Anglican Mainstream

From Christian Concern

Girls as young as nine are being forced to marry in mosques in Islington, according to the findings of a leading women’s rights group.

The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) has reported that at least 30 forced marriages took place in the borough in 2010, involving at least three 11-year old and two 9-year old girls.

Similarly, the Ministry of Justice revealed details of over 30 applications for Forced Marriage Protection Orders in 2011, of which “five or fewer” were made to protect children aged 9 to 11.

IKWRO has warned that child marriages in Britain could be on the increase, with hundreds of Muslim girls facing physical, sexual and emotional abuse as a result.

Dianna Nammi, director of IKWRO said:

“They are still attending schools in Islington, struggling to do their primary school homework, and at the same time being practically raped by a middle-aged man regularly and being abused by their families. So they are a wife, but in a primary school uniform.

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By Jose C Sison, PhilStar

[...]  So let us turn our attention to the other function of Congress concerning enactment of laws which is its main task anyway. And this has something to do again with some harmful and dangerous provisions of the RH bill now being considered in both houses.

These provisions specifically refer to the proposed mandatory classroom based sex education in private and public schools where classroom teachers who may not be competent at all are tasked to teach their pupils as young as ten years old, lessons in sexuality, sexual rights, and reproductive health. While the bill also mentions lessons in values, more emphasis is given to contraceptive methods and services thus giving a clear impression that sexual behavior or activity even among minors is acceptable for as long as the risk of teenage pregnancy or early marriage are addressed.

The mandatory classroom based sex education provisions in the bill comes to mind once more because last Tuesday, I was privileged to listen to the lecture of Dr. Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D., one of the most sought after speakers and consultants of parliaments, legislatures and courts worldwide regarding a) fraudulent sex science, sex education and b) the power and effect of images and media monopoly to alter human brain, mind, memory and conduct.

Apparently, and as usual we have again copied and patterned the proposed sex education program in classrooms after the sex education programs for young Americans which Dr. Reisman was discussing. Dr. Reisman clearly and convincingly traced the origin of this human sexuality education to Alfred Kinsey, the man who instigated the sexual revolution in the US way back in 1948 with his dubious scientific research on human sexual behavior that has since been referred to as the “Kinsey Reports”.

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By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ruth Institute

I am here today to address those of you who have already made up your minds to redefine marriage. History will not be kind to you. Previous generations of social experimenters have caused unimaginable misery for millions of people. Particular people advocated the policies that led to today’s 50% divorce rate and 40% out of wedlock childbearing rate. None of these people has ever been held accountable.

I am here today to hold you to account, for the predictable harms you have already caused and will continue to cause by redefining marriage.

Let me remind you of the essential public purpose of marriage. Marriage attaches mothers and fathers to their children, and to one another. Once you replace that essential public purpose with inessential, even frivolous private purposes, marriage will not be able to do its job. But children will still need secure attachments to their mothers and fathers, a need which will go unfulfilled.

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By Sue Sanders, Pink News

As teachers in the 1970s, Paul Patrick and I were appalled at the invisibility of lesbians and gays and the lack of support that the unions gave us when we were attacked for being out in the classroom.

In the late 1980s, we dealt with the massive attack on the embryonic work in schools to tackle the invisibility of gays and lesbians: Section 28.

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Sue Sanders is co-Chair of Schools Out, a pressure group campaigning for 'curriculum development' on LGBT issues

By Patrick B Craine, LifeSite News

After Ontario’s Catholic trustees took a strong stand against homosexual activism in a new anti-bullying plan last week, Ontario’s government has slammed the plan for failing to allow for single-issue clubs for homosexual students.

“We’ve been absolutely crystal clear that we expect students to participate in groups and have the issues important to them talked about,” Education Minister Laurel Broten told the Catholic Register’s Deborah Gyapong on Monday.

In a Jan. 25th document titled Respecting Differences, the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association (OCSTA) established a framework for student-led clubs to combat bullying related to racism, gender, disability, and sexual orientation.

The document insists the clubs remain faithful to Catholic teaching, be overseen by a staff advisor who knows and believes the Church’s teaching, and cannot engage in activism against Catholic teaching.

It comes in response to Broten’s Bill 13 (the Accepting Schools Act), which would require schools to allow students to “establish and lead … organizations with the name gay-straight alliance or another name.”

Broten and Premier Dalton McGuinty have both insisted the bill would require schools to establish GSAs, and Broten has labeled opponents of the bill as “homophobic.”

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by Katie Silver, Mailonline

• 2.8 million children have a smartphone – including almost a million 8-12 year olds (25 per cent)
• 87 per cent of children do not have parental security restrictions on their mobile phones
• Almost forty percent of children use the phones to access videos and social networking sites

Parents are being warned to monitor their children's use of smartphones as new research suggests vast numbers of youngsters have used them to access illicit pictures and videos.

