The White Ribbon. For God and Home and Humanity MONDAY, JULY 19, 1915. PROTECT OUR GIRLS.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 241, 19 July 1915, Page 9

The White Ribbon. For God and Home and Humanity MONDAY, JULY 19, 1915. PROTECT OUR GIRLS.

One woman’s paper in England publishes weekly comparisons of punishments. It shows how much more severely crimes against property are dealt with than crime* against the person. We cannot help noticing lately how much move severe a punishment is meted out in our C ourts if the sufferer happens to be a m in. In Napier, a young woman shot the man who had betrayed and deserted her. The jury, in a small measure realising the great wrong she had suffered, and her physical condition, brought in a verdict of manslaughter, with a strong recommendation to mercy. We see little mercy in the sentence of life imprisonment inflated upon her. Does the law intli< t any

adequate punishment upon the man who deserts his unborn child and its mother? We do not say the 1 risoner was right to take the law into her own hands, but we do say guilty under great provocation, and with the fullest recommendation to mercy. Now compare this sentence with those inflicted lately on men charged with the dastardly crime »d assaulting little girls. in Auckland a middleaged man served six months’ sentence for brutally assaulting a school girl. Then being turned loose upon sot loy in a lew weeks, he was brought up again for another little giri ruined, and this second crime only got him a 12 months' sentence. After 12 months lie is lree to come out and do the same tiling*- again.

At J imam, quite recently, there have been three cases. In one of these the Judge stated that the little girl had been ruined for life. The learned Judge thought a sentence of six months adequate punishment for a girl s ruined life. We do not want punishment for live sake of revenge, but we do say that we have the right to demand that our little girls and our women shall be protected from physical outrage and torture, in many cases, too, contracting a loathsome and incurable disease. We all express horror at the violating of Helgian women and girls by Herman soldiers, and rightly so. And yet we express no indignation when little* girls in our own Dominion are treated in the same awful manner. Six months for a girl's ruined life and life-long torture; 12 months for a second offence. How light the value placed on a little child’s purity and innocence. Hut imprisonment for lift* for manslaughter when the victim is a man.

Is it not time we had laws to adequately punish these “Huns” in our midst? Also women police and women Magistrates to see. them properly administered. Surely to physically torture a tender little girl, to leave her with a cripp’cd body, and a mind haunted with a dreadful memory of th<- honor she has been subjected to is worse than to kill her. W'c women, who have the vote, arc* responsible for every little sufferer until we rise, unite, agitate, and demand protection for our c hildren. We can g r et it if we only show we an* in earnest about it.