On Thursday in a Halifax courtroom, there was a sentencing hearing for what is euphemistically called a “High Profile Child Pornography Case." It's called that because we can't say her name - the name of the victim - because of a publication ban. But you know who she is.
Her assault went effectively unpunished, no more than a metaphorical “slap on the wrist” to the boy – now a man – who played the starring role in this loving and loved girl - not yet a woman - ending her own life. He will serve no prison time, do no community service or otherwise have to pay back to the country that lost a beautiful spirit. And we can’t tell you her name.
By Thursday, every role in this event - this snapshot in time - was firmly cemented in place. The girl as powerless. The boys as misunderstood heroes. The cops as... incompetent? If photographic evidence of sexual activity involving incapacitated underage girls is readily available, yet the cops don’t look at the phones of the boys in the room when the photo was taken, if they don’t talk to the boys until years later, is that incompetence?
No. It’s not incompetence. It’s cruelty.
They took a complaint and did nothing. They watched as the girl in the High Profile Child Pornography Case went from a bubbly and sensitive teen to a sullen and bitter one, the dreams in her eyes replaced by nightmares. She disintegrated and they did nothing. Only after she killed herself and her story went viral and the public rightly asked what the hell was going on in Halifax, only then did they decide the photograph was evidence of criminal activity. Only then did they look in to photos everyone knew existed. Only then did they talk to boys whose names everyone knew. They laid charges, but ultimately silenced the victim, forbidding anyone from speaking her name, an act that seemed singularly self preserving: if her name is gone, so is the publicity. Then the justice system decided the boy who admitted he created the Child Pornography – the one who admitted that he took the photograph of the girl as she vomited out the window while being penetrated from behind by another grinning, thumbs up teen -should face no further punishment.
No punishment.
No record. No detention. No probation.
Somewhere - maybe right now, maybe next door – there’s a girl at a party. Perhaps she’s a girl who drank too much, or just wanted to be “cool,” or flirted with the boy she had a crush on; the popular boy, the friend of the friend, the classmate.
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When he started paying attention to her the gin made her brave and she flirted a little more, and then he kissed her and she liked that. She let him put his hands on her, and he gave her more gin, and then the night got fuzzy and she couldn't really remember what happened but she got pieces and moments of the night back in her memory and she knew something happened, something terrible. She knews everything changed, and she’s woken up in a nightmare. She just wants to go back to the day before the party and tell herself not to go, to stay home with her Mom and watch a movie, but time - and life - doesn’t work like that.
She’s scared and she’s hiding and she feels sick all the time and she has horrible flashbacks. She hates herself and she hates the people who won’t help her and she doesn’t know who she can trust and she is so, so alone.
Her friends are afraid of getting on the wrong side of the “cool” boys complicit in her assault, and they are lukewarm towards her. They tell her not to go to the cops because it’s “he said, she said,” and besides, wasn’t she drunk? And didn’t she kind of like it anyway? It was her own fault for leading him on.
Some friends, currying favour with the boys, have turned against her. They call her a slut; they say she was a tease. They blame her for going to the party. Why did she drink so much? Besides, they knew she was like "that" anyway. They pass around the photo of her assault - the one the boys took of her violation - the one where you can’t see her face but everyone knows it’s her because everyone says it’s her.
Legally the photo is child pornography, but the kids pass it around because they know the police won’t investigate, and even if they did no one would get more than a slap on the wrist. It’s the Youth Criminal Justice Act; they can’t go to jail for this. They’re smarter than the cops, and cops don’t care about stuff like this. It’s just some stupid slut who put on a show and later decided she regrets it.
Despite our current national conversation about sexual harassment and abuse, about why women don’t report, the systems and mentalities in our country are set up to not believe women; to not protect the girl. Instead they harm and reduce the people they were built to protect.
The result of this girl’s death and her assault will amount to nothing more than a letter of apology to her parents, written in the comfort of his own home. His DNA will go in to a registry, the ink will fade on the letter, and this girl will be forgotten. If he keeps his nose clean for 12 months his life will go on as if the girl never existed. There will be no further punishment.
The message the Court sent is this: We don’t care. Do what you will.
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It effectively told these boys (and the boys who will come after) that if the accused in this “High Profile Child Pornography Case” can walk out of the courtroom with no punishment and no record, so can you. You don’t need to look at the next girl any differently. The cops don’t care, your friends may not care, and now we, the government agency designed to protect you and all victims, we just don’t care.
This girl was just a toy, a joke. “Look at the little drunk slut. This is hilarious! Look at her here, in this moment of complete vulnerability. This needs to be exploited. How awesome it will be to publicly humiliate her! How badass I will seem when I tear her down.”
While he may not have thought this implicitly, his actions spoke louder than words. Sending her photo and destroying her life so effectively that there was nothing left was a game, and he – effectively, after this court decision – has emerged the winner.
Tomorrow there will be another party, and nothing will change. Instead of helping the next girl or telling other boys to stop, instead of calling her mom to come get her or helping her home, they will just watch a person be violated. Some will take pictures. They will be sent around, bouncing through social media channels “for a laugh.”
This party may be next door. But here, in my home, I sit and watch my 5 year-old daughter play with her markers and paper, and I look at her sweet face and wonder how long I can wait until I have to tell her that some monsters are real.
Image Credit: Porsche Brosseau on Flickr.
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