Righting historic wrongs

Today's post is likely to be a bit negative just because for the most part  much of the news has been centred around some common concerns of mine one of which does go back a few years and the other was something I kind of touched on only about a month ago.
The first thing to say regarding the sex scandal enveloping the charity Oxfam is if there ever a way to totally mishandle a serious matter then my goodness they did it with style being a state of denial until the the eleven hour and whole world knows  all about it.
The second is I fear the business around the actions of staff both soliciting  for and forcing people to provide sexual services in Haiti both staff and ordinary women are the tip of an iceberg where a culture that went beyond turning a blind eye to such things was common place.
One has to remind oneself of what Oxfam is for - helping often in relief situations the very poorest  in the world - and ask oneself why anyone in that situation would be looking at no only abusing fellow staff but also using women in that society.
We need to remember much of world is not like Las Vegas where Women themselves may own and control such services but instead are controlled by men who take any money from them, where health services are poor and young girls may be pressed into it too.
In those situations whatever ones personal views on paid sex work happen to be, to engage with it is whole morally repugnant because you are exploiting such women and girls.
Moreover in many organizations there are clear rules that say you may not engage in such practices while being employed there.
Those men let not just Oxfam but the people who they came to help down the minute they crossed that line of decency as well as the tens of thousands who fund raise for necessary relief.
The is the eventual sentencing for 31 years of a soccer coach who lived but a few hundred yards from here for sexually abusing boys as young as nine in youth teams which for personal reasons I am pleased he has been given even though the way in which one team for which he did a lot of work and sadly caused real emotional harm to boys in the course of still cannot account for why he was allowed to be employed after the first allegations were made and deny the word of a management board member who says it was raised as a specific item in the presence of the then manager twice.
Thankfully safeguarding procedures in the last few years have been improved no end since those from the late 1980's onward but even then  a person who kept inviting children to their home sharing a bedroom with no other responsible adult present would of raised questions.
As  someone who worked on child abuse cases as a job what happened  in both instances sickens me to the core.

Internet child safety Summit Meeting

Today government demanded representatives from internet service providers and search engines were to attend a meeting by the Culture and Media Minister to discuss 'child abuse images' online.
This has come about as it was suggested in two high profile child abuse trials the persons concerned had such images on their computers and smart phones.
None of us wants images of child abuse to be freely circulating by it because we find it disturbing  and mainly is a record of actual abuse (or taken in the context of) but already there appear to be some limits leading to a BBC technology expect predicting a "Dialogue of the deaf".
The first is an many politicians do not  appear to be able distinguish between what an Internet Service Provider  is - a provider of internet connection - and what a search engine is - a means of locating often using tags in posts specific data on the web - such as websites.
The significance is that a search engine merely lists what is out there and may have 'safe search' options excluding certain terms, however of itself it doesn't restrict access. An internet provider may apply,  if ordered, a block to its users of sites  such as Pirate Bay that host copyright material sites plus sites deemed illegal, or possibly harmful.
One problem with the latter category is deciding what in fact IS harmful and a few years back the following image was blocked from wikipedia and is not allowed on ebay although it is legal in the UK and several hundred  thousand people own it.

That is the cover of the 1970 album Blind Faith, the model (pre teen) was permitted by her parents to pose (they were present) and it has been legal ever since then but the Internet Watch Foundation and CEOP disagreed and had it blocked from UK ISP's for a period but available in the rest of the World.
See the problem?
The other thing is, if any blocks are applied are applied at the ISP end, it is quite easy to install a 'Proxy' to tell it you aren't in the UK (and NOT on your isp) defeating it. One level above this would be to install the US navy browser TOR that effectively uses encryption bouncing  internet traffic through relays hiding your location and what you're looking at.
This is available for Windows.
Tor project
At the supply end there are many encryption packages for text and images used often in countries where internet censorship is common place yet information and pictures need to be gotten out. There's no reason to suppose those who spread such images  aren't already using such techniques (it usually only the most naive who don't).
I seriously doubt anything of great significance will be achieved today although automatic tagging on images may assist removal from the most accessible sites by aiding identification of duplicates and that I'd welcome.
When it comes to 'adult porn' I really think the .xxx mandated approach would work if you had to set your browser to accept that domain so you could lock them off children's smartphones or laptops.
I also feel the only really safe option is for parents to use safety settings on browsers setting limits to suit their children's age and to talk about keeping safe online. It's your responsibility.

Charred past

11 followers at Daytime Office Girl Crisis and only a tiny handful of you even know the history of this unique blog! It was underground for quite a period when I was avoiding places I felt rather uncomfortable at but now it's back out in the open.
If you clever people were wondering what this weeks title is referring to, unless you were on Mars, I'm talking about a major public scandal in the UK (that strange place that gave us English) that centres around the deceased disc jockey and tv presenter Sir Jimmy Saville who worked for a long time at a veritable UK institution, The BBC.
If you'd been in the UK for over 15 years, you'd of know of him presenting such shows as the pop music show Top of the Pops, radio shows like Saville's Time Travels, the Old record club, his past as a club MC in Leeds, Yorkshire and his charitable works and he did raise an awful lot for places like the  spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandiville.
No one would dispute his achievements as an entertainer, indeed many of us us watched and listened to his shows.
There is no nice way to say this - and I wish I didn't have to - but he had another side a very hidden one from the public and it was he enjoyed having sex relations with children  15 or under something general morality aside, is against the law.
Some of these at least were clearly 'forced', they involved boys as well as girls, either on BBC property or in accommodation provided for his charitable work.
A good number were invited backstage from shows such as Jim'll fix it or Top of the Pops to his dressing room arguable with some knowledge from associates where they were abused; in others they were taken from Hospitals or Corrective Schools. It also has been said he attempted to interfere with some during the filmed dancing at Top of the Pops when he was on the show.
If this wasn't enough earlier this week I read a harrowing account of how even a niece at 13 and 15 of his was molested and abused.  I cried reading it.
I can't presume to speak for everyone that may be reading this blog, but there are a couple of things that come to mind of which the first is I feel a part of my past has been sullen not least for seeing people on a show and then finding out what happened later to them.
The other is why it was he was allowed unaccompanied access to minors to the point even of being given a key to one hospital that he kept with him. Thinking back as a 13 or 14 year old, at the time I'd loved to met my idols and gotten their autograph but you'd of expected someone to be over that person you were seeing not least for their own protection.
It also appears a number of people were aware of his 'interest' in minors but didn't act. Was this because he was viewed as too important to the BBC and various charities to tackle?