Only 13 per cent of children have security settings installed on their smartphones, said a new report released today.

This compares with 44 per cent having parental restrictions on their home computers and laptops while 84 per cent of children's home computers had anti-virus software.
 
Despite it being increasingly possible to access the same content on their mobile phones as their home computers, it seems the same care isn’t applied to mobile phones.

In fact, 46 per cent of parents just aren’t aware of the necessary controls to protect children’s mobiles.

The study, compiled by YouGov looked into the mobile web behaviour of 8 -15 year-olds in the UK.
It found that one-in-five, or 21 per cent of children have accessed inappropriate websites via their mobile phone, rising to a third of 14-15 year-olds.
 
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From Queerty.com

From Family Research Council

by Christopher Booker, Telegraph

The international row over Indian children seized by Norwegian social workers serves to highlight the problems with our own child protection law.

The anger of the Indian government at the seizing of two young Indian children from their parents by Norwegian social workers has recently attracted the attention of the media around the world. The family were living in Norway, where the father works as a geoscientist, when local social workers removed their children, reportedly on the grounds that the son was allowed to sleep in his father’s bed and that the mother fed the children with her fingers (practices not uncommon in India). The parents were told that the children must be kept in care in Norway until they are 18 – although on Wednesday the authorities caved in and agreed that the children could live with their uncle.
 
What is striking about this furore is that such things happen here in Britain many times a week, with no publicity at all. In Norway, as in almost every other country, when children are seized for what seem inexplicable reasons, there is no bar to parents and children being named, or to aggrieved parents speaking to the press. But it was precisely this publicity, not least in India, which led to last week’s official Norwegian climbdown.
 
Yet here, thanks to the wall of secrecy with which our “child protection” system surrounds itself, none of this is possible. Day after day, as the number of children seized from families soars to record levels – nearly 900 a month – I hear accounts of the actions of social workers and courts which would profoundly shock the public if they could be reported. But, thanks to that wall of secrecy, a reassuring official impression is created which could not be further from reality.

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From the NSS

Children & Families Minister Tim Loughton MP has said that he is not convinced there is any need to regulate Britain's madrassas, despite clear evidence of abuse.

The Minister was responding to concerns expressed by the National Secular Society about child protection in Islamic schools. This followed a BBC investigation which revealed that over 400 allegations of physical abuse (and 30 of sexual abuse) were made at Britain's madrassas in the last three years. Only 10 cases went to court, and of these only two apparently led to convictions.

A senior prosecutor has suggested that these figures were likely to represent only the 'tip of an iceberg'. Nazir Afzal, the chief crown prosecutor for the North West of England, has commented that the figures represent "a significant underestimate".

UK madrassas are attended by more than 250,000 children from Muslim backgrounds every day for lessons on the Quran and Islamic culture.

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By James Chapman, Mailonline

One in five children from broken homes lose one parent from their lives for good, official figures reveal.

Preparing to unveil plans to tackle the problem, families minister Maria Miller said parents should take responsibility for their offspring for life and reach civilised agreements.

‘We want to make sure parents are aware of the effect and the importance of working together to support their children,’ Mrs Miller told the Daily Mail.

‘Really that should be the case irrespective of whether their relationship is intact or not.  ‘They are parents for life and that responsibility is for life.’ 

Figures show that 20 per cent of children from a broken home lose touch with absent parents within three years and then never see them again. 

As they grow older, many others lose contact with a parent, most often with fathers when mothers are awarded custody.

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By Kerry McQueeney, Mailonline

A school has been forced to offer anger management lessons to children as young as five after 40 children were excluded for bad behaviour.

Psychologists and other mental health professionals have been drafted in to help pupils at Hillcrest Primary School, in the run-down Leeds suburb of Chapeltown.

The moves comes after Ofsted inspectors labelled conduct at the West Yorkshire school unacceptable. A total of 40 pupils were excluded in just one year.

The school is now receiving the highest level of ‘behaviour support’ from Leeds City Council – the only school in the city to do so.
In the latest Ofsted report, inspectors point to some progress but say more needs to be done.

Inspector John Young said: 'The deputy headteacher overseeing this aspect [behaviour] has a good understanding of potential flashpoints.

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By Melanie Phillips, Mailonline

When Sasha Laxton was born five years ago, his parents decided they wanted to avoid classifying him as either a boy or a girl.

They felt that to do so was a kind of ‘sexual stereo-typing’ which had to be avoided at all costs.

So instead of referring to their son as a boy, they talked about him as the ‘infant’, and kept his gender secret from all but a few close friends and family until he started school.

So proud were they of what they were doing that they even posted on YouTube a video of Sasha saying it was ‘silly’ to talk of differences between boys and girls, and sent friends pictures of him dressed as a pink and glittery fairy.

To which most people will probably be shaking their heads in disbelief and thinking: ‘That poor child.’

