Word: consent
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Consider the most basic question of such inquiry: What constitutes a victim of child sexual abuse? By definition, pedophiles prey on the prepubescent. No one would seriously argue that a 6- or even 10-year-old can meaningfully consent to sex. But what about those 12 and older, who make up nearly half of all juvenile sex-abuse victims? The states define the age of consent for sex differently. Most say it is 16, but some say 18. In Hawaii, it's 14. So are teenagers from the onset of puberty (usually about 13) to the age of sexual majority...
Legally speaking, as the differences in legal adulthood indicate, the younger partners are not always treated as victims. Even in states where the age of consent is 18, prosecutors rarely go after, say, a 23-year-old for sleeping with a 17-year-old. Given that up to half of teens say they have had sex while a minor, "millions of statutory-rape cases occur every day," says Michelle Oberman, a DePaul University rape-law specialist...
Some have attacked Levine's book as trivializing the pain that sexual-abuse victims can feel. The idea that a 12-year-old could consent to sex is "just dangerous in every way," child psychologist Joy Silberg said last week on Good Morning America. Silberg pointed out that many children who have sex with an adult are "severely sexually traumatized." Some kids tried to bury their trauma, and as we have seen recently with priests' victims, the agony from sexual abuse can emerge much later...
...unusual for democrats in Pakistan to behave like dictators, but dictators who try to behave like democrats are an anomaly. Thus Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, has created a rare spectacle in recent weeks by campaigning for the people's consent to continue as President. Musharraf came to power in 1999 by grabbing it from an elected Prime Minister in a coup. He did not seek permission then, but on April 30, Pakistanis are being asked to vote in a referendum to approve another five years of Musharraf. There is no other candidate, yet he has been crisscrossing Pakistan...
...however, they are after bigger quarry: bin Laden himself. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca, the sources say, was in Islamabad last month to ask Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for permission to make the raid on Pakistan's mountainous border with Afghanistan. But Musharraf has still not given his consent. He is hesitant, the sources say, because the fierce tribes of the region are well armed and sympathetic to Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. An American military operation, especially if it went wrong, could weaken the Pakistani leader's already frayed ties to the area...