Violence against women – another sad week

Scores of Panama residents have signed a petition circling the world calling on Pakistan’s government to promote education for women.

It follows the shooting of 14-year old Malata Yonafzai in Pakistan for speaking out on behalf of girls denied the right to education by the Taliban

Then came the news of a Canadian girl driven to suicide not by a crazed religious extremist, but by a Facebook predator in a country listed as one of the top five countries in the world to grow up in.
Meanwhile I received an article from Newsroom health contributor Dr Cory Coullard with grim statistics on violence to women and children. No country is exempt including Panama where violence against women and children is seemingly endemic and it is not confined to homes in the poorer areas of the country. In a macho society the abuse also goes on in some of the homes in the walled in ghettoes of the well-heeled.
Dr Couillard’s article dealt with the recurring pattern of abuse, and abused children growing up to become abusers and it contained answers – education at home and in the schools. But there’s little hope of legislative pressure from the politicians who rule the country, who subscribe to the macho culture, many of them with mistresses and “second” families. subscribing to the macho culture. They are not likely to follow advice on changing that culture through an education system that for many fails to provide the three Rs.
Signing petitions about other countries is a worthy cause, but perhaps weshould be looking closer to home.
The Canadian tragedy for those who may have missed it was summed up in The Week, on Wednesday, October 14.
AS TRIBUTES were paid to a 15-year-old Canadian girl who was driven to suicide after a campaign of bullying, hacktivist group Anonymous last night claimed to have identified her stalker.
Amanda Todd killed herself last Wednesday, weeks after posting a video on YouTube describing how an online stalker sent nude images of her to "everyone" she knew.
In the nine-minute video she told her story with a set of handwritten notes. She explained that she was persuaded to expose her breasts via a webcam to a stranger who then sent the photo to her school friends. The images were then used to torment her on social media.
Todd, from Port Coquitlam, near Vancouver, changed schools repeatedly but this did not stop the bullying and she was physically attacked by classmates.
Yesterday, Anonymous posted a dramatic YouTube clip in which a man disguised in a Guy Fawkes mask reveals the identity of "Amanda Todd's punisher".
The hacker, whose voice has been distorted, names a 32-year-old man from Vancouver, describing him as "the paedophile that social engineered Amanda Todd into supplying him nude pictures". The Anonymous message also describes the man as "an abomination to our society" and claims that he "will be punished".
The alleged stalker has now been threatened online by others vowing to carry out vigilante justice, a development that worries Vancouver defence lawyer Eric Gottardi.
"The system isn't supposed to convict someone before charges are laid. It's not supposed to be judge, jury and executioner, all in the public forum," Gottardi told CBC News. "We have a justice system. It's supposed to work, it does work."
During a memorial service for Todd yesterday, her friends said they had been aware of an unknown man in his 30s "stalking" her for years. "There were multiple accounts with random names. There were Twitter accounts also used," said one of Todd's friends who was sent the images.
The Royal Canadian Mounted police said they would investigate the claims as part of their ongoing inquiry into what led to her death.