A nine-year old Brazilian girl was raped by her step-father and the AP (via MSNBC ) has the gall to say she was allegedly raped? Unless I am completely fucking out of touch with reality, nine years old is no where near a reasonable age of consent. And therefore, it is no great leap of logic to leave out the alleged.
What's worse is that the little girl became pregnant...with twins. Fortunately, the courts of Brazil granted permission for this child to have an abortion...and now the Catholic Church is calling her a murderer. Umm, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! She is nine years old! She was raped! Pregnant! With twins!
(Granted, Brazil has the highest population of Roman Catholics in the world but this is un fucking believable. This is an extraordinarily immature and close-minded response to the real problem.)
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Actually, this is more appropriate journalism than some of the headlines from say, the New York Post, which completely forgets that journalism is supposed to be objective.
I think the use of the term "alleged" is that the rape hasn't yet been proven in a court of law and the stepfather - although in jail - has not yet been convicted. I do think it's pretty obvious that she was raped, because 9 year olds do not get pregnant unless someone is having sex with them and anyone having sex with a 9 year old is in fact RAPING them.
But from a legal standpoint, there has been no conviction yet, which is where the "alleged" comes from. I think it was a poor choice of title though, definitely.
-Lilith
Right--I'm pretty sure it's a matter of "alleged STEPFATHER rape" rather than just "alleged rape."
More proof "pro-lifers" only care about the lives of fetuses than those who are already born. Pregnancy is dangerous for 9-year-olds and that's just with a single birth.
More proof "pro-lifers" only care about the lives of fetuses than those who are already born. Pregnancy is dangerous for 9-year-olds and that's just with a single birth.
The headline is pretty atrocious. "Brazil girl, alleged rape victim, aborts twins." First of all, it's "Brazilian." Secondly, she's not an alleged rape victim. She is a rape victim. A rape took place, because she had sex at 9 years old, which she can't consent to. That's rape. If she were murdered, would she be an alleged murder victim? Of course not. The word "alleged" is meant to protect suspects, "innocent until proven guilty" and all that. She was allegedly raped by her father. The rape isn't alleged.
Agreed. They probably meant it to be read as "her stepfather is the alleged rapist", but I hate that wording. I don't like calling anyone an "alleged rape victim", but with a child it's not like there's any other possiblity. They should simply call her a rape victim/rape survivor, and when they talk about him, that's when we should be seeing the word "alleged" coming in.
Actually, the rape IS alleged until somebody gets convicted of it.
The same thing with a murder - it's just a death until somebody gets convicted of homicide for causing it.
As for the headline thing - probably, the headline writer thought Brazil girl worked better than Brazilian girl, or he/she had space limitation issues to deal with (daily journalism is not easy).
I personally don't understand why the title needed to mention that she's Brazilian at all.
"Brazilian girl" would not be a good usage because it wouldn't say that she was IN Brazil, only that she was from there. "Brazil girl" is a shortened version of "girl in Brazil", which needs to be stated because that is where the rape occurred.
Well, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining it.
Since the stepfather has yet to be convicted in a court of law, it IS an alleged rape, and he's an alleged rapist.
That's journalism 101.
Even as far as the statutory rape thing, since it hasn't yet been proved in court, it's still an allegation by the girl and the Brazilian police.
It's called "presumption of innocence".
On the contrary, Mr. Butler, the rape is itself a known fact, unless we consider virgin pregnancy to be likely in this case.
The only thing up in the air, legally, is whether or not the stepfather committed the rape. The reporter could just as easily have referred to an "alleged perpetrator" rather than an alleged victim.
I agree that the rape is a known fact, but if they'd left out the alleged part they could've gotten sued... they could say "but we meant just because of her age!" but the stepfather would say that people would interpret him as having done it for 100% sure.
Incidentally, the AP can be reached at info@ap.org if anybody wishes to take them to task for their poor choice of words. If nobody calls them on it, journalists will just continue to use weasel-words that imply culpability to describe female and child victims of rape and other forms of violence.
I saw this in NYT today and almost cried. Not that it was poorly written or anything, but they had a quote something like: Well, she should have carried them to term and had a C-section. I don't care if she is 9, God doesn't want her to murder her babies (paraphrase, obviously). I mean, Jesus, when I was 9 I was vaguely aware of sex but had no knowledge of the mechanisms. I didn't even know what sperm was, I think I thought that if you had sex a baby would just magically grow inside you. It would be torture to force a pregnancy on a child that age.
It's like I can't browse Feministing without running across people who don't understand how newspapers work.
You HAVE to say "alleged" if there is no conviction. You just have to. It doesn't matter whether it's rape, murder or just stealing a candy bar from the convenience store. If there isn't a conviction, you must use words like this, or else the paper could get sued to Brazil and back for libel.
It's straight out of the AP Stylebook, which tells news writers "to avoid any suggestion that someone is being judged before a trial" in its crime entries.
No. It's not alleged that there is a victim. She was 9 and pregnant with twins. There's no secret that she's a victim of rape. "Alleged" comes in when you talk about suspects. The stepfather is the alleged perpetrator. The 9-year-old girl is not an alleged victim. And as anyone who reads Feministing would know, not many rape cases result in a conviction, even if the suspect actually did it.
The "alleged" doesn't refer to the fact that she was raped. It refers to the fact that the stepfather did it. If you read the lede that should be quite clear.
And if you paid more attention, you would realize that you just repeated what I've said like 3 times already.
Except my comment was directed at the original post, which suggested the journalist should just "leave the alleged out." You can't do that.
Ok, I'm brazilian and i'm a journalist, so this appeals closely to me.
