Zealander. By chance, a British policewoman was on the island, and one of the girls confided that she had also been raped by two local men in the past. An investigation into those allegations developed into a major inquiry that saw British detectives crisscross the globe, interviewing dozens of Pitcairn women. Their conclusion was that nearly every girl growing up on the island in the last forty years had been abused, and nearly every man had been an offender."

The questions it raises about us and all humans who look the other way are only slightly less disturbing:

"Why was it that many outsiders persisted in defending men who were guilty of a crime that was normally reviled — pedophilia? Why did they continue to mythologize Pitcairn, although it had failed, in such a dramatic way, to live up to its utopian image? How far back, I asked myself, did the sexual abuse stretch — to the time of the mutineers? Why had parents not denounced the perpetrators and kept their children safe? Had anyone outside the island realized what was going on?

There were bigger questions, too. What did Pitcairn tell us about human nature and life in small, remote communities? Is this how all of us would behave if left to ourselves, with no one looking over our shoulder?"

[ Edited by: christiki295 2009-04-29 10:05 ]