by La Bete on June 11th, 2009
Auntie has this brief report on prostitutes in India, and the steps they are taking to protect themselves. With some reservations about how they are training, I think this is a wonderfully positive step. Sex workers are at significantly increased risk of assault, and this seems especially so in India, where the police are far less enlightened than those in the UK. Steps to enable these ladies to protect themselves are something I welcome wholeheartedly.
This also reminds me of the Gulabi Gang in northen India.
Tagged as:
india,
prostitutes,
self defence,
Self Protection
by La Bete on June 9th, 2009
Via Bruce Schneier, comes this article from two 6th formers in the Guardian. Apparently the Davenant Foundation School had decided to install CCTV in classrooms, without consulting students or parents. Understandably the students were not happy. The original blog posting that discussed the case is here. Some of the comments make depressing reading.
Adults are often quick to define the youth of today as stereotypical troublemakers and violent offenders – generalisations which are prompted by the media – when in fact the majority of students at our school are as responsible and arguably better behaved then the majority of adults. Some commentators insinuated that we overheard adults talking about rights and repeated it. That notion isn’t worth the space it was typed upon. We are A-level politics students who have been studying civil liberties as part of the curriculum for the last two years. Sam campaigned for David Davis when he resigned over the issue of civil liberties and spoke at speakers’ corner about the issue. The criticism of our campaign only serves to illustrate the ignorance of adults who have surrendered within only the last few years our right to protest in parliament, our right to go about our business without being stopped and questioned by police about our identity and our affairs, and our personal privacy.
Eroding standards in schools and deteriorating discipline are down to a broken society and the failure of the education system. The truth is that we are whatever the generation before us has created. If you criticise us, we are your failures; and if you applaud us we are your successes, and we reflect the imperfections of society and of human life. If you want to reform the education system, if you want to raise education standards, then watching children every hour of every day isn’t the answer. The answer is to encourage students to learn by creating an environment in which they can express their ideas freely and without intimidation.
Image via Hyaground
Tagged as:
CCTV,
Davenant Foundation School,
education,
Surveillence