I know the number one rule of journalism is "never convict anyone before justice does". However, this girl is 9 years old and she absolutely can't consent to have sex at that age. She doesn't have maturity to do so! No matter who did it, she WAS raped.
So, saying "alleged rape" gives room for the interpretation that she might have consented. That she might be some sort of "child slut" or whatever. The truth is: someone raped her. She says it was the stepfather, but he wasn't convicted yet. So you gotta write just that: "Alleged perpetrator" intead of "alleged rape".
Now THAT'S journalism 101: you gotta write things in a way that makes them CLEAR, without giving room to a second (and wrong) interpretation of the facts.
That said, the position of the Catholic Church is just ridiculous and even the majority of the catholic population here doesn't agree with that (just like they don't agree with the whole "don't use condoms" discourse. Their leaders say one thing, but most of them just don't listen...).
Now, the funny part: the catholic church say they will excomungate everyone involved with the abortion. The girl, the doctors and the members of the feminist organization that is helping the girl (haha, i'm sure they can't sleep at night cuz of that!). However, THEY DIDN'T SAY A WORD ABOUT EXCOMUNGATING THE STEPFATHER. Nice, huh?
OK, just a little devil's advocate 'food for thought'...
What do you call it if two 9-year-olds have sex? It's not rape if it's consensual, but yet, 9-year-olds can't legally consent to sex.
I think it's pretty obvious that this was rape, however, legally it's still 'alleged' until something has been proven in a court of law. However slim, there still lies the possibility that she was either impregnated by another child or through some artificial insemination type thing. Probable or even likely? No. But technically, they haven't proven rape yet. I have NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that they will and because it's the case of a pregnant 9-year-old who is likely an incest victim as well as a rape victim, they should have chosen different language. However they're not technically incorrect. Not technically.
In the case of two 9-year-olds having sex, I think that would be a case of child abuse and the parents would be held responsible for it. Children that young are unlikely to have sex with each other unless one or both of them were exposed to sex by their parents or due to the neglect of their parents.
Well, I was just referring to the fact that it wouldn't be rape. So while it's unlikely and misleading and offensive... the phrase "alleged rape" could be accurate. (I still wouldn't have used that phrase in the title, regardless of the legality).
I don't think it would necessarily be the parent's fault if the 9-year-olds were having sex. It would be the fault of some adult perhaps, but not necessarily the parents.
Out of curiosity, at what age do you think it's appropriate to "expose" your kids to the concept of sex? My daughter is only 8 and she always knows what sex is. She hasn't had it or seen it, obviously, but I know guys who lost their virginity at age 11 (!!!)
But I'm off on a really unrelated tangent, sorry!
That should say "already" not "always". And in case it wasn't clear, I was talking about teaching my daughter about sex education (safe sex). I wouldn't give her a graphic explanation of sex at this age, but she does know what parts go where and how that can make a baby. She always knows it's not something that children do, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any 9 year old having sex is automatically a victim of parental abuse/neglect.
And in case this isn't clear either, I'm not suggesting that the girl in this article wasn't raped. Like I said earlier, it was more of just 'food for thought' on the subject of consent.
-Lilith
The exposure to sex that I was talking about is more about kids seeing adults have sex, either in person or on TV or the Internet, or talking explicitly about sexual activity. So if a 9-year-old is left home alone and looks at porn on a website and then does whatever he watched on that site with a classmate, that's child neglect and sexual abuse. It doesn't make a difference if the sex is forced.
I don't think there's a golden age where kids should learn about sex. It's more important to use age appropriate language. If a kid asks "where do babies come from," the kid is old enough to learn. If they don't ask by age 9 or 10, I would ask the child if they knew where babies come from and correct the incorrect parts and reinforce the correct parts. But that's just my opinion.
They have to say allegedly. The step-father has a right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty (I assume Brazil has a similar idea?). I don't think they mean she wasn't raped (that seems obvious, as there is no way she can be pregnant at 9 except by rape), but rather that it hasn't yet been confirmed that the stepfather raped her. I think it was a poor choice of words and the knowledge that they could get sued without that word, not a slight against the girl. And I doubt anyone would read it and think that the 9 year old was not raped.
That said, I read today that her doctors would be excommunicated and wanted to scream. She's a nine-year old. Even if you hold the religious belief that rape is not a valid reason for abortion, the Catholic Church believes abortion may be acceptable when the mother's life is in danger. Clearly, this girl's life is in danger. It's not giving birth, even, she will be endangered by bringing them to viable stage. They are violating their own beliefs! I hope the pope steps in and mentions that little piece...
"What do you call it if two 9-year-olds have sex? It's not rape if it's consensual, but yet, 9-year-olds can't legally consent to sex."
Can a nine-year-old boy even get an erection? I think in most cases that would be considered just inappropriate sexual behavior on both their parts.
I don't think most 9 year old boys are producing real sperm yet... but most 9 year old girls can't get pregnant either. But obviously, it happens. :(
I get what you're saying, but I still have to disagree. That logic might apply in a rape case with a victim who is able to consent, but not in this case. Since the victim is so young, there's no question that a rape took place. Who did it is up in the air. So the girl isn't an alleged victim, but the stepfather is an alleged rapist.
Oops. This is supposed to be for GREGORYABUTLER at 1:15 PM. My first comment didn't go through, because the mysterious sign-out monster logged me out.
...and now the Catholic Church is calling her a murderer.
Actually, I think the Church is just excommunicating the girl's mother and doctors for the abortion. They've decided that the girl was a victim - of abortion that is, not rape. That's still alleged.