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By Steve Doughty, Mailonline

A family, these days, isn’t necessarily what you might call a family. It doesn’t have to have children.

According to the wisdom in Whitehall ‘a family is a married, civil partnered or cohabiting couple with or without children, or a lone parent with at least one child.’

Doesn’t say whether my dog counts, but with the right lawyer I’m sure I could persuade a High Court judge to say it does.

This properly reflects the thinking that has become established over the past decade, which is that all sorts of families are just as good as any other kind of family.

Those who cling to different ideas are living in a golden age of the nuclear family of husband, wife and 2.4 children, which never existed, we are told.

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By Martin Beckford, Telegraph

As more couples shun weddings, children are increasingly likely to live with unmarried parents as married ones.
 
Some 8,000 same-sex couples now have children, the Office for National Statistics said, while almost 8million people are living alone.
 
The figures highlight the continuing decline in popularity of marriage, despite claims that it provides the most stable background for children and attempts to promote it by leading politicians including David Cameron.
 
The ONS’s bulletin, published on Thursday, shows that in 2011 there were 17.9m families in Britain.
 
Of these, 7.6m were married or in civil partnerships and childless, while 4.5m had children under 16.

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By Carolyn Moynihan, MercatorNet

It’s difficult today to say anything in favour of the intact, married family without putting somebody’s nose out of joint. Last week it was a blogger at the LBGT site ThinkProgress who took umbrage at a comment by Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton. I’ll let Mr Stanton tell you how from his post on NRO’s Home Front blog:

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From LifeSite News

Children’s aid and sex abuse organizations in Victoria State report that they are dealing with a rising number of cases of children sexually abusing other children, and point to the proliferation and easy availability of porn on portable devices as the cause.

Bernie Geary, Child Safety Commissioner of Victoria State told The Age, ‘‘If you’re prepared to put your child out there in a world where they’re going to be inundated with this sort of information [pornography], you need to be able to a) protect them, or b) expect what the fairly miserable consequences will be.”

These “miserable consequences” – sexually abusive behavior among children as young as five – are “exploding” according to Carolyn Worth, statewide convener of Victoria’s Centres Against Sexual Assault (CASA), who said that referrals for children exhibiting sexually abusive behavior are much greater than the resources available to help them. There were 237 placements across the state for problem sexual behavior programs funded by the CASA, but 414 referrals, she said.

Worth said that most, but not all, younger children (aged five to nine) were referred to the programs because they were victims of abuse, with a majority being boys. However, she noted that problem sexual behavior among girls – mentioning an eleven year old girl in the program who was sexting (sending sexually explicit pictures of herself by cellphone) – was also becoming worse.

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From Huffington Post

A teenage boy who claimed he was sent home from school after turning up to lessons dressed as a girl has won his fight to return to classes.

Jamie Love arrived at school wearing denim hotpants, hair extensions and make-up, prompting staff to ask him to leave.

According to the 17-year-old, he told the school in advance of his plans to attend classes dressed as a girl, a detail that the school disputes.

But on Thursday night, Govan High School backed down and retracted their decision to exclude Love from school, after a campaign by fellow students, the Daily Record reported.

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From Public Service co.uk

In secondary schools over 60 per cent of teachers are women and there are no male teachers at all in 27 per cent of primary schools (down slightly from 28 per cent in 2010), according to statistics from the General Teaching Council for England.

The lack of male role models in responsible positions is often given as a reason for boys to go off the 'straight and narrow', fail at school, get into gangs and end up in prison, as the Education Secretary Michael Gove alluded to in his speech at the Durand Academy in Stockwell, south London. The latest GCSE results showed that the achievement gap between girls and boys in secondary schools was wider than ever.

The figures showed that only 12.4 per cent of teachers in primary schools are men and just 3.1 per cent in all of England's state-run nurseries. In secondary schools, 37.5 per cent of teachers are male. However, most head teachers and deputy heads are men.

Gove said: "We need more male teachers, especially in primary schools to provide children who often lack male role models at home with male authority figures who can display both strength and sensitivity. One of the principal concerns that men considering teaching feel is the worry that they will fall foul of rules which make normal contact between adults and children a legal minefield.

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By Leon Watson, Mailonline

Teenagers are engaging in an explosion of casual sex sparked by a sexting culture, according to new research.

Worrying numbers of youngsters are turning online contacts into real life sexual relationships, according to a survey conducted by a leading academic.

Professor Andy Phippen, from the University of Plymouth, has carried out a number of studies looking at how technology has impacted on relationships.

His research has ranged from the online abuse of teachers by 'cyber bullying students' to the growing trend of sexting – the practice of sending explicit images and video film electronically – among youngsters.

Now a survey of 16 to 24-year-olds has revealed that one-in-ten have made contact with people online and then subsequently met them in the 'physical' world to have casual sex.
 